Conlang in planning: Tarsyanian

Hey all,

Because I got fed up with Ayeri, I am currently about to
start a new conlang project, Tarśanian (Tarsyanian), which
is closely related to Ayeri, though.

Before you complain about mangled Unicode, ń is n-acute, ś
is s-acute, ź is z-acute, ã is a-tilde, ẽ is e-tilde, ĩ is
i-tilde, õ is o-tilde, ũ is u-tilde.



IDEAS ON TARŚANIAN (C4)
=======================

Tarśanian /tA."s\a:.../ (Engl. Tarsanian, Ger. Tarsanisch,
Fr. Tarsain) is, as I just said, closely related to the
language of the Ayeri people, commonly known as Ayeri. It is
spoken in the neighboring country Tarśania. It belongs to
the Southwestern Cataytanian group of languages

  `-SW-Cataytanian (SWC)
    |
    +- Ayeri
    +- Tarśanian
  `- ...



I. PHONOLOGIC INVENTORY AND PHONOTACTICS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

a. Consonants

       | blb | lbd | alv | rfl | pal | uvu | glt
-------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
plo    | p b |     | t d |     | c J\|     | ?
-------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
nas    |   m |     |   n |     |   J |     |
-------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
tap    |     |     |   4 |     |     |     |
-------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
frc    |     | f v | s z |     | C   | X   | h
-------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
approx |     |     |   l | r\` |   j |     |

Furthermore, there are ...

  * the voiceless alveolopalatal   fricative [s\],
  * the voiced    alveolopalatal   fricative [z\],
  * the voiceless alveolopalatal affricative [ts\)] and
  * the voiced    alveolopalatal affricative [dz\)].

Also ...

  * /h/ > [C] / [-consonantal -back]
    /h/ > [X] / [-consonantal +back]
  * /l/ and /r/ are both realized as /4/
  * [?] is subconsciously put in front of vowels in syllable
    onsets
  * Any two consonants may follow each other, there may
    occur metathesis if this makes pronunciation easier.
    -> or better grammatical metathesis?
  * [t4] > [ts\)], [d4] > [dz\)]
  * The alveolopalatal are pronounced as retroflexes in some
    dialects
  * [4] becomes [r\`] for the ease of pronunciation if a
    palatal plosive or nasal is in the near environment; it
    seems that palatals make alveolars become retroflexes if
    they're too near
  * [t]~[c] and [d]~[J\] merge in some dialects; [c] > [k]
    resp. [J\] > [g] is more common, though. [J] often
    becoming [N].


b. Vowels

         | Frn | Cen | Bck
---------+-----+-----+-----
Cls  lax | i   |     |   u
     tns | I   |     |   U
---------+-----+-----+-----
Cmd  lax | e   |     |   o
     tns |     |     |
---------+-----+- @ -+-----
Omd  lax | E   |     |   O
     tns |     |     |
---------+-----+-----+-----
Opn  tns | a   |     | A

  * There is no phonemic distinction between tense and lax
    vowels
  * /E/ is realized as [@] in unstressed syllables; [@] is
    thus not phonemic
  * Vowels are nasalized a bit when /n/ or /J/ follows. The
    nasal is dropped, except two vowels would be in hiatus
    then. /i/ and /u/ cannot be nasalized.
  * Any two vowels in a row are diphthongized (nasal vowels
    are likely to join to one)
  * {palatal}+[j] is realized as [{palatal}_j]
  * Vowel length is phonemic
  * Word stress is phonemic (no stress rules yet, sorry)



II. ORTHOGRAPHY
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

       | blb | lbd | alv | rfl | pal | uvu | glt
-------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
plo    | p b |     | t d |     | k g |     | ·
-------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
nas    |   m |     |   n |     |   ń |     |
-------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
tap    |     |     |   r |     |     |     |
-------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
frc    |     | f v | s z |     | h   | h   | h
-------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----
approx |     |     |   r |   r |   j |     |

s\   > ś  ~ z\   > ź
ts\) > tś ~ dz\) > dź

<ś> can be substituted with <sy>, <ź> with <zy>, <ń> with
<ny> and <·> with <'> if necessary.

         | Frn | Cen | Bck
---------+-----+-----+-----
Cls  lax | i   |     |   u
     tns | i   |     |   u
---------+-----+-----+-----
Cmd  lax | e   |     |   o
     tns |     |     |
---------+-----+- e -+-----
Omd  lax | e   |     |   o
     tns |     |     |
---------+-----+-----+-----
Opn  tns | a   |     | a

  * Nasalization is indicated by {vowel}+ń.
  * Long consonants bascially do not appear, except [J:],
    which is written <ńh> but usually pronounced [J]
    nevertheless
  * The glottal stop that came due to sound changes from
    Ayeri is represented as <·> (middot).
  * Stress is not indicated (OR: The last coda consonant of
    a stressed syllable is doubled)
  * Long vowels are indicated by a tilde: ĩ ẽ ã õ ũ
    (I chose a tilde because a trema didn't look as nice)
  * {vowel}ńń is pronounced [{vowel}~J]
  * {vowel}ńh is pronounced [{vowel}~:]
  * when there are two same vowels (e.g. <aa>, <ee>, ...),
    there is a glottal stop in between: <ee> = /e?e/

Tarśanian is natively written in the Tahano Nuhicamu, where
ś = s + -y, ź  = z + -y, ń  = ng, ã = a + long, ẽ = e + long,
etc.



III. GRAMMAR
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Regarding the grammar, I thought about the following
features:

  * Masculinum/femininum in addition to animate/inanimate
  * no grammatical tense, tense is expressed with temporal
    adverbs (perfective/imperfective aspects)
  * different declensions and conjugations? -> Depends on
    sound changes!
  * Cases are always marked with articles
  * Some kind of active language (agent-/patienthood are
    lexicalized now) OR volitionality as criteria (that'd
    make it a real active language, wouldn't it)?
  * NOM/AGT, ACC/PAT, DAT/BEN, GEN/ABL -> NO weird behaviour
    in ditransitive sentences: Donator is AGT, Receiver is
    BEN, Object is PAT
  * Adjectives are declined and compared like in English
    with modal adverbs of degree, not with verbs
  * Stative ("<NOUN> is <ADJ>.") adjectives are conjugated,
    though the agentive part is patientive (traces of
    ergativity!)
  * Adverbs do not need to be made fit to their head words
    (which was stupid of me to do in Ayeri!)


IV. SOUND CHANGES FROM AYERI
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

See beckerscarsten.de/conlang/tarsyanian/tarsyanian_draft.pdf
for a word list and the changes done to the original Ayeri
words.


You see, it's actually the same as Ayeri just with some
larger modifications and phonologic obstacles.

Hope you enjoyed this,
Carsten

--
Edatamanon le matahanarà ea Iran 17, B18 ea 00:3A:30:06 ena
Curan Tertanyan Cuperin.
» http://www.beckerscarsten.de/?conlang=ayeri

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