Kiswona

Kiswóna
Pronounced:	[kiˈzwo˦na]
Species:	Ondasi
Typology
Morphological type:	Agglutinating
Morphosyntactic alignment:	Fluid-S
Basic word order:	SOV
Credits
Creator:	User:Babelfish

About

Kiswona is the lingua franca and literary/liturgical language of the Ondasi nation.

Terms and Legend

1	1st person	COM	comitative case	INCH	inchoative aspect	OPT	optative mood
2	2nd person	COND	conditional mood	INCL	inclusive	P	patientive case
3	3rd person	DFUT	distant future tense	IND	indicative mood	PER	perlative case
A	agentive case	DPST	distant past tense	INE	inessive case	PFV	perfective aspect
ABL	ablative case	DU	dual	INH	inhortative mood	PL	plural
ADE	adessive case	DUB	dubitative mood	INST	instrumental case	POT	potential mood
ALL	allative case	ELA	elative case	INT	intensive	PRS	present tense
ASS	assumptive mood	EXCL	exclusive	IPFV	imperfective aspect	REC	reciprocal voice
ATT	attenuative	EXH	exhortative mood	NEC	necessitative mood	REL	relativizer
BENE	benefactive case	GEN	genitive case	NEG	negation	SG	singular
CAUSV	causative voice	GNO	gnomic aspect	NFUT	near future tense	SUB	subessive case
CAUS	causative case	HAB	habitual aspect	NPST	near past tense	SUBJ	subjunctive mood
CESS	cessative aspect	ILL	illative case	OBL	oblique case	SUP	superessive case
CLS	classifier	IMP	imperative mood	OBV	obviative mood	VOC	vocative case

Phonology

Phoneme Inventory

Consonants

Consonants
	Labio-velar		Dental		Alveolar		Post-alv.		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal						n /n/
Plosive					t /t/	d /d/					k /k/	g /g/	q /ʔ/
Fricative					s /s/		ŝ /ʃ/		ŷ /ç/		h /x/
Affricate			ts /ts/		c /t͡ʃ/
Approximants		ŵ /ʍ/ w /w/								y /j/
Lateral Fricative					tl /ɬ/
Lateral Approximant						l /l/

Vowels

Vowels
	Front		Near-front		Central		Near-back		Back
Close	i									u
Near-close
Close-mid			e							o
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open
Open					a

There is a phonemic distinction between short and long vowels, long vowels are indicated in the orthography by doubling.

Phonotactics

Syllables in Kiswóna have the shape (C)(C)V(n/l/ŝ). Coda l is very rare and tends to be subject to subject to sound changes if the following syllable has an onset. Coda ŝ only occurs as a result of the agentive marker [ -ŝ ]. All consonants can be geminate in medial position.

Legal onsets
Initial	Medial	Initial	Medial	Initial	Medial	Initial	Medial	Initial	Medial	Initial	Medial
nd	nd	tŵ	tŵ	dw	dw	ks	ks	gw	gw	sw	sw
nk	nk	tŷ	tŷ	dy	dy	kŷ	kŷ	gy	gy
ng	ng					kŵ	kŵ	gl	gl
	nq					kl	kl
	ns
	nŝ
	nŷ
	nh
	nts
	nc
	ns
nw	nw
ny	ny
nl	nl
ndw	ndw
nkŵ	nkŵ
ngw	ngw

Hiatus is restricted, a glottal stop is inserted wherever it would occur due to morphological processes.

Stress

Kiswóna has lexical pitch accent indicated by an acute accent on vowels, realized as a raised pitch. Words without raised pitch in the root receive stress on the first syllable.

Animacy Hierarchy

Animate

• First person
• Second person
• Adult Ondasi
• Ondasi children
• Other sentient beings
• Land mammals
• Birds
• Water-dwelling mammals
• Other vertebrates
• Arthropods
• Wind
• Fire
• Other members of Animalia

Inanimate

• Water
• Plants
• Tangible objects
• Intangible, but perceivable things such as light
• Abstract concepts

Verbs, Adjectives and Adverbs

Verb Morphology

Verbs are formed by adding suffixes for mood followed by tense, aspect and voice. With transitive verbs where the agent is a personal pronoun or classifier, the agent can be prefixed to the verb. The argument of an intransitive verb can be prefixed if it meets the same criteria. The proclitic [ tse- ] negates the statement.

Tense

Kiswóna possesses five tense distinctions: the present, near and distant future and near and distant past. The near tenses are generally used to describe things that took place at a specific, known time within the past season. The distant tenses are used for actions that either took place more than a season ago or whose exact time is unknown or irrelevant. The present (PRS) is unmarked. The near future (NFUT) is marked by [ -nd ] while the distant future (DFUT) is marked by [ -nw ]. The near past (NPST) is marked by [ -tl ] and the distant past (DPST) is marked by [ -t ].

Aspect

A number of aspectual distinctions are made by Kiswóna's verb system. Aspect is the only verb modifier required under all circumstances. The intensive and attenuative markers reduplicate the vowel from the preceding aspect marker after their own marker. Aspects used include the following:

Perfective (PFV):	[ -a ]	Describes a discrete, completed action, e.g. I ate yesterday.
Imperfective (IPFV):	[ -e ]	Describes an ongoing action, e.g. I was eating.
Habitual (HAB):	[ -i ]	Describes an action performed regularly, e.g. I used to eat.
Gnomic (GNO):	[ -o ]	Describes basic truths, e.g. People eat.
Inchoative (INCH):	[ -u ]	Describes the beginning of an action, e.g. I started eating.
Cessative (CESS):	[ -ul ]	Describes the ending of an action, e.g. I stopped eating.

Mood

Kiswóna also distinguishes between a variety of moods.

Indicative (IND):	[ -∅ ]	Used for statements of fact, e.g. I eat.
Conditional (COND):	[ -nu ]	Describes an action contingent on another condition, e.g. I would eat.
Potential (POT):	[ -ne ]	Declares the possibility of an action’s occurrence, e.g. I can eat.
Subjunctive (SUBJ):	[ -gwe ]	Covers hypothetical and contrafactual statements not covered by other moods.
Assumptive (ASS):	[ -ya ]	The statement is assumed to be true based on past experience.
Obviative (OBV):	[ -swa ]	The statement is considered self-evidently true. Often used sarcastically, considered rude in most circumstances.
Dubitative (DUB):	[ -tse ]	Expresses doubt as to the veracity of the statement.
Optative (OPT):	[ -du ]	The speaker hopes that the statement is true.
Necessitative (NEC):	[ -di ]	The agent must undertake the indicated action.
Exhortative (EXH):	[ -ke ]	The agent is strongly encouraged to take the indicated action.
Inhortative (INH):	[ -ge ]	The agent is strongly discouraged from taking the indicated action.
Imperative (IMP):	[ -so ]	The agent is commanded to take the indicated action.

Voice

Because verb arguments are marked for agency, certain distinctions of grammatical voice are meaningless in Kiswona, e.g. the passive or antipassive voice. Kiswona does possess a reciprocal voice in which two or more arguments are marked as agentive and it expresses the fact that the marked arguments are performing the action upon each other. The reciprocal voice is marked by [ -n ]. It also possesses a causative voice, marked by [ -wa ], which expresses that the patient has performed the action due to force, coercion or encouragement from the agent. In the case of transitive verbs, the actor being impelled takes the causative case while the remaining argument takes its normal case (patientive or oblique). The active voice is unmarked.

Transitivity

The direct object of a monotransitive verb receives the patientive case if it is animate, the oblique if it is not.

Example:	Ondwin uŝhayatla.
Morpheme Breakdown:	ondwi-n u-ŝ-haya-tl-a
Interlinear Gloss:	man-P 1.SG-A-see-NPST-PFV
IPA Transcription:	[ˈondwin ˈuʃːajaɬa]
Free Translation:	I saw the man.

Example:	Duwotl uŝhayatla.
Morpheme Breakdown:	duwo-tl u-ŝ-haya-tl-a
Interlinear Gloss:	stone-OBL 1.SG-A-see-NPST-PFV
IPA Transcription:	[ˈduwotɫ ˈuʃːajaɬa]
Free Translation:	I saw the stone.

Kiswóna is dechticaetiative. Given the ditransitive arguments D (donor), T (theme) and R (recipient):

• D receives the agentive case.
• T receives the oblique case.
• R receives the patientive case.

Example:	Ondwin duwotl uŝcenatla.
Morpheme Breakdown:	ondwi-n duwo-tl u-ŝ-cena-tl-a
Interlinear Gloss:	man-P stone-OBL 1.SG-A-give-NPST-PFV
IPA Transcription:	[ˈondwin ˈduwotɫ ˈuʃːenaɬa]
Free Translation:	I gave the man a stone.

• D can be dropped, T and R may not.

Example:	Ondwin duwotl cenatla.
Morpheme Breakdown:	ondwi-n duwo-tl u-ŝ-haya-tl-a
Interlinear Gloss:	man-P stone-OBL give-NPST-PFV
IPA Transcription:	[ˈondwin ˈduwotɫ ˈtʃenaɬa]
Free Translation:	The man was given a stone.

The marking of an intransitive verb depends on the animacy of its argument and the level of volition involved in the action.

• An animate referent actively performing the action receives the agentive case.
• An animate referent being acted upon or undergoing an action that does not involve active effort receives the patientive case.
• An inanimate referent receives the oblique case.

Example:	Ondwiŝ adaletla.
Morpheme Breakdown:	ondwi-ŝ adale-tl-a
Interlinear Gloss:	man-A jump-NPST-PFV
IPA Transcription:	[ˈondwiʃ ˈadaleɬa]
Free Translation:	The man jumped.

Example:	Ondwin ógótla.
Morpheme Breakdown:	ondwi-n ógó-tl-a
Interlinear Gloss:	man-P sleep-NPST-PFV
IPA Transcription:	[ˈondwin o˦go˦ɬa]
Free Translation:	The man slept.

Example:	Duwositl diyudetla.
Morpheme Breakdown:	duwo-si-tl diyude-tl-a
Interlinear Gloss:	stone-PL-OBL scatter-NPST-PFV
IPA Transcription:	[ˈduwozitɬ ˈdijudeɬa]
Free Translation:	The stones scattered.

Nouns

Case System

Agentive (A):	[ -ŝ ]	The actor performing the action.
Patientive (P):	[ -n ]	The patient subject to the action.
Oblique (OBL):	[ -tl ]	Used in ditransitive constructions to mark the argument not receiving the patientive case.
Causative (CAU):	[ -we ]	In causative constructions, used to mark the actor being impelled to perform the action.
Benefactive (BEN):	[ -le ]	The action is performed for the marked referent.
Instrumental (INS):	[ -te ]	The object used to carry out the specified action.
Adessive (ADE):	[ -ye ]	The action occurs on/around the marked object.
Inessive (INE):	[ -ya ]	The action occurs within the marked object.
Subessive (SUB):	[ -yu ]	The action occurs beneath the marked object.
Superessive (SUP):	[ -yo ]	The action occurs above the marked object.
Ablative (ABL):	[ -ka ]	Action directed away from the marked object.
Elative (ELA):	[ -ga ]	Action directed out of the marked object.
Allative (ALL):	[ -ku ]	Action directed to the marked object.
Illative (ILL):	[ -gu ]	Action directed into the marked object.
Perlative (PER):	[ -so ]	Action directed through the marked object.
Comitative (COM):	[ -gka ]	The marked object is grouped with the preceding element.
Genitive (GEN):	[ -ko ]	The marked object owns/possesses/is related to the preceding element.
Vocative (VOC):	[ -ki ]	Marks the person being addressed.

Anaphora

Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns are used exclusively to refer to animate referents. Vowels in parentheses are silent when the pronoun is prefixed to a verb.

	Singular	Dual		Plural
		Inclusive	Exclusive	Inclusive	Exclusive
1st Person	u	iku	igu	(i)di	isdi
2nd Person	(i)ne	(i)ndwe		(i)nle
3rd Person	o	e		a

Derivational Morphology

Derivations from Verbs

Verb to Verb

• Intensification: e.g. eat > devour

The suffix -s(v) intensifies the verb, (v) is a reduplication of the final vowel in the verb root.

Ex. gattlá (eat) > gattlása (devour)

• Attenuation: e.g. eat > barely eat, snack

The suffix -ts(v) diminishes the verb, (v) is a reduplication of the final vowel in the verb root.

Ex. gattlá (eat) > gattlátsa (devour)

Verb to Noun

• Person who is performing an action: e.g. run > runner

The infix -un- is used to indicate the performer of a verb. It is inserted before the final syllable.

Ex. iŵano (discover) > iŵaqunno (discoverer)

• Someone who does something along with someone else: e.g. run > running partner

The infix -gun- is used to indicate someone who performs a verb along with another. It is

inserted before the final syllable.

Ex. iŵano (discover) > iŵagunno (co-discoverer)

Derivations from Nouns

Noun to Noun

• Opposite (quality): e.g. happy > sad

The prefix l(i)- is often used to indicate the opposite of a noun.

Ex. inŝa (dignity) > linŝa (shame)

Noun to Verb

• To be like NOUN:

The first syllable of the noun is reduplicated.

Ex. nguqaya (truth) > ngunguqaya (to be true or honest)