Deleted

łaá siri (ASCII transcription lhaa: siri) is an minimalist artlang created by Zach W. (User:SanguineEpitaph) for personal use. Interesting characteristics include deictic verbal conjugation for the subject and object, a phonological inventory of 10 (or 13, depending on your view, or maybe more depending on other views) phonemes, and a 4-way system of animacy.

Phonetics & Phonology

Consonants

	Alveolar	Palatal	Glottal
Plosive			' [ʔ]
Fricative	s [s]
Lateral Fric.	ł [ɬ]
Lateral Aff.	tł [tɬ]
Approx.	r [ɹ] - l [l]	y [j]

A note of transcription: Typically, the symbols used above will be used by default. If a system doesn't support unicode, or you're in a rush, it's okay to transcribe <ł> as <lh> and <tł> as <tlh>.

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i [i] ii [iː] u [y] uu [yː]
Open		a [ɑ] aa [ɑː]

^1  This phoneme may be realized as [u] or [uː].

Vowel Qualities: Glottal Reinforcement

The presence of a coda with [ʔ] is referred to as "glottal reinforcement." All vowels can be reinforced with a glottal stop at the end. This will be transcribed <a'>, <aa'>, etc. All vowels/chronemes can take on this quality, but rhotic vowels cannot. If two glottal stops approach each other at syllable boundaries, they assimilate into a single phoneme.

Vowel Qualities: Rhotacization

The only other phoneme that can fill a syllable coda is /ɹ/. This is referred to as "rhotacization." English has rhotic vowels, as in waiter. Mandarin Chinese also has this. It's referred to in Mandarin as erhua, or "er-speech" and is represented orthographically using the syllable -er, 儿.

All vowels can be rhotacized except those that are glottaly reinforced. When this does occur, the vowel melds in with the /ɹ/ phoneme, and is articulated for roughly the length of a lengthened vowel. The IPA should reflect this change with the combining hook character: [ɑ˞] or [ɑ˞ː] for <ar> and <aar> respectively. For more on rhotacization, see the Wikipedia Page

Vowel Qualities: Length

Vowels that are transcribed twice (aa, ii, uu) contrast in length with their singular counterparts. It is generally acceptable to assume that a chroneme is held for roughly the equivalent of two vowels, thus /aa/ should be as long as /a/ + /a/. Vowel length is contrastive!

Example

latła [lɑ.tɬɑ]	łatłaa [ɬɑ.tɬɑː]
to move or shift position	big

Syllable Structure

Syllables are always in a CV{ʔ, ɹ} pattern. If there is ambiguity between syllables, a hyphen can be written for purely aesthetic reasons. The hyphen must be written between two syllables, not in the middle of one: CV-CV, rather than C-VCV. Additionally, rhotacized or reinforced vowels are considered a single unit to a speaker of łaá siri, so <ar> is different from <ra>, and that is why vowels can be r-colored without violating the phonosyntactic constrictions.

Pitch-Accent System

Some syllables will take on a higher/rising pitch, which is part of łaá siri's pitch-accent system. Only the final syllable of a word can take on this feature. It is transcribed using an acute accent over the syllable's (last) vowel (á, aá). The pitch accent of a syllable can also be written (in ASCII transcriptions) using a colon (a:, aa:).

This process is grammatical, occuring in changes of evidentiality and animacy, and is also lexical (e.g., the difference between sár, sleep and sar, good). The change in pitch of a syllable is largely dependent upon the speaker – some have a slightly rising pitch, while others simply have a higher pitch relative to other syllables. It is more common in lengthened vowels for the pitch accent to change to a rising pitch as the speaker moves from low to high in their pitch (/a/ + /á/ > /aá/). In standard IPA transcriptions, pitch accent is shown as a contour pitch [˧˥].

Sound Change & Allophony

Where applicable, some rules have notes. Please note that some are variable rules, while others are obligatory.

Rule	Example
/j/ → [ɥ] / ___V[+round]	yu /jy/ → [ɥy]
/ɬ/ → [ҫ] / # ___V[-back]	/ɬisi/ → [ҫisi]
/ʔ/ → [h] / V___ ]σ	/jɑʔ.lɑ/ → [jɑh.lɑ]
/C[-voice]/ → C[+voice] / ɹ]σ ____	yaa'yirłasaa /jɑːʔ.ji˞.ɬɑ.sɑː/ → [jɑːʔ.ji˞.ɮɑ.sɑː]

^1  Non-standard sound change. Speak this way if you want to be judged! ;)

^2  Indicative of improper speech or little education. Colloquial.

Morphology

Typically, łaá siri is fairly isolating, with more synthesis shown on verbs than anywhere else. Verbal morphology utilizes prefixes only, while nominal morphology uses only suffixes.

Nominal Morphology

Nouns are only inflected for a single factor: animacy.

Animacy

There are four possible degrees: sentient (human), animal (non-human), inanimate (non-living), and abstract. In some cases, the animacy of an object may be arbitrary (i.e., the brain being considered abstract). In the case of a sentient inflection, if the root's last syllable is open (ending in a vowel), then that vowel is replaced by –aá, otherwise, the nucleus and coda are replaced. Nouns are typically glossed in their most basic, uninflected form because animacy is not a noun's defining characteristic. Nouns can switch between animacies, often predictably (i.e., child can be marked as sentient or as animal) so it is not useful to add them to a lexicon after inflection. However, some nouns, like those pertaining to a specific human or animal, are expected to be in a certain animacy.

Side Note: Animacy is a fun way to derive insults.

Inflection	Animacy
-aá	sentient (animate human)
-ła	animal (animate non-human)
-layaa	inanimate
-saá	abstract

Nouns can become different animacies if they are inflected as such. So, yi, man, is ordinarily yaá, but might also be yilayaa if referring to, for example, a statue of a man. If it were yisaá, one would be referring to an abstract man. Yiła would have a pejorative connotation.

Example (The root of woman is 'aru.)

'araá	li'la'aalitłá'
woman-SENT.	PERF.-PROX.-PROX.-cause-harm

The woman has hurt me.

Pronouns

łaá siri has two distinct pronominal forms (subjective and objective) and uses reduplication to indicate plurality (if at all). Pronouns are complemented by the verbal conjugation of proximity, which indicates the location of the subject/object in relation to the speaker. Pronouns, when used, do not take on gender declensions, and can also be omitted entirely is the context of a phrase is understood. The following forms don't often occur.

Subjective

	sg.	pl.
1	łi	lili [inc.] / liili [exc.]
2	tłayir	tłayiryir
3	suri	suriri

Objective

	sg.	pl.
1	ła'la	ła'ła [inc.] / tła'la [exc.]
2	tłasila	tłasilala
3	sir	sirir

For more on pronoun dropping, see Verbal Morphology – Proximity.

Verbal Morphology

Verb conjugation is templatic and agglutinative. Typically, the verb root comes at the end of the string of morphemes, which stack on as prefixes. Verbs conjugate for proximity (a type of person), evidentiality, and aspect.

Proximity of Subject

Proximity refers to the verbal conjugation for spatial deixies, that is, how near or far an object or person is from the speaker. If at all, a morpheme marking the proximity of the subject is necessary. There are five proximities recognized by łaá siri: immediate, near, distant, absent, and abstract. When speaking, the verb is conjugated based on the subject's proximity from the speaker. For example, if I were to say, "The cat is eating a mouse," and the cat is in another room, the verb could be conjugated in the distant or near proximity.

Proximity can also be used to stress the relevancy or "newness" a topic is to the discussion. For instance, if we were discussing the cat from the previous example sentence, but it was new to the discourse, it is more likely that it will be marked in the near proximity as a form of stressing it. This would be semantically acceptable because there is no clear boundary between "distant" and "near" when the cat is in another room in the same house. Alternatively, if the cat were outside, even if it were new to the discussion, the distal conjugation would be more acceptable.

Morpheme	Proximity
łu-	immediate
la-	near
tła-	distant
ra-	absent
li-	abstract

When glossing proximity, it is acceptable to use PROX., or to specify the proximity using the following abbreviations: IMM., NEAR, DIST., ABSENT, ABSTR.

Examples

łusií
IMM.-speak(EVID.)

This one right here (I) speak.

rasií
ABS.-speak(EVID.)

One not in this vicinity (he, she, it, they, that one) speaks.

Note: This example would need contextual information surrounding it.

Notice that these proximity markers have implied meanings about the subject of the verb – for instance, using łu- implies the self without actually stating it. Furthermore, when paired with non-linguistic information, like gestures, the verbs could even mean, "That plant right there is talking," without explicitly stating anything other than, "that thing nearby is speaking."

Proximity of Object

If a transitive verb is being used, the proximity of the direct object in relation to the speaker is also shown on the verb. This morpheme appears after that marking the subject (mirroring łaá siri's SOV word order).

Morpheme	Proximity
-'aa-	immediate
-ri-	near
-rii-	distant
-lir-	absent
-tła-	abstract

Example:

łurisií
IMM.-NEAR-speak(EVID.)

This one right here (I) is speaking to that one right there (you, etc.).

Evidentiality

Verbs also are marked based on the truth value of a statement. The four degrees of truth are: hearsay ("I hear that…"), sure, general knowledge, factual ("I know that…"), learned knowledge through an inanimate source ("I read that…"), and a guess/speculation ("I think that…"). Evidentiality is always marked after all proximity morphemes. Of all the conjugal processes on verbs, evidentiality is the only one which can change the verb phonetically.

Morpheme	Proximity
-raa-	guess, unsure, speculative
-raa'-	hearsay
-'aa'-	learned through inanimate source
verb's final vowel changes from either no pitch to a rising pitch, or vice-versa.	general knowledge, fact, known, etc.

Someone who uses the surest form of evidentiality and tells a false statement, even if accidentally, is considered a liar. Evidentiality also interacts with forming questions and some grammatical patterns.

Example:

łurisií

IMM.-NEAR-speak(EVID.)

one’s self speaks to us/them/you/y’all, and is sure of it The verb sii ordinarily has no pitch-accent. Had this been, łuriraasii, the speaker is unsure if s/he spoke, perhaps it was during a dream!

Colloquialisms

Because colloquialisms between languages are rarely mutually intelligible and often rooted in culture, the closest English equivalent to the succeeding phrases has been provided as well. This is often not a direct translation, but something that carries a similar connotation in English.

Literary łaá siri

Most prevalent in łaá siri are numerous constructions and names of constructions used in poetry. Because of the minimal phonetic inventory of vowels, rhyme is very common, but beyond acoustic properties of poetry are many metaphorical constructions.

Counting

łaá siri uses a base-5 (quinary) number system.