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 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
