Dgónlli and the Dgónlli language family

Introduction

The Dgónlli ([̍tk'onɬi]) languages are a family of related languages spoken by nomadic people in the northern Savanna of Southern Peilaš. This document presents an overview of the family, as well as a thorough description of their ancestral proto-language, Dgónglli proper. The later appears to have been a distant relative of proto-Western, with which it was roughly contemporary (the two are thought to have diverged by -7000 YP or earlier).

The family is rather diverse, with various languages and dialects distributed into several sub-families. Some uniting traits of the family include:
—Aspirate/ejective contrast in occlusives, without plain or voiced series.
—Retroflex consonants.
—Paucity of labial consonants.
—Paucity of nasal consonants (/n/ is often the only nasal).
—Palatal or palatalized consonants almost universally absent.
—Unusual inventory of approximants (/w/ and /j/ are almost always absent).
—Tendency to form important consonant clusters.
—Small vowel inventory, typically /a e i u/ (more than 40% of languages). Commonest variations are the addition to the later of a central vowel /ə/ or /ɨ/ (30% of languages) or the reduction to a three vowels system /a i u/ (27% of languages).
—/o/ is almost universally absent.
—Phonemic stress.
—Three ways gender system (animated and inanimated, the former being further divided between common and neuter), almost universally attested.
—Dual number in 1st and 2nd person pronouns.
—Existence of a complex alternative system of non-reciprocal pronouns in specific social situations.
—Duodecimal counting system.
—Split ergativity, based on animacy.
—Strongly topic-prominent, down to verbal agreement (verbs agree in person and number with the topic).
—Peculiar system of non-paradigmatic verbal inflections.
—V2 word order.
—Head-first.
—Prepositions.
—Subordinated clauses formed with various kinds of subordinative particles.
—Morphology combines inflectional and agglutinative aspects.
—Suffixes and infixes are frequent, but prefixes are rare (and generally result from earlier infixes).

Classification

Dgónlli languages are generally divided in three branches, Western, Eastern and Central.

Western

The Western branch consists of 33% of all languages and dialects in the family. Uniting traits include:
—Dgónlli /o/ rendered as /a/.
—Dgónlli /ɨ/ rendered as /i/.
—Pharyngealized consonants.
—Loss of word-final occlusives.
—Emergence of a /ɾ/ phoneme (originally an allophone of /n/ before coronal consontants).
—Strong tendency to simplify Dgónlli's diphthongues.
—Tendency to merge genders in the plural.
—Important lexical and morphological differences between men's and women's speech.

Eastern

The Eastern branch consists of 27% of all languages and dialects in the family. Uniting traits include:
—Development of uvular occlusives (from allophones of the velar occlusives before back vowels and /a/).
—Dgónlli /o/ rendered as /u/.
—Dgónlli /ɨ/ rendered as /a/.
—Dgónlli /e/ rendered as /i/.
—Dgónlli /pʰ/ rendered as /h/.
—Metathesis of coronal-dorsal occlusive clusters to dorsal-coronal.
—Dgónlli /t'/ and /ʈ'/ rendered as /ts'/ and /ʈʂ'/.
—Simplification of verbal agreement to only four possibilities: 1st and 2nd person singular, 1st and 2nd person plural, 3rd person animated, 3rd person inanimated.

Central

Unlike the other two, the Central branch, which consists of 40% of all languages and dialects in the family, doesn't represent a united sub-family, but a cluster of various, only distantly related sub-families and isolates. They do, however, share a number of common traits:
—Dgónlli /ɨ/ rendered as /ə/, /e/ or preserved.
—Dgónlli /o/ rendered as /a/, /u/ or /ə/.
—Dgónlli /ɦ/ merged with /ʕ/ (while this phoneme is completly lost in the Western and Eastern branches).
—Merger of the labialized velar consonants with the plain velar ones (not in all languages).
—Lots of archaism and conservatism in respect to the Western and Eastern branches.

Phonology of Dgónlli

Consonants

Bilabial Dental Retroflex Velar Pharyngeal Glottal

Plain Labialized

Stop Aspirated p [pʰ] t [tʰ] t' [ʈʰ] k [kʰ] kw [kʷʰ]

Ejective d [t'] d' [ʈ'] g [k'] gw [kʷ']

Nasal n [n]

Fricative Central s [s] s' [ʂ] x [ħ]

Lateral ll [ɬ] ll' [ɬ̢]

Approximant Central r' [ɻ] j [ʕ] h [ɦ]

Lateral l [l] l' [ɭ]

The reconstruction of /ɦ/ is uncertain, as the phoneme is not directly attested in any daughter language. Western and Eastern branches lost this phoneme, though it sometimes left traces by coloring neighbouring vowels, while in the Central branch, it merged with /ʕ/. A dental approximant is often posited as the most likely alternative candidate for reconstruction.

Vowels

Front Central Back

Close i [i] y [ɨ] u [u]

Mid e [e] o [o]

Open a [a]

The following diphthongs were found: ai, ay, au, ei, eu, oi and ou.

/o/ is almost completly absent of the daughter languages, but its reconstruction is fairly well established through the Western branch /a/'s which correspond to /u/'s in the Eastern branch, as well as from internally reconstructed vocalic alternance. /ɨ/ is sometimes reconstructed as /ə/ instead.

Syllabic structure

Dgónlli's syllabic structure allows for the formation of important clusters.

The onset of a syllable can consist of a fricative, followed by an occlusive, followed by a second occlusive, followed by a fricative, followed by an approximant (each of these element is optional, and there can be null onsets). The second occlusive can be replaced by a nasal (in this case, there can't be a second fricative).

This means than the onset of the syllable can count up to 5 consonants in a row.

The nucleus consists of a single vowel or a diphthong.

The coda can consist of an approximant, followed by a nasal, followed by a fricative, followed by an occlusive, followed by a second occlusive, followed by a fricative (all of wich are optional, there can be null codas).

This means that the coda of the syllable can count up to 6 consonants in a row, and that medial consonant clusters can reach as much as 11 consonants in a row.

There are, however, lots of restriction to which specific combinations of consonants can actually appear. As those are conditioned by productive sandhi rules, they are treated in the morphophonology section.

Allophony and morphophonology

Consonant clusters simplification

Important processes in cluster formation are:
—The neutralization of the phonation distinction in occlusives when they directly preceed another consonant as well as word-finally (this means that the aspirated/ejective contrast is only effective before a vowel). If the original phonation of the occlusive is known (as is the case when the clusters is the result of affixation or when a word-final occlusive is able receive vocalic suffixes), it is transcribed according to it. If it is not known, it is transcribed with the same phonation than a following occlusive (except the bilabial occlusive which has no ejective counterpart and thus is always transcribed p), and as aspirated in other situations.
—There are no geminate consonants. Any combination that would result in a geminate consonant simplify to a single one. This include occlusives sharing the same point of articulation, even if they originally differ in phonation. Eg: *td > d.
—Dental and retroflex consonants cause regressive assimilation to each other's point of articulation. The same is true of plain and labialized velar occlusives. This means that n and r' have retroflex and dental allophones, respectively, and that, combined with the preceding rules, any of *tt', *dt', *t't' or *dt' would result in just t'.
—Any of the 4 coronal occlusives (t, d, t', d') is ellided when it stands before any of the 4 coronal fricatives (s, ll, s', ll'). This is also true for the plain and labialized velar occlusives when they stand before x.

Vowel harmony

While no Dgónlli language actually has a system of vowel harmony, the resconstruction of such a system is the best way to explain many strange vowel alternations and paradigmatic oddities in the daughter languages. The system was organized this way:

Polarized Neutral Polarized

i y u

e a o

ei ay ou

ei ai oi

eu au ou

The system works as a progressive front-back vowel harmony, both inside roots and across morpheme boundaries. The main feature is that neutral vowels get harmonized, while polarized vowels cause harmony. So a will be fronted to e if it follows e or i, and backed to o if it follows o or u. But e can follow any vowel, and will not change.

For diphthongs, only the second member of the diphthong is considered in order to know if the diphthong causes harmony or not (thus, ai causes front harmony, even if it's a neutral diphthong).

This is the ideal shape of the system, but it is likely that, by late Dgónlli, it was already in a degenerative stage, as witnessed from roots found in the Western and Eastern branches (though not in the Central one), which violate the harmony rules.

Hiatus reduction

In the late stage of the protolanguage, vowel hiatus started to reduce to diphthongs or monophthongs, following predictible patterns. This system, however, was a late inovation, which is not found in the Central branch (most languages of which still permit hiatus). It will, therefore, not actually be used in this grammar, unless stated otherwise.

a y e i o u ay ai au ei eu oi ou

a a ay ai ai au au ay ai au ai au ai au

y a y ai ai au au y ai au ai au ai au

e e ei eu eu ei eu ei eu

i e i eu eu i eu i eu

o oi oi o ou oi ou oi ou

u oi oi o u oi u oi u

ay a ay ai ai au au ay ai au ai ai au au

ai ai ai eu eu ai ai ai eu

au oi oi au au oi au au au

ei ei ei eu eu ei ei ei eu

eu e ei eu eu ei eu eu eu

oi oi oi o ou oi oi oi ou

ou oi oi ou ou oi ou ou ou

Note: vowels in hiatus are writen separated with a middle dot to tell them appart from real diphthongs.
Multiple hiatus were reduced progressively, eg: a·o·e > au·e > oi

Stress

Stress is phonemic and lexical, and is shown with an acute over the vowel. A few suffixes cause change in stress position, this will be noted in their description.

Morphology

Preliminary note

A large number of morphological and morphophonological processes are described as being in «free variation» in this grammar. Those were actually probably conditioned by some factors such as dialectal or register variation, but as the daughter languages have interpreted and fossilized those variations in very diverse and distinct fashions, it is hardly possible to reconstruct what the conditioning factors originally were.

Nominal morphology

Nouns are inflected for gender (animated and inanimated, the former further divided between common and neuter), number (singular and plural) and case (nominative, accusative and genitive for animated nouns, absolutive, ergative and genitive for inanimated nouns).

Gender is mostly natural, meaning that it can generally be predicted:
—Humans, animals, gods and other mythical creatures are always of the common gender.
—Rocks, elements of landscape, manufactured objects, plants, vegetables are inanimated.
—Natural phenomena like wind, clouds, thunder, rain, fire, smoke, fog, are of the neuter gender. Celestial bodies (sun, moon, stars) are also neuter.
—Rivers and seas are neuter, but lakes and other small bodies of unflowing water are inanimated.
—Water, air, earth, and many other materials (metals, wood, sand), as well as body parts, are generally covered by two words, one neuter, and one inanimated.
—Abstract ideas, diseases, names of people, nations, are generally neuter.

Number, on the other hand, can be quite arbitrary. Many nouns, without apparent logic, are used only in the singular or only in the plural, lacking the other number entirely. To complexify things, there is another category of nouns which do have both numbers, but without morphological contrast between them. These two kinds of nouns are called "defective I" and "defective II". The distinction seems instable however, and nouns have a strong tendency to be traded between the two categories, or even to exist in both.

There are also a large class of singulative nouns (singular more morphologically marked than the plural), among which there are also defective I and defective II nouns.

Finally, we also find a small class of nouns with the remains of a dual number, morphologically identical to the singular.

Case and gender

There are two sets of suffixes marking case and gender, generally called strong and weak set. The strong set was originally for nouns and pronouns, while the weak set was used for adjective. In daughter languages however, notably in the Western branch, the weak set has had a tendency to spread to some forms of nouns and pronouns, particularily in the plural. These suffixes often have an optional epenthetic vowel, used to avoid the formation of illegal clusters; however, in later stages, the epenthetic vowel would often appear when not needed, forming hiatus.

Strong endings:

Common Neuter Inanimate

Nominative
/absolutive -/-(a)j/-(a)s' -/-(a)nt -/-(e)hll

Accusative -(a)ks' -(a)k

Ergative -y

Genitive -ks'ou -gou -ou

The various nominative/absolutive endings are in free variation.

Weak endings:

Common Neuter Inanimate

Nominative
/absolutive -(a)j -(a)j -(e)hll

Accusative -(a)ks' -(a)k

Ergative -y

Genitive -ou -ou -ou

The ergative ending -y (in both strong and weak forms) causes the stress to shift one syllable to the right (it can end up on the ending).

Number

Number is marked through infixes, which come just before the last vowel of the root. For regular nouns, the singular is unmarked. The plural is marked is marked with -(i)gw-.

It should be noted that there doesn't seem to be a priority order between the insertion of the epenthetic vowel and the resolution of Sandhi rules, which means than when several outcome are possible, they all are legal outcome. Thus, the word kal (fire) can form its plural as gwal or kigwél. The daughter languages however treated these forms in various ways, regularizing them or lexicalizing them.

For singulative nouns, the plural is unmarked, and the singular is marked with the infix -(a)txy-

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns show some irregularities. 1st and 2nd person have a dual number, but do not inflect for gender (they are always treated as being of the common gender). Suppletion is sometimes to be observed.

First person:

Singular Dual Plural

Nominative in inll/slla sa

Accusative inks' inllks'/ínlleks'/ínillks' saks'

Genitive ínou ínllou ingw/sá·ou

Second person:

Singular Dual Plural

Nominative sdo sdllo sdgwo

Accusative sdoks' sdlloks' sdgwoks'

Genitive sdeu sdlleu ygw/sdygw

Third person:

Singular Plural

Common Nominative ays' gways'

Accusative ayks' gwayks'

Genitive áyks'ou gwáyks'ou

Neuter Nominative l'aynt l'igwéint

Accusative l'ayk l'igwéik

Genitive l'áygou l'igwéigou

Inanimate Absolutive xtayhll xtgwayhll

Ergative xtay·ý xtgway·ý

Genitive xtáy·ou xtgwáy·ou

Numerals

Cardinal

x1 x8

1 dajgw- jaj-

2 s'y- s'ý·ihjaj-

3 snolld- snólldihjaj-

4 nynd'- nýnd'ihjaj-

5 r'a- r'a·ihjaj-

6 nýns'y- nýns'y·ihjaj-

7 snóll's'u- snóll's'u·ihjaj-

8 jaj-

Verbal morphology

Verbs are composed of three elements: a stem (always ending with a vowel), an infix (coming just before the last vowel) and a suffix.

The infixes can carry indications of tense, aspect, mood, valency, evidentiality, volition, telicity, directionality… but they do not constitute a united, neatly agenced and symetrical system: instead, each infix seems to be fully semantically and morphologically independant from the others, being a unique combination of values. A single infix can be marked for only one value, or for many simultaneously. There are ambivalent infixes, the interpretation of which depends of context. In some cases different infixes will largely overlap in their choice of features, other times entire combination possibilities will be missing. For these reasons, those affixes cannot be arranged in a table, but must be listed and detailed one by one.

Here, more than in any other part of the grammar, it must be stressed that the reconstruction is highly conjectural, because these infixes, while present in all the daughter languages, show a greater tendency to change diachronically. The functions of existing infixes constantly evolve, old infixes are very often replaced by new ones (generally created through incorporation). This goes to the point where even closely related dialects can show notable differences in this area.

Note that a verb must have exactly one and only one infix.

Given all these characteristics, some scholars go as far as classifying these infixes as an open, lexical category, rather than as a closed, grammatical one.

Infix Usage

-(a)xlla- Imperfective. The most basic infix, generally equivalent in use to the English present progressive. Can also be used with a future meaning.

- Perfective. Generally equivalent in use to the English preterit or past perfect.

- Future 1. Can be used as a future tense, as an imperative/cohortative or as a causative (in this later case, the argument which is caused to act is put in the genitive case).

- Future 2. Can be used as a predictive future or as an imperative future.

-(u)l'o- Present narrative. Used to tell of events, to describe a general truth or a habit.

-(a)j- Past narrative. Used to tell a story (with the additional nuance that the speaker has no direct evidence of what he is telling, he hasn't witnessed the events) or to describe an action that occured in the past but still affects the present.

- Aorist. Used to described an action completed in the past before another past action, or an action completed in the past with no repercution on the present.

-u- Future in the past. Used to described an action occuring in the future of a past setting. Can also be used as an irrealis tense (describing events outside of concrete temporal continuity, generally hypothetical events or generic truths) or as a subjonctive mood (expressing wish, suggestion or hypothesis).

-eu- General negative 1. Emphatises the absence of action, eg: He doesn't love you (nor does he hate you).

- General negative 2. Emphatises the opposite action, eg: He doesn't love you (he hates you).

- Involuntary perfective. Used to mark an action accomplished in spite of the agent/experiencer's will.

-(e)r'o- Causative 1. Translated as «make do» or «let do».

- Causative 2. Translated as «make do» or «help (to) do», and can also serve as a reflexive or reciprocal voice mark.

- Potential 1. Translated as «can», «be able to», «have the right to». Also used as a conditional.

-(eu)nr'oi- Potential 2. Translated as «know how to», «know that»; the agent/experiencer of the main action, if expressed, is placed in the genitive.

- Negative potential. Translated as «cannot», «not be able to», «do not have the right to», «must not», «do not know that», «do not know how to», or as a negative conditional.

- Obligative. Translated as «must», «have to», «need to», can also express infered strong probability that the action is happening.

- Negative obligative. Translated as «do not have to», «do not need to».

-(y)dyl- Volitive. Translated as «want to».

- Negative volitive. Translated as «do not want to».

-(u)s'olld- Dubitative. Doubt is expressed about the likelihood of the action's occurence.

-(y)tllaj- Progressive. Expresses a continuous, prolongued, repeated or habitual action, can also be used as an emphatic/intensive mood, or to assert that the action was done on purpose.

-(o)jel- Interrogative. Used to pose questions, can also be used as a desirative or hypothetical mood.

-(i)lld'- Inchoative. Translated as «start to» or «be about to». Can also have a directional value implying the action is done in a movement toward the agent/experiencer.

-(au)r'- Terminative. Translated as «finish to» or «just have». Can also have a directional value implying the action is done in a movement away from the agent/experiencer.

- Defective. Translated as «almost» or «fail to».

		Bilabial	Dental	Retroflex	Velar		Pharyngeal	Glottal
		Bilabial	Dental	Retroflex	Plain	Labialized	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Stop	Aspirated	p [pʰ]	t [tʰ]	t' [ʈʰ]	k [kʰ]	kw [kʷʰ]
Stop	Ejective		d [t']	d' [ʈ']	g [k']	gw [kʷ']
Nasal			n [n]
Fricative	Central		s [s]	s' [ʂ]			x [ħ]
Fricative	Lateral		ll [ɬ]	ll' [ɬ̢]
Approximant	Central			r' [ɻ]			j [ʕ]	h [ɦ]
Approximant	Lateral		l [l]	l' [ɭ]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i [i]	y [ɨ]	u [u]
Mid	e [e]		o [o]
Open		a [a]

Polarized	Neutral	Polarized
i	y	u
e	a	o
ei	ay	ou
ei	ai	oi
eu	au	ou

	Common	Neuter	Inanimate
Nominative /absolutive	-/-(a)j/-(a)s'	-/-(a)nt	-/-(e)hll
Accusative	-(a)ks'	-(a)k
Ergative			-y
Genitive	-ks'ou	-gou	-ou

	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	in	inll/slla	sa
Accusative	inks'	inllks'/ínlleks'/ínillks'	saks'
Genitive	ínou	ínllou	ingw/sá·ou

	Cardinal
	x1	x8
1	dajgw-	jaj-
2	s'y-	s'ý·ihjaj-
3	snolld-	snólldihjaj-
4	nynd'-	nýnd'ihjaj-
5	r'a-	r'a·ihjaj-
6	nýns'y-	nýns'y·ihjaj-
7	snóll's'u-	snóll's'u·ihjaj-
8	jaj-

Infix	Usage
-(a)xlla-	Imperfective. The most basic infix, generally equivalent in use to the English present progressive. Can also be used with a future meaning.
-	Perfective. Generally equivalent in use to the English preterit or past perfect.
-	Future 1. Can be used as a future tense, as an imperative/cohortative or as a causative (in this later case, the argument which is caused to act is put in the genitive case).
-	Future 2. Can be used as a predictive future or as an imperative future.
-(u)l'o-	Present narrative. Used to tell of events, to describe a general truth or a habit.
-(a)j-	Past narrative. Used to tell a story (with the additional nuance that the speaker has no direct evidence of what he is telling, he hasn't witnessed the events) or to describe an action that occured in the past but still affects the present.
-	Aorist. Used to described an action completed in the past before another past action, or an action completed in the past with no repercution on the present.
-u-	Future in the past. Used to described an action occuring in the future of a past setting. Can also be used as an irrealis tense (describing events outside of concrete temporal continuity, generally hypothetical events or generic truths) or as a subjonctive mood (expressing wish, suggestion or hypothesis).
-eu-	General negative 1. Emphatises the absence of action, eg: He doesn't love you (nor does he hate you).
-	General negative 2. Emphatises the opposite action, eg: He doesn't love you (he hates you).
-	Involuntary perfective. Used to mark an action accomplished in spite of the agent/experiencer's will.
-(e)r'o-	Causative 1. Translated as «make do» or «let do».
-	Causative 2. Translated as «make do» or «help (to) do», and can also serve as a reflexive or reciprocal voice mark.
-	Potential 1. Translated as «can», «be able to», «have the right to». Also used as a conditional.
-(eu)nr'oi-	Potential 2. Translated as «know how to», «know that»; the agent/experiencer of the main action, if expressed, is placed in the genitive.
-	Negative potential. Translated as «cannot», «not be able to», «do not have the right to», «must not», «do not know that», «do not know how to», or as a negative conditional.
-	Obligative. Translated as «must», «have to», «need to», can also express infered strong probability that the action is happening.
-	Negative obligative. Translated as «do not have to», «do not need to».
-(y)dyl-	Volitive. Translated as «want to».
-	Negative volitive. Translated as «do not want to».
-(u)s'olld-	Dubitative. Doubt is expressed about the likelihood of the action's occurence.
-(y)tllaj-	Progressive. Expresses a continuous, prolongued, repeated or habitual action, can also be used as an emphatic/intensive mood, or to assert that the action was done on purpose.
-(o)jel-	Interrogative. Used to pose questions, can also be used as a desirative or hypothetical mood.
-(i)lld'-	Inchoative. Translated as «start to» or «be about to». Can also have a directional value implying the action is done in a movement toward the agent/experiencer.
-(au)r'-	Terminative. Translated as «finish to» or «just have». Can also have a directional value implying the action is done in a movement away from the agent/experiencer.
-	Defective. Translated as «almost» or «fail to».