The Kwanyani Language

2.1. Consonants

Except where IPA in square brackets is given, the orthography matches IPA. There are 23 consonant phonemes written with 24 graphemes:

*For the phonemic status of f, see Confusion of Fricatives.

The stops and s have prenasalized variants.

The plain fricative s corresponds to the prenasalized affricative nts.

2.2. Vowels

Kwanyani has six vowels:

There is a height based vowel harmony system in which the low a e o vowels alternate with the high â i u vowels. The circumflex of â may be dropped due to technical limitations, laziness or both. It’s unambiguous most of the time anyway due to vowel harmony.

2.3. Phonotactics

A standard Kwanyani syllable is CV, that is: one mandatory consonant (possibly prenasalized) and one mandatory vowel. In word-initial syllables the consonant onset is optional. Valid words are formed like (C)V, (C)V.CV, (C)V.CV.CV, etc. Some example words of increasing length:

2.4. Legal Syllables

2.5. Phonetics

Initial vowels are pronunced with a preceding non-phonemic glottal stop [ʔ] to avoid vowel hiatus across word boundaries.

Word initially h and hw are glottal fricatives [h], [ʍ]. Between vowels they are velars with somewhat light friction [x̞], [x̞ʷ].

The r is an alveolar trill [r].

The rh has a broad range of possible pronunciations. It can be considered to be on a trajectory of change from a voiced fricative trill [r̝], via a voiced flap with a fricative release [ɾʑ], towards a plain voiced fricative [ʑ]. Use the pronunciation that suits you best.

The ly [ʎ] is rare and may be pronounced the same as y [j] without much loss.

2.6. Stress

Kwanyani words have primary stress on the penultimate syllable: ankwenda [ʔa.ˈᵑkʷe.ⁿda], nâgwâ [ˈnə.gʷə]. Even syllables from the end carry secondary stress: ankwekwendamo [ʔa.ˌᵑkʷe.kʷe.ˈⁿda.mo]

Clitics become part of the word they attach to, so when they attach to the end of a word they shift the stress: rimâ [ˈri.mə] and -yu + becomes rimâyu [ri.ˈmə.ju].

3.1. Reduplication

There are two forms of reduplication: full and partial. Both are productive, meaning that they may apply to any applicable word. Some words are also reduplicated in their basic lexical form, here called fossilized reduplications, so a reduplicated word does not always come from a productive process.

3.2. Vowel Harmony

The six vowels of Kwanyani are partitioned by height into a set of high vowels â i u with the [+high] feature, and a set of low vowels a e o with the [−high] feature. The vowels form three high–low pairs: â–a, i–e, u–o.

Within words only three under-specified vowels are distinguished, which are written with the shorthand a i u.

The word as a whole carries a value for the [high] feature, which selects if a i u appear as â i u (when [+high]) or a e o (when [−high]) respectively. The root of the word determines the height of all the vowels in the word. All the vowels in affixes and clitics joined to the root inherit their height from the root.

In the dictionary roots are given with full vowels, eg. bunya to drink, and affixes and clitics are given with under-specified vowels, eg an- active voice and =mu my.

As another example, when the words akweto and nâgwâ are joined with the clitic =yo they become akwetoyo and nâgwâyu respectively.

3.3. Consonant Mutations

Allthough syllables in Kwanyani don’t have codas, but some morphemes can be described as having historical codas that never appear on the surface, but undergoes contraction with another consonant. The underspecified consonants written with shorthand letters n and h are the only consonants that may occur in a historical coda.

When a morpheme is joined to another morpheme, the resulting forbidden n-C or h-C consonant cluster contracts to a single valid consonant onset. For example, an- combined with engwa, bunyu, lewe, and wesa become anengwa, âmbunyu, andewe, and angwesa respectively.

4.1. Parts of Speech

Words in Kwanyani are broadly divided into noun-like and verbs-like parts of speech, and particles. The noun-like parts of speech are:

• nouns, which have little if any inflection,

• personal pronouns, which decline for person and number (using suppletion), and

• demonstratives.

The verb-like parts of speech are:

• verbs, which conjugate for reality status, aspect, and voice using agglutination (mostly with prefixes),

• pre-verbal modal particles, which sometimes conjugate for reality status, and

• prepositions, which can be used like verbs (e.g. locatives).

There are two types of adjectives: noun-like adjectives (which are just nouns) and verb-like adjectives (which are just stative verbs). They share the same syntax when used attributively. Verb-like adjectives can be used predicatively directly, unlike noun-like adjectives, which must be turned into stative verbs with light verb constructions first.

There is no special adverb part of speech. Instead stative verbs can participate in serial verb constructions to form adverbial meanings.

4.2. Nouns

Kwanyani nouns inflect optionally for number.

4.3. Personal Pronouns

Kwanyani has personal pronouns with different forms depending on:

• Person: first exclusive, first inclusive, second, third

• Number: singular, dual (only for first person exclusive), plural

• Animacy: animate, inanimate (for third person singular)

The non-plural personal pronouns also have unstressed clitic forms that fuse to the previous word phonologically, but are otherwise identical in function.

If organized in a traditional table by person and number (singular, dual and plural), the personal pronoun system seems to have gaps:

However, if the number instead is organized by minimal and augmented, the pattern is more regular:

4.4. Indefinite Pronouns

TODO write.

• Question, Conditional Antedecent

  • tiru what

  • awa who

• Negation (Realis/Irrealis)

  • âritiru/nutiru nothing

  • arewa/nowa nobody

4.5. Demonstratives

The demonstratives pronouns make a three-way distinction–proximal, medial, distal–but the demonstratives adjectives don’t differentiate medial and distal. The pronuns are formed by prefixing i- to the adjectives.

The demonstative adjective is placed before and after the noun it modified (see The Noun Phrase).

4.6. Numerals

Kwanyani has a base ten numeral system.

Cardinal numbers (one, two, …) and ordinal numbers (first, second, …) are identical in form, but differ in word order: cardinals come before the head noun; ordinals come after and also receive the attributive particle.

4.7. Prepositions

Kwanyani has a small set of five simple prepositions.

Where other languages use adpositions, Kwanyani often uses prespositions combined with relator nouns to form compound prepositions, eg. cha degwe nikuru inside the house (literally “at the inside of the house”).

4.8. The Attributive Particle

The attributive particle n= (ATTR, GEN, REL) has many functions. Generally speaking, it’s used to “glue” an attributive modifier to its noun. (It’s similar to Mandarin 的 de, but with reverse word order.) In this grammar it’s glossed differently depending what type of modifier it links to the noun:

• Before adjectives n= is a particle that shows attribution, in contrast to predication (gloss: ATTR)

• Before nouns n= is a genitive preposition, like English “of” (gloss: GEN)

• Before relative clauses n= is a relativizer, like English “that” (gloss: REL).

Before prenasalized consonants, ny and rh the attributive clitic disappears (see Nasal Mutation). This introduces a bit of ambiguity.

There is an archaic independent form of the attributive particle, nâ, which is very rarely used in the colloquial language, but appears in some fixed phrases.

4.9. Verbs

Verbs inflect for:

• definiteness of subject and object,

• two voices: active and passive

• two aspect: perfective and imperfective, and

• two moods: realis and irrealis.

There is no morphological marking for tense or agreement with subject or object. Tense information may optionally be signalled by adverbs.

Morphologically the verb consists of up to four prefixes and a mandatory stem.

The prefixes each encode a binary opposition by the absence or presense of the prefix.

4.10. Adverbs

TODO Write.

4.11. Conjunctions

• lâ and

• ne or

4.12. Pre-Verbal Particles

TODO Expand.

When in pairs: Realis / Irrealis

• are/nu: negation

• enja/iju: perfect aspect

• –/bu: future tense

5.1. Nominal Apposition

TODO Write.

6.1. Pre-verbal Particles

6.2. Serial Verb Constructions

6.3. Light Verb Constructions

7.1. Main Clauses

7.2. Oblique Arguments and Adverbs

Oblique arguments come after the verb and object in the clause.

TODO Write

7.3. Subordinate Clauses

7.4. Predicative Possession

Predicative possession is when posession is expressed in the form of a clause (and not a noun modifier). Enlish uses the transitive verb “to have”, but Kwanyani uses the intransitive verb ehwa to exist together with the conjunction lâ and. The possessor noun phrase is the subject of ehwa and the possessed noun phrase comes after the lâ.

7.5. Null Subject

TODO: Write.

8.1. Focus

TODO This section hasn’t been updated in a long time and may contain out of date morphology.

Focus in Kwanyani is marked in-place with the clitic =ya, unlike in Enlish where it is marked with intonation and possibly also word order. There are three types of focus: argument, predicate and sentence focus.

8.2. Topic

TODO: Write.

8.3. Definiteness

• Definite verb arguments may be dropped if clear from context.

• Indefinite arguments may never be dropped.

• New referrents can be introduced by being indefinite objects of transitive clauses or de-topicalized subjects.

• The definiteness of the subject is marked by word order and absence of uh-.

• The definiteness of the object is marked by an-.

Examples

• Nâgwâ kwenda ntsiku. The dog saw a bird.

• Nâgwâ ankwenda ntsiku. The dog saw the bird.

• Ntsiku kekwenda nâgwâ. The bird was seen by a dog.

• Ntsiku ankekwenda nâgwâ. The bird was seen by the dog.

• Ohwenda nâgwâ ntsiku. A dog saw a bird.

• Osankwenda nâgwâ ntsiku. The dog saw the bird.

• Ohekwenda ntsiku nâgwâ. The bird was seen by a dog.

• Osankekwenda ntsiku nâgwâ. The bird was seen by the dog.

9.1. An Unorganized Collection of Example of Sentences

9.2. Conlang Syntax Test Cases

Source: https://cofl.github.io/conlang/resources/mirror/conlang-syntax-test-cases.html

9.3. The Donkey Beater Story

Copyright:

English version © 2012 George A. Corley, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (same as this document).

Description:

This story was written as a homework challenge and was featured in episode 35 of the Conlangery podcast.

There was once a man who beat his donkey every day. One day, a second man, who was a neighbor, came to the donkey-beater and asked, “Why do you beat your donkey?” The donkey-beater said, “Beating is all the donkey knows, I must beat him until he learns how to behave.”

The donkey-beater then went into his home and discovered his dinner wasn’t ready, so he beat his wife. His neighbor heard the screams of the donkey-beater’s wife and came to the door. “You should not beat your wife so much,” said the neighbor. “I beat her until she learns to have dinner ready on time.”

Some time later, the neighbor saw the donkey-beater beating his son in a field. This time, he did not say anything, but seized the donkey beater and began to beat him with a heavy cudgel. When the donkey-beater asked why his neighbor was beating him, his neighbor replied, “I will beat you until you learn not to beat others.”

10.1. From Nouns

chi- n. → n. diminutive; before vowel: chik-; makes all vowels of resulting word [+high]; kuti cat → chikuti kitten; tekwa fire for light → chitikwa lamp.

da/lu X n. → vp. do (action associated with) X, be like X; light verb construction.

LYUN- n. → a. -like, -ish, having semblance or charactersitics of.

wa- n. → n. augmentative; makes all vowels of resulting word [−high]; tekwa fire for ligth → watekwa beacon.

10.2. From Verbs

ba- v. → n. a doer of the action, agent noun, prefixed to the realis stem.

-nu v. → n. an instance of the action, action noun, suffixed to the irrealis stem; bilu to stream (irr) → bilunu river.

-ti v. → n. an undergoer of the action, patient noun, suffixed to the irrealis stem;

12.1. Proto-Kwanyani

Syllables: CV(F) (where F = {})

12.2. Old Kwanyani

Syllables: C(j)V(F) (where F = {ɴ, ʔ, h, r, l})

ɴ, ʔ, h only in codas. ɴ = debuccalized nasal, assimilates to POA of following C, becomes ŋ if no C.

• Loss of coda consonants: C(j)VF → C(j)VT

  • Prenasalization with fortification

    • ɴs → ɴts Merger of s and ts after nasal

    • ɴr → rː → r

    • ɴl → ɴd

    • ɴj → ɲ

    • ɴw → ŋgʷ

    • ɴS → ⁿS, where S={p, t, k, kʷ, b, d, gʷ, ts}

  • Fricativization and devoicing

    • hp, ht, hk, hkʷ → ɸ, s, x, xʷ

    • hb, hd, hg, hgʷ → p, t, k, kʷ

  • Monophthongization

    • aj, aːj → e eː

    • aw, aːw → o oː

  • Tonogenesis

    • CVʔ → CV́ High tone

    • CVr, CVl → CV̀ Low tone

    • Unmarked tone is mid tone

Phonemes lost: ɴ, ʔ, ts, all coda consonants

Phonemes gained: prenasalized stops, mid vowels, tone

12.3. Middle Kwanyani

Syllables: C(j)VT, where T = {H, Ø, L}

• Height vowel harony

  • a, i, u → ɐ, ɪ, ʊ → ə, e, o Centralization of short vowels

  • aː, iː, uː → a i u Shortening of long vowels

  • Feature reanalysis: a, e o are [+high] and ə, i, u are [−high]

  • [high] spreading

    • The [high] feature of the dominant syllable of a root spreads to the other syllables.

    • The first long vowel, or the first short vowel if no long vowels, is the dominant syllable.

    • Affixes and clitics lose their [high] feature (become [high] neutral) and assimilate to the word they are glommed on to.

Lost: vowel length distinction

Gained: new vowel qualities, vowel harmony

12.4. Modern Kwanyani

Syllables: CV Tones: high, low

ʔ is inserted between vowels to avoid vowel hiatus and is not phonemic.

Height/ATR vowel harmony.

• FIXME Missing links

  • prenasalized fricatives

  • ⁿts

  • palatalizations (except for ny)

14.1. Alternate Orthography

Palatalized consonants are written like the plain ones but with added carons and [j] is written j. Labialized consonants are written like the plain ones but with hooks. The labiovelar approximant [w] may be written with a italic-style “v”. The central vowel â is written with a schwa ǝ.

14.2. Tables of WALS Features

The names and values are identical to those on WALS Online. Comments and links to relevant places in this grammar are provided in [square brackets]. Word Order features 143A-G and 144A-Y were placed in the Word Order table after feature 97A together with the rest of the features in the same area.