Öhat
From KneeQuickie
Öhat, created for the ZBB Conlang Relay, is a descendent of Yhát, which was a descendent of E'át, which was a descendent of Aθáta, which was a descendent of Adāta (which itself was a descendent of Ndak Ta).
Contents |
Sound Changes
- [ə], the unstressed allophone of a, is lost when in the syllable immediately preceding the stressed syllable, or when word-final in a polysyllabic word and not following a consonant cluster.
- k, kh, and gh become alveolars s, s, and z when the following syllable contains q, qh, or r.
- Vowels became long before word-final fricatives; they also lengthened compensatorily when preceding a syllable- or word-final r or a syllable-final (but not word-final) fricative, which were then lost. Vowels preceding a cluster of l+another consonant were lengthened and the consonant following l was lost. The sequence vowel+w or j collapsed into a long vowel, and if another vowel immediately followed the semivowel w or j, it was lost.
- r became gh.
- Intervocalic z became r (now an alveolar trill rather than a uvular), and l became r unconditionally.
- ng changed to n word-initially, gh word-finally, and h elsewhere.
- s became h word-initially or when following an alveolar consonant.
- ts and dz became s and z unconditionally
- The velar fricative kh merged with the uvular fricative, though both were now spelled <kh> rather than <qh>.
- q changed to w before round vowels and word-finally, k before front vowels or before consonants, and h before a or ə.
- Long ō changed to ā when unstressed.
- Long ȳ and ū diphthongized to öü, while long ē and ī diphthongized to ei.
- Unstressed i became ü.
- y and o became ö.
- Long ə̄ changed to o, while ə changed to ü.
- Vowel length was lost.
- pf became f.
- Nasals before fricatives were lost.
- v after a consonant changed to w.
- Stress shifted universally to the second syllable of a word.
Phonemes
There are three stops, /p t k/, written p t k; four voiceless fricatives, /f s χ h/, written f s kh h; three voiced fricatives /v z ɣ/, written v z gh; two nasals /m n/, written m n; two semivowels /w j/, written w y; and a trill, /r/, written r. There are also seven monophthong vowel phonemes, /i y e ø u o a/, written i ü e ö u o a; and two diphthongs, /ei øy/, written ei öü (the diphthongs are phonetically [ɛɪ] and [œʏ]).
Pronouns
Pronouns distinguish three persons (1, 2, 3); two numbers (singular, plural); and four cases (nominative, accusative, dative, vocative):
NOM | ACC | DAT | VOC | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1SG | vin | in | hin | |
2SG | ren | ran | san | hun |
3SG | seif / en | an | han | |
1PL | vi | i | hi | |
2PL | zö | rö | hö | zogh |
3PL | e | a | ha |
The 2SG nonvocative pronouns gained a final -n, not present in Yhát, by analogy with the singular 1st and 3rd person pronouns. The 2PL accusative pronoun irregularly lost its original final -k, perhaps by analogy with the other 2PL pronouns. seif is the neuter/inanimate 3SG nominative pronoun (it derives from a demonstrative), while en is used with animate referents.
Nouns
There are two noun classes, here called Class-I (derived from Yhát /a1/ and /a2/ nouns) and Class-II nouns (derived from /i/ nouns); Yhát /a2/ nouns merged with /a1/ nouns. There has been a significant amount of analogical leveling and reformation in the nominal inflections. Nouns are marked for number (singular, plural); and the person (1, 2, 3) and number (singular, plural) of their possessors, if they are possessed. A noun is pluralized by prefixing he- (ho-, if the first vowel of the noun is -u-).
Nouns are made definite with a proclitic definite article, seif=, e.g., seif narür, "the horse".
Class-I
SG noun | PL noun | ||
---|---|---|---|
1SG | -(h)ün | hV- | -(ü)hon |
2SG | -(h)ö | hV- | -(ö)ho |
3SG | -(h)öün | hV- | -(öü)hon |
1PL | -(ü)r | hV- | -(ü)kor |
2PL | -(e)n | hV- | -(ü)won |
3PL | -(h)e | hV- | -(ü)ke |
Class-II
SG noun | PL noun | ||
---|---|---|---|
1SG | -(h)ün | hV- | -(ö)hon |
2SG | -yö | hV- | -(ö)hö |
3SG | -yein | hV- | -(ö)hön |
1PL | -yür | hV- | -(ö)kör |
2PL | -(ö)n | hV- | -(ö)wön |
3PL | -ye | hV- | -(ö)ke |
Verbs
Verbal morphology is agglutinative. The verb shape is:
- Mood.prefix=VERB.ROOT-passive.suffix-aspect.suffix-person/number.suffix
Mood prefixes
There are five modal prefixes, whose shapes may vary depending on the initial sound of the verb root:
Desiderative | öw-/ök-/öh- |
---|---|
Subordinative | h- |
Imperative | üh- |
Negative | üz-/ür- |
Conditional | pöw-/pök-/pöh- |
The desiderative (which represents the merger of the Yhát imperative and optative) varies depending on the following sound, as does the conditional. If the verb root begins with -u-, -öü-, or -ö-, the prefix will be öw-/pöw-; if the root begins with -i-, -e-, or -ei-, the prefix will be ök-/pök-; and if the root begins with -ü-, -o-, or -a-, or a consonant, the prefix will be öh-/pöh-.
The negative, derived from the Yhát non-potential, is ür- when the verb root begins with a vowel, and üz- when the root begins with a consonant.
The subordinative derives from the Yhát benefactive, and the imperative from the Yhát energetic.
- This page was last modified 03:31, 10 January 2007.