Sarim

Sarim (Sarim: Sarim vār) is a language spoken by most of the population of Sarimis, as well as several its satellite nations.

Phonology

Consonants

-Plosives /p t c k kʷ/ <p t ch c cu>

-Nasals /m n/ <m n>

-Fricatives /v θ s h xʷ/ <v th s h hu>

-Rhotic/Approximants: /r l j/ <r l y>

Vowels

/i e a o i e a o/ <i e a o ī ē ā ō>

Syllable Structure

The basic syllable structure in Sarim is (C)V(C), with the vowel nucleus being the only compulsory component, with the following caveats:

The only geminate consonants that can occur are /m: n: s: j: r: l:/.

/h/ and /xʷ/ do not occur after after other consonants.

Labio-velar consonants do not occur before other consonants, nor do they occur word-finally.

/np/ does not occur, having merged with /mp/ at an earlier stage.

Allophony

-/r/ is realised as an approximant [ɻ] before a vowel or word-finally, but [ɮ] before a consonant.

-/h/ is often realised [x] before a consonant.

- All stops are voiceless and unaspirated, except immediately following a voiceless consonant, where they tend to become voiced.

- /n/ is realised at the same point of articulation as a following consonant: /nk/ = [ŋg]

-/c/ is realised as either palatal affricates [cç] or[ʨ], or even the postalveolar affricate [ʧ], especially among younger speakers.

-Before /s/, nasals tend to be realised as a sequence nasal+voiceless stop, e.g. /ms/ = [mps].

-Short vowels tend to be realised as lax [ɪ ɛ ɐ ɔ ] in all positions except word finally.

-Long /o:/ tends to be realised as [u:], especially in open syllables and word-finally. Other long vowels tend to be pronounced close to their cardinal values.

Stress

Stress in Sarim is non-phonemic ,always falling on the antepenultimate syllable of a word with more than three syllables, and the first syllable of bisyllabic words. Monosyllabic lexical words are stressed, but grammatical particles are not.

Nominal Morphology

Sarim nouns come in two genders, animate and inanimate (the difference is largely semantic: animate nouns include people, gods and other supernatural beings, animals, celestial bodies, as well as a few body parts such as hand, heart, brain, and mouth; inanimate nouns are everything else) are declined for three cases: absolutive, ergative, genitive, and oblique, aswell as singular and plural numbers. With inanimate nouns, the oblique and ergative cases merge - briefly, this is because Proto-Ke:tic was an active-stative language where only animate nouns had a seperate agentive marking. As the language became ergative the agentive took over this function for animate nouns, whereas for inanimate nouns the instrumental, which later merged into the oblique case, took over this function. It should be noted that in several western dialects of Sarim the distinct ergative case marking has been lost in animate nouns aswell, and the oblique has taken over this function.