Kʰajlun

Kʰajlun is an island-highland (team B) language, spoken in the southern Peilaš.

Phonology

Consonants

	labial	dental	palatal	velar	glottal
plain stops	p	t	t͡ʃ <c>	k	ʔ <'>
aspirated stops	pʰ	tʰ	t͡ʃʰ <cʰ>	kʰ
nasals	m	n
fricatives	β <w>	s		ɣ ~ ɰ <ł>
approximants		r, l	j

• /m n β r l j ɰ/ are devoiced after aspirated consonants, which themselves lose aspiration in this position.
• Although /β ɰ/ pattern more like approximants, they have a strong tendency to fricativise in positions other than in front of front vowels.

Vowels

	front	back
high	i, y	u
mid-high	e
mid-low		ɔ <o>
low	a

Stress always falls on the ultimate or penultimate syllable.

• If either of those is closed, the stress falls on the last closed syllable.
• Otherwise, stress is phonemic and marked with an acute accent.

Morphology

Throughout this section, a suffix, containing an acute accent, indicates that the corresponding syllable attracts stress if the previous syllable is open.

Nominals

Nominals include nouns, pronouns and adjectives. They have the category of animacy, possessedness and case, exhibiting case concord and including four cases:

• Absolutive
• Ergative
• Genitive
• Oblique

The category of animacy exists only in ergative case and for the third person singular pronoun. It is based on semantics.

Each nominal belongs to one of three declension classes - N1, N2 or N3. N1 encompasses consonant-final nominals while N2 and N3 - vowel-final nominals.

Case	N1	N2	N3
Absolutive	-∅	-V ¹	-∅
Ergative (anim.)	-ú	-ú ²	-'ú
Ergative (inan.)	-cun ³	-jun	-jun
Genitive	-lú ⁴	-lú ⁴	-lú
Oblique ⁵	-al	-Vl	-l

¹ V is the last stem vowel. Where not indicated, it drops in the corresponding caseform.

² N2 nominals, ending in -u, take -u'ú instead.

³ N1 nominals, ending in t, tʰ, c, cʰ take -jun instead.

⁴ -tlú after s, n, r, l, ł.

⁵ Nominals ending in -lun, as well as the nominals morkʰum 'finger' and enkʰun 'long', change their last stem vowel to y in this case.

Adverbs are formed from adjectives using the prefix pʰu- (allomorph pʰu'- for adjectives begining with a vowel).

The last nominal in a noun phrase may be marked for possessedness, after inflecting for case:

	Sg	Pl
1.EXCL	-nú	-płu
1.INCL		-plu
2	-tú	-tlu
3.ANIM	-tlu	-pú
3.INAN	-mú
REFL	-mlu

• Should homorganic or another awkward consonant cluster arise due to a possessive marker, -a- is inserted to break it up.

Personal pronouns

Kʰajlun is split-ergative, splitting for 1. and 2. person vs. everything else.

	Sg	Pl
1. Excl	nu	płan
1. Incl		panka
2.	ta	tanka
3. Anim	tu	pon
3. Inan	mo

Case	1.SG	2.SG	3.SG.ANIM	3.SG.INAN	1.PL.EXCL	1.PL.INCL	2.PL	3.PL
Nom/Abs	nu	ta	tu	mo	płan	panka	tanka	pon
Acc/Erg	nul	tul	tu'ú	mjun	płarol	pankol	tankol	parú/poncun
Genitive	nulú	tulú	tlu	mlu	płalú	panklu	tanklu	palú
Oblique	nal	tal	tol	mol	płaral	pankal	tankal	paral

Correlatives

	thing	person	time	place	manner, quality	quantity
proximal	at	atú	nukʰ	akʰý	apʰú	tʰon
distal	amý	mytú	ron / tanokʰ ¹	kʰy	pʰu
indefinite	kʰom	kʰmu	kʰonto	kʰonko	kʰonal	kʰonton
interrogative	mi	mu	mutʰ	makʰ	man	mimpror
universal	pom	pimú	ynty	pontipʰ	pompral	pom
alternative	ul	ulmu	ultu	ulcim	ulnal
negative	mímy	múmy	mutʰmu	makʰma	mamna	mimpromo

¹ Ron is used for occasions before the present and tanokʰ - for occasions after it.

Some correlatives decline irregularly:

	this (inan)	that (inan)	some (inan)	what	all (inan)	sth. else	nothing
absolutive	at	amý	kʰom	mi	pom	ul	mímy
ergative	acun	amjun	kʰomcun	meljun	pomcun	ulcun	memjun
genitive	atlú	amlú	kʰomlú	melú	pomlú	ultlú	memlú
oblique	atal	amyl	kʰomyl	mel	pimyl	ulal	mimyl

	this (anim)	that (anim)	somebody	who	everybody	smb. else	nobody
absolutive	atú	mytú	kʰmu	mu	pimú	ulmú	múmy
ergative	atu'ú	mytu'ú	kʰmu'ú	mu'ú	pimu'ú	ulmu'ú	mumú
genitive	atlú	mytlú	kʰmolú	polú	pemlú	ulmolú	mumlú
oblique	atol	mytol	kʰmol	pol	pimol	ulmol	mumyl

Verbs

There is a synchronic rule in Kʰajlun, due to which, if an aspirate happens to be in front of a plain stop because of a morphological process, a metathesis in aspiration occurs:

TʰT → TTʰ

This rule is most prominent in the verbal morphology.

Some verbs have two or three principal forms, or rather principal stems. In this section they are referred to as P1, P2 and P3. If a verb lacks P3, P1 is to be used instead in P3's morphological slots. The first two principal forms of some three principal form verbs coincide, but they are listed independently anyway for clarity's sake.

Verbs are divided in four conjugation classes, named V1 through V4. Prefixes/prefixal parts of circumfixes depend on them:

	T	K	M	A
V1	tʰ- ¹	ka-	ma-	a-
V2	tʰo-	ky- ²	my- ²	a-
V3 ³	tʰoj-	koj-	moj-	aj-
V4	tʰ-	k-	m-	∅-

¹ s- in front of stops.

² k-, m- in front of sonorants.

³ If the verb has initial vowel in its stem, it drops.

All verbs also have a thematic vowel, which is part of the lexical definition of the word, and is marked with V in the morphology section.

Finite verb forms

Finite verb forms have the categories of person, number, negation, tense, aspect, mood and evidentiality.

Present tense

Some verbs change their last root vowel in plural non-habitual forms of present tense forms. This is denoted in the lexicon.

consonant stems	SG	PL	SG.NEG	PL.NEG
1.INCL	P3-rV	P1-pVj	P3-rVm	P1-pVjmo
1.EXCL		T-P2-pVj		T-P2-pVjmo
2	T-P2	T-P2-pV	T-P2-mV	T-P2-pVm
3	P1	P1-pV	P1-mV	P1-pVm
IMP	K-P2	K-P2-pV	M-P2	M-P2-pV
1.INCL.HAB	P3-rVkV	P1-kyj	P3-rVkVm	P1-kyjmy
1.EXCL.HAB		T-P2-kyj		T-P2-kyjmy
2.HAB	T-P2-kV	T-P2-ku	T-P2-kVm	T-P2-kúmu
3.HAB	P1-kV	P1-ku	P1-kVm	P1-kúmu

vowel stems	SG	PL	SG.NEG	PL.NEG
1.INCL	P3-j	P1-łoj	P3-jmV	P1-łojmo
1.EXCL		T-P2-łoj		T-P2-łojmo
2	T-P2	T-P2-ł	T-P2-m	T-P2-łom
3	P1	P1-ł	P1-m	P1-łom
IMP	K-P2	K-P2-ł	M-P2	M-P2-ł
1.INCL.HAB	P3-jkʰV	P1-kʰyj	P3-jkʰVm	P1-kʰyjmy
1.EXCL.HAB		T-P2-kʰyj		T-P2-kʰyjmy
2.HAB	T-P2-kʰ	T-P2-kʰú	T-P2-kʰum	T-P2-kʰúmu
3.HAB	P1-kʰ	P1-kʰú	P1-kʰum	P1-kʰúmu

Past tense

A couple of verbs change their last root vowel in past tense forms from u to y. This is denoted in the lexicon.

consonant stems	SG	PL	SG.NEG	PL.NEG
1.INCL	P1-ktʰopʰ	P1-ktʰuj	P1-ktʰómo	P1-ktʰujmo
1.EXCL		T-P2-ktʰoj		T-P2-ktʰojmo
2	T-P2-ktʰu	T-P2-ktʰo	T-P2-ktʰúmo	T-P2-ktʰom
3	P1-ktʰe	P1-ktʰu	P1-ktʰémy	P1-ktʰum
1.INCL.HAB	P1-kupʰ	P1-kuj	P1-kúmo	P1-kujmo
1.EXCL.HAB		T-P2-kVtʰoj		T-P2-kVtʰojmo
2.HAB	T-P2-kú	T-P2-kVtʰó	T-P2-kúmo	T-P2-kVtʰom
3.HAB	P1-ké	P1-kú	P1-kémy	P1-kum

Verbs with stems ending in a consnant add the thematic vowel in front of the past tense endings.

The copula

The copula is rather irregular and doesn't have the category of aspect.

PRS	SG	PL	SG.NEG	PL.NEG
1.INCL	tʰopʰ	kyj	tʰopkʰum	kyjmy
1.EXCL		tʰyj		tʰyjmy
2	tʰo	tʰu	tʰokum	tʰúmu
3	e	ku	ekum	kúmu
IMP	kytʰó	kytʰú	mytʰó	mytʰú

The copula uses e as past stem and the habitual past affixes to form its past tense.

Other morphology of finite verbs

Verbs are obligatorily marked for evidentiality. Evidentiality markers are stacked on top of TAM-person-number-negation (TAM-PNN) markers.

	C	V
Direct visual	-y	-l
Direct (other senses)	-kon	-łan
Indirect, inferred	-cV	-s
Hearsay	-kV	-ł
Renarrative	-ki	-wy

Verbs can also optionally be marked for some sort of clausal relationship. These markers are stacked on top of TAM-PNN and evidentiality markers.

	C	V
because ...	-al	-l
when ...	-ajła	-jła
before ...	-ajron	-jron
after ...	-ajta	-jta
in order to ...	-kol	-łal
absolutive relativiser	-kú	-kʰú
erg. & oblique relativiser	-kukú	-kʰukú

Inifinite verb forms

There are three infinite verb forms, derived from the bare verb stem:

• P1-mency is the verbal noun / nominaliser.
• A-P2-cun (C) / A-P2-jun (V) is used to derive adverbs from verbs. It denotes that another action is done by doing the action of the verb, from which the form has been derived.
• A-P2-ton (C) / A-P2-tʰon (V) denotes that the agent is doing another action simultaneously while also performing this action.

Numerals

The numeral system is base 10.

1	kʰen
2	kʰul
3	tʰal
4	pʰal
5	or
6	umpʰen
7	umpʰul
8	kytʰal
9	kypʰan
10	ron
50	oron
100	puron

• Teens are formed by ron(k)- + a number from 1 to 9. K is inserted when the number begins with a vowel.
• Tens are formed by a number from 2 to 9 + -tron, with the exception of oron 'fifty', which has a seperate form.
• Tens and units are joined by a suffix -ko onto the ten.

Modality

• Ability is expressed by the suffix -cʰu. Lack thereof is expressed by the suffix -cʰum.
• Permission is expressed by the suffix -ko. Lack thereof is expressed by the suffix -kom.
• Necessity is expressed by the adverb nylky, which follows the verb. Lack thereof is expressed by the adverb tylme.
• Obligation is expressed by the adverb tóko, which follows the verb. Lack thereof is expressed by the suffix tylme. No distinction is made between lack of necessity and lack of obligation.

Syntax

Word order is SOVX with absolutive morphosyntax. Word order of noun phrases is:

1. Relative clause
2. Determiner
3. Numeral
4. Noun
5. Adjective
6. Genitive NP
7. Postposition

Relativisation of oblique arguments is done with retention strategy and the relativised argument directly before the relative verb. Evidentiality is optional on relativised verbs - if omitted, it's understood to be the same as the one of the main clause.

Lexicon

Kʰajlun Lexicon