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Revision as of 16:16, 5 May 2017
Akachenti is the most commonly spoken major dialect of the Kachan language, spoken by the Ogunn people. It is an incorporating fusional polysynthetic language with fluid-S active morphosyntactic alignment and relatively free word order with default OVS.
Phonology
Orthography
The phonemic inventory of Pre-Modern Akachenti was somewhat captured at the adoption of the Tongchan writing system, a series of glyphs for the perceived phonemes of the language. In particular, the current ae diphthong was considered a vowel, length was distinguished for five of the six vowels, and several current consonantal phonemes were and are considered consonant clusters.
- Vowels: a, a:, o, o:, u, u:, ae, e, e:, i, i:
- Consonant "Clusters": nl, hl, tl, dl, ngl, khl, kl, gl
The above are all clicks with pre-glottalized allophones in glottalic tone syllables.
Vowels
The phonemic vowel inventory contrasts five qualities, three heights, and length.
Short Vowels | Long Vowels | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
front | central | back | front | central | back | |
close | i | u | i: | u: | ||
mid | e | o | e: | o: | ||
open | a | a: | ||||
PHONEMIC DIPHTHONG | aɛ - aɪ |
Long vowels are pronounced with a low tone. The phonemic diphthong in the bottom row is the only one treated as a phonemic vowel in Akachenti's orthography and is romanized as ae. Other diphthongs are treated orthographically as vowel clusters.
Front | Back | ||
---|---|---|---|
unrounded | rounded | rounded | |
close | iɪ - ij | ui | |
mid | ie | ue | |
open | ia | ua |
The close diphthongs in the top row are typically falling diphthongs, with the first vowel more prominent, though iɪ can realize as rising "diphthong" jɪ. The remaining four diphthongs are typically rising, with e and a being prominent.
Consonants
Labial | Alveolar | Post-Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
voiced | voiceless | murmured | voiced | voiceless | murmured | voiced | voiceless | murmured | voiceless | murmured | |||
nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||||||||||
click | nasal | ᵑǃ | ᵑǁ | ||||||||||
simple | gǃ | ǃ | gǁ | ǁ | |||||||||
fricated release | (sgǃˡ) | sǃʱˡ | sǁʱˡ | ||||||||||
stop/affricate | b | d | t | dʒ | tʃ | g | k | ʔ | (ʔh) | ||||
fricative | f-v | s | ʃ | x | ɦ | ||||||||
tap/approximant | ɺ | ɹ - ɾ |
Consonants in parentheses are allophones. The only true consonantal approximant in Akachenti is an allophone of the rhotic tap. The lateral tap has the allophone of a voiced fricated alveolar click.
Clusters
n | ŋ | ɹ | ɦ | x | d | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
click/stop/affricate | n(C) | ŋ(C) | ∅ | ∅ | ∅ | ∅ |
labial (m, b, v) + g | ∅ | ∅ | (C)ɹ | ∅ | ∅ | ∅ |
v | ∅ | ∅ | (C)ɹ | (C)ɦ | (C)x | ∅ |
ʃ | ∅ | ∅ | ∅ | ∅ | ∅ | (C)d |
Regional dialect variations may allow sɹ, ʃɹ, dɹ, or ɹɦ and ɹx, but this is disfavored in most Akachenti dialect regions.
Allophones
Syllable | Midtone (default) | Glottalic Tone | Low Tone | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Onset | Intervocalic | Coda | Word-Final | Onset | Intervocalic | Coda | Onset | Intervocalic | Coda | |
Q Dialect | k | k | k̚ | kʼ | kʼ | k | k | |||
S Dialect | k | k | k̚ | q | q | k̬ | k̬x̆ | k̬ |
Prosody
Register
Tone goes hand in hand with variations in quality, duration, and phonation of affected syllables.
Verbs
Verbal Agreement Case Marking
Akachenti's pronominal case agreement system is similar to that of natlang Kotiria, where argument/slot order initially determined case and marked case eventually permitted free order constrained by topicalization.
Unmarked Order
Synchronically, unmarked order is:
- topic/patientive + VERB ROOT + agentive
In cases where topic is not conflated with one of the first two core arguments—nominative or accusative—the default order shifts to:
- topic + patientive + VERB ROOT + agentive
indicating a diachronic conditioned merger of the topic and patientive slots. Significantly, this order is only valid for intransitive and transitive verbs. Verbs with more than two referents marked on the verb utilize various hierarchical combinations of person and case marking across all available slots to indicate multiple objects.
Even in cases where only two core arguments are marked on the verb, unmarked order is not always possible.
Accusative-Possessive
The modern accusative-possessive is marked by a glottalic accent vowel in the case of simple markers. This is a reduced form of the original accusative-possessive affix.
Patientive-Oblique
The modern patientive-oblique is marked by a raised mid-tone vowel. This may be an actual alternation fallback or a reduced form of an original dative affix. In its marking of relative clauses, there is evidence it may have also reduced from a genitive affix.
The Copula
Thus far, we posit Pre-Modern Akachenti copular forms of se:, "to be", and the nominalized sen, "what (one) is". The fact that the copula almost always takes alternate vowel forms rather than glottalic tone indicates an underlying long vowel affecting neighboring syllables despite being mutable, pronounced with a mid-tone and short.
lexeme | gloss | part of speech |
---|---|---|
se: | to be | verb |
se:n | what (one) is | nominalized verb |
lexeme | sample | definition | translation | alignment |
---|---|---|---|---|
se: | hese: | how are (you)? | how be? | denuded |
se: | ise: ganche | it is beautiful | it's beautiful | i-agentive |
se | ise ganchá | it, I am (experiencing), (it) does beauty (to) me.PAT | it's beautiful to me | e-patientive, á-patientive |
se | isikachan evagonchan | it is, Kachan, my home voice | Kachan is the language I speak at home | e-patientive |
se | igonar isiganchanta | it, my home, it is beautiful | my home is beautiful | i-agentive |
se | sa gudá | I am an experiencer of home-want | I'm a shut-in OR I don't get out much | á-patientive |
se | usa iba:sh | (with) you, I am that, a lover | with you, I am a lover | i-patientive |
se | huede esef (huede esev) | and that is (going to be)? | and that is too? | e-patientive |
sen | isen ís | it.AGT, what (it) is, (it) is that.PAT | it is what it is | í-patientive |
sen | hesen | what is (it)? | what is it? | denuded |
Affixation and Derivation
Compounding and Incorporation
Akachenti is an incorporating language and frequently creates compound nouns, compound adjective-nouns, compound serial verbs, and incorporated "compound" noun-verbs.
Rules of Compounding
- Identical or near-identical adjacent syllables are merged, e.g. a + kacha + chan + enti = Akachenti, not *Akachachanenti
Inflectional Affixes
Inflectional affixes appear to all be postpositions, in keeping with an OVS language and verbs tending to fuse at the end of a word. Unlike evening constructions, inflectional affixes have fused sufficiently that they no longer attract glottalic tone to their first and last syllables. Inflectional affixes serve as a compounded extension of the root.
The Verb Base
There are two primary verb bases, demonstrated below.
unmarked | + agentive affix | optative | + agentive affix |
---|---|---|---|
baga: | baga:v(a) | baga:sha | ∅ |
ashi | ashik(a) | ashiv(a) | ∅ |