Sarim

Sarim (sarim: Sarim Sôvat) is a language spoken in Sarim Ari, a nation on the continent of Yandras. It is a largely isolating, head-final language, displaying traits of ergative morphosyntactic alignment.

Phonology

Sarim has a fairly simple phonology; it distinguishes 14 consonants and 9 vowels, as detailed below:

Consonants:

• Labial: /p b m f v/

• Alveolar: /t d n θ s z r l/ <t d n th s z r l>
• Palatal: /ɟ j/ <j y>
• Velar: /k g x/ <k g h>

Vowels:

• /i y e ø ɛ æ ɑ ɔ o/
• <i u ê eu e a â o ô

• /ai au/
• <ai ao>

Allophony

-The fricative /θ/ is realised as interdental in all environments.

-The consonants /t d n l/ are realised as dental unless adjacent to one of /s z/, which are always alveolar (and laminal).

-/ɟ/ may be realised as affricated, either as [ɟʝ] or [dʑ].

-/j/ is realised as the voiced alveolar fricative [ʝ] word-initially.

-In closed syllables, /e o/ and /ɛ ɔ/ merge to /ɔ ɔ/, represented orthographically as <e o>.

-/o/ may raise to /u/ word-finally or when stressed in an open syllable.

More work needs to be done here, but I don't like Phonologies

Phonotactics

A Sarim syllable consists of an onset, a nucleus, and a coda. Of these elements, only the nucleus is compulsory.

-The onset may consist of any single consonant, or a cluster of any of /n l r/ + /j/, /k g x s/ + /v/, or /p b f t d T s k g x/ + /r/.

-The nucleus consists of any single permissible vowel or diphthong.

-The coda is limited, and may only consist of any one of /m n t k T s x r l/.

Stress and Pitch Accent

-Stress in Sarim is not phonemic, and is always on the antepenultimate syllable, unless a syllable neighbouring the the antepenultimate has one of /ai e A o au/ as the nucleus, in which case hte stress shifts there.

-The pitch accent is more complex. For this purpose, syllables can be considered either monomoraic, dimoraic, or trimoraic: Monomoraic syllables consist of an open syllable with one of /i y ɛ æ ɔ/ as the nucleus. Dimoraic syllables consist of closed syllables with one of /i y ɛ æ ɔ/ as the nucleus, or open syllables with one of /ai e A o au/ as the nucleus. Trimoraic syllables consist of closed syllables with one of /ai A au/ as the nucleus.

Pitch accent is always on the penultimate mora.

Stress is realised as a raise in volume and lengthening of the vowel. Pitch accent is realised as a lowering of the tone of the vowel. Pitch accent and stress may occur on the same syllable, or be split across different syllables.

Elision

Elision is a Sandhi feature very common in Sarim, and occurs when two vowels are neighbouring across a word boundary, e.g. 'ti omi that (he) see(s). If the two vowels are the same quality, they are realised together as a long vowel. If the two vowels are of different quality and either the first or last element is one of unstressed /e i/ or /o y/, then these are realised as [j] and [w] respectively, so /ti Omi/ is realised as [tjOmi]. If neither of these conditions is fulfilled, and one of the words involved is a grammatical particle, that particle looses its vowel, which orthographically is represented by replacing the vowel grapheme with an apostrophe. If the two words are lexical words, and removing the final vowel of the first one would not create an illegal consonant cluster, it may be dropped, indicated orthographically by replacing the vowel with an apostrophe. If none of these conditions are met, no change is made.

Syntax

Theta-roles in Sarim

Sarim shows Ergative alignment. This means that Sarim treats the sole argument of an intransitive verb (S) and the patient of a transitive verb (P) the same, and marks the agent of a transitive verb (A) differently.

Sarim ditransitive verbs show dative alignment; the theme (what is given) is marked as absolutive, whilst the receiver is marked as Dative.

Basic Word Order

Sarim's basic word order is Object-Verb-Agent, or OVA:

'Bâru haik;

• water boil
• The water is boiling

Bâru haik dun

• water boil man
• The man is boiling the water

Oblique arguments are placed after A:

Bâru haik dun oje ye

• water boil man day LOC
• The man is boiling the water today

Bâru datsa dun feyar si

• water give man woman DAT
• the many gave the water to the woman