Raxic
| Raxic raximi | |
| Spoken in: | Ractam Empire |
| Timeline/Universe: | Hheergrem |
| Total speakers: | extinct |
| Genealogical classification: | Zachydic
|
| Basic word order: | SOV |
| Morphological type: | agglutinating and fusional |
| Morphosyntactic alignment: | accusative |
| Created by: | |
| IlL | 2013- |
Raxic (/ˈræk.sɨk/) is a Zachydic language spoken in the Ractam empire in antiquity. It is a fusional language with a Nāhuatl, Navajo, and Latin flavor. It is intended to be "anti-Themsaran" in many respects, particularly in phonology and grammar (and also to guide me in creating a firm foundation for Themsaran and the rest of Talsmic).
Background
- See also: sound changes from Proto-Raxo-Talsmic.
Phonology
Consonants
Raxic preserves (with some alterations) the original Zachydic three-way distinction of voiced, tenuis (realized with light aspiration) and ejective stops and affricates. Raxic merges the ancestral velar series with the uvular series, unlike Talsmic which merges the ancestral non-labialized dorsal and labialized dorsal stops.
Two vowels that come in hiatus with each other may be separated by [ɦ].
| Consonants | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||
| central | lateral | plain | labialized | |||||
| Nasal | m /m/ | n /n/ | [ŋ] | |||||
| Plosive | tenuis | p /p/ | t /t/ | c /k/ | qu /kʷ/ | h /ʔ/ | ||
| voiced | b /b/ | d /d/ | g /g/ | gu /gʷ/ | ||||
| ejective | ph /pʼ/ | th /tʼ/ | ch /kʼ/ | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s /s/ | ł /ɬ/ | |||||
| voiced | z /z~dz/ | [ɦ] | ||||||
| Affricate | tenuis | tz /ts/ | xł /tɬ/ | |||||
| ejective | tzh /tsʼ/ | xłh /tɬʼ/ | ||||||
| Approximant | l /l/ | y /j/ | u /w/ | |||||
| Trill | r /r/ | |||||||
/kʷ gʷ ʔw/ is written uc ug uh syllable finally.
/z~dz/ is always pronounced [z] at the end of words.
Phonotactics
A word may not end in a consonant cluster; usually an epenthetic vowel i is inserted to resolve a consonant cluster.
A word may not begin with p or ph - in word initial position these phonemes were converted respectively to u /w/ and hu /ʔw/.
Phonological rules
c/g/ch/qu/gu + s = x /ks/
qu/gu + h = hu /ʔw/
m > n [ŋ] / _c/g/ch/qu/gu, n > m / _C[labial]
m > n / _#
non-labial plosive/x + ł/łh = xł/xłh
m/n > [ː~] / _C[sibilant/liquid]
m/n > [~ː] / V_C#
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i /ɪ/ ī /iː/ | u /ʊ/ ū /uː/ | |
| Mid | e /e~ɛ/ ē /eː/ | o /o~ɔ/ ō /oː/ | |
| Open | a /ɐ/ ā /aː/ |
Iff there are no long ē or ō in the word e and o are pronounced open.
Stress
Raxic follows the same Dreimorengesetz as Latin: the syllable containing the third-to-last mora is stressed, disregarding word-final consonants.
Orthography
Raxic is written in an adapted Antidi script. The letters of the Romanization (up to capitalization) are one-to-one counterparts of the Raxic graphemes.
Grammar
Nouns and adjectives
Genders: masculine/feminine (strictly for animates), inanimate
Numbers: singular, plural (distinction only in animates?)
Cases:
- Nominative: Subject and predicate nominals
- Accusative: Direct object, time expressions (duration, time of day), measured quantities
- Genitive: Possessor, partitive
- Dative: Indirect/benefactive object, spatial destination, purpose
- Locative: Spatial location
- Ablative-comitative: Source in space, cause, animate agent of passive, comparison, companion, predicative possession
- Instrumental: Instrument, method, adjutative (with help of someone)
- Adverbial: Manner, similarity/identity
Classifiers
Classifiers can be used with numerals (tełōz tzuz miquoh 'two houses'; whenever using a classifier in a numeral phrase the noun is in the genitive case and the numeral is case-inflected.), or alienable possession. Classifiers with possessive suffixes must be declined to agree with the noun phrase.
Classifiers must be used with headless modifiers.
Pronouns and correlatives
| 1 | 1+2 | 2 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number → | Singular | Plural | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| Case ↓ | Masculine | Feminine | ||||
| Nominative | hin | āmi | quīt | zī | ziuī | lītz |
| Accusative | hinał | āmāt | quāt | zīł | ziuīł | tzāt |
| Genitive | hinoh | āmih | quihuah | ziyōh | ziuīh | tzihuah |
| Dative | hinoz | āmīz | quihuāz | ziyōz | ziuīz | tzihuāz |
| Locative | hinaxī | āmixī | quihuaxī | ziyōxī | ziuīxī | tzihuaxī |
| Ablative-Comitative | hinān | āmīn | quihuān | ziyōn | ziuīn | tzihuān |
| Allative | hinatzti | āmitzti | quītzti | ziyotzti | ziuitzti | tzītzti |
| Instrumental | hinīlli | āmīlli | quīlli | ziyōlli | ziuīlli | tzīlli |
| Adverbial | hināri | āmāri | quīri | ziyōri | ziuīri | tzīri |
Verbs
Verbs are conjugated for 5 categories:
- Subject agreement
- Voices: active, passive, reflexive (causative is no longer productive)
- Aspects: progressive, habitual, perfective
- Moods: indicative, subjunctive, imperative/hortative, optative, volitional
- Evidentiality: witnessed, hearsay, common knowledge?
The indicative mood is negated with hiri (~ Thm. tír < *ʔeti-ʔiri), while all other moods take the negation particle an (~ Thm. hám).
Subject/TAM affixes
| Indicative mood | ||
|---|---|---|
| Habitual/gnomic | ||
| Singular | Plural | |
| 1.ex | -īn | -mē |
| 1.in | - | *-ntzi > -~ːtzi |
| 2.m | -iz | *-ltzi > -utzi |
| 3/4.m | *-m > -in | -guī |
| 3/4.f | -itzin | |
| 3/4.n | -i | |
| Progressive | ||
| Singular | Plural | |
| 1.ex | *-īn-xłi > -īxłi | *-mē-xłi > -mēxłi |
| 1.in | - | *-ntzi-xłi > -~ːtzixłi |
| 2.m | *-z-xłi > -sxłi | *-ltzi-xłi > -utzxłi |
| 3/4.m | *-m-xłi > -(n)xłi | *-guī-xł > -guīxłi |
| 3/4.f | *-itzin-xłi > -itzīxłi | |
| 3/4.n | *-i-xłi > -ixłi | |
| Perfective | ||
| Singular | Plural | |
| 1.ex | *-īn-hin > -īhin | *-mē-hin > -mēhin |
| 1.in | - | *-ntzi-hin > -~ːtzhin |
| 2.m | *-z-hin > -zhin | *-ltzi-hin > -utzhin |
| 3/4.m | *-m-hin > -īhin | *-guī-hin > -guīhin |
| 3/4.f | *-itzi-hin > -itzhin | |
| 3/4.n | *-i-hin > -ihin, -hin | |
The mood suffixes combine thus:
Subjunctive -(i)s: the vowel is inserted after a consonant.
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Imperative -ti:
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Optative -oh:
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Volitional -he:
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Syntax
Basic word order
SOV, VO in relative clauses with head as subject
Both pre- and postpositions (serving as pseudo-cases), adjective-noun, genitive-noun, noun-relative clause
