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Kaikutin is dead. Long live Okaikiar!

From:Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Date:Saturday, May 24, 2003, 7:30
Okay, I finally got off my butt and made some decisions with regard
to "Kaikutin", as a result of which it got the new name "Okaikiar",
which, in the grand tradition of my stunningly original nomenclature,
is the spatial mode of the Okaikiar word for "speech".  Not sure
why the spatial marker was used in this case, but it does distinguish
the proper name of the language from the general term for speech,
which is just "kaikiar".  The temporal mode, "ikaikiar", means
"slang".

Web pages will follow, but if you're curious you can read the rest
of this rather lengthy message.  I'm afraid there's nothing
Earth-shattering here, though I do think the spatial/temporal mode
stuff (which is the second-oldest feature of this language after
the case system, having survived through many different names)
is a little interesting.

Type: inflecting/agglutinating

Current size: just under 100 roots

Orthography:
        Con-script with standard Roman transcription.
        The script is mixture of syllabic and alphabetic;
        each phoneme has a separate symbol, but so does each
        CV syllable; the C symbols are only used for the end of
        a syllable, the V only for syllables that start with a vowel.
        For example, Kaikiar is written KA-I-KI-A-R.

Phonemes:
         Nine consonants, six simple vowels, one dipththong,
         and two rhoticized vowels:

                Spelling        Sound
                '               [@]
                a               [&] when medial, [A] when final
                ar              [A`r]
                d               [d]
                e               [E]
                ei              [e]
                i               [i]
                k               [k]
                l               [l]
                m               [m]
                n               [n]
                o               [o]
                or              [O`r]
                r               [r]
                s               [m]
                t               [t]
                u               [u]
                z               [z]

        Syllables are [C]V[L/N][C] (L/N = liquid or nasal), which gives about
        1800 possible syllables, but the inflection puts severe constraints
        on the last syllable of a word, so I predict many multisyllabic
        roots.

        Stress is on the penult, or the latest preceding syllable whose vowel
        is not {'}.

Morphology:
        Nouns have two numbers and nine cases in three declensions,
        readily distinguished by the nominative singular:

                First:  -ar
                Second: -al, -an
                Third:  -o

        First Declension:

        Sing    Nominative      Dankar          T'sar
                Accusative      Dankard         T'sard
                Causative       Dankir          T'sir
                Locative        Danka'rd        T'sa'rd
                Instrumental    Dankird         T'sird
                Elative         Danka'r         T'sa'r
                Allative        Danka'rk        T'sa'rk
                Dative          Dankark         T'sark
                Genitive        Dankur          T'sur

        Plural  Nom             Danker          T'ser
                Acc             Dankerd         T'serd
                Cau             Danko'rd        T'so'rd
                Loc             Dankeird        T'seird
                Ins             Danko'rd        T'so'rd
                Ela             Dankeir         T'seir
                All             Dankeirk        T'seirk
                Dat             Dankerk         T'serk
                Gen             Dankor          T'sor

        Second Declension:

        Sing    Nom             Ral             Zan
                Acc             Rald            Zand
                Cau             Rul             Zun
                Loc             Rild            Zind
                Ins             Ruld            Zund
                Ela             Ril             Zin
                All             Rilk            Zink
                Dat             Ralk            Zank
                Gen             Rarl            Zarn

        Plural  Nom             Reil            Zein
                Acc             Reild           Zeind
                Cau             Rorl            Zorn
                Loc             Rold            Zond
                Ins             Rorld           Zornd
                Ela             Rol             Zon
                All             Rolk            Zonk
                Dat             Reilk           Zeink
                Gen             Rel             Zen

        Third Declension:

        Sing    Nom     M'ko
                Acc     M'kod
                Cau     M'ker
                Loc     M'kud
                Ins     M'kerd
                Ela     M'ku
                All     M'kuk
                Dat     M'kok
                Gen     M'ka'

        Plural  Nom     M'ka
                Acc     M'kard
                Cau     M'ki
                Loc     M'kord
                Ins     M'kid
                Ela     M'kor
                All     M'kork
                Dat     M'kark
                Gen     M'kei

        Surnames are generally genitive plural forms; for instance,
        "Zan T'sor" means "Zan of the T'sars", while "Ral M'kei" means
        "Ral of the M'ko's".

        In addition to the above, nouns have a "mode"; they
        may be marked as explicitly spatial or temporal by
        prefixing o- or i-, respectively.  Generally, this is
        done in the elative/locative/allative cases to refer to
        whence/where/wither or since when/when/until when; when
        unmarked, either meaning is possible based on context.
        This has interesting ramifications for the vocabulary;
        the adverb "here", for instance, is just the word for "I"
        in the spatial locative (literally "by me").  The adverb
        "now" is the same word in the temporal locative.
        When marked spatial or temporal in another case, such as
        the nominative, the word changes from the pronoun "I" to the noun
        "here" or "now", respectively.

        VERBS

        Verbs take prefixes indicating the subject and inflect to indicate
        tense, mood, and aspect.  In the infinitive, a verb is a noun
        of the second conjugation ending in -an, referring to the
        occurrance of the action (usually translated by the gerund in
        English).  The stem is found by dropping the -an.  If you
        replace the -an with -ar, you get a noun meaning "one who or
        that which does" the verb; for instance, "kopan" = "to love",
        "kopar" = "lover", "kopiar" = "love, one who is loved".
        The other forms are created by adding these endings, in the
        given order, to the stem:

        VOICE           MOOD               ASPECT               TENSE
        Active:         Infinitive: -a     Unspecified:         Infinitive: -n
        Passive: -i     Imperative: -u     Complete: -i         Past:       -t
                        Indicative: -e                          Present:    -m
                        Attributive: -o                         Future:     -s
                        Conditional: '

        Examples:

        To love                         kopan
        To be loved                     kopian

        Love!                           Kopus!
        Be loved!                       Kopius!

        I love/am loving.               Zakopem.
        Thou art (being) loved.         Tekopiem.

        He/she/it had loved.            Kakopeit.
        We had been loved.              Zekopieit.

        Ye would love.                  Tikop's.
        They would be loved.            Kekopi's.

        etc.

        Adjectives are represented by stative verbs, which may be used
        attributively by putting the verb in the attributive "mood".
        For instance, "zutar" is "man" and "zadan" is "to be crazy",
        so "because of the crazy man" is "zutir zadom".  The tense and
        aspect can be changed; "zutir zadot" is "because of the man
        who used to be crazy".

        Prepositions representing physical relationships
        are represented by nouns denoting the area having that
        relationship, with what would be the object of the preposition
        in the genitive (as in Japanese or Klingon).  For instance,
        "area above" is "dino", so "above the man" is "dinud zutur",
        or more explicitly "odinud zutur", literally
        "in the man's above-area".

Sentence Structure

        Generally SOV, although the nouns in front of the verb may be moved
        around for emphasis.  The usual order is subject, direct object,
        indirect object, nouns in the "adverbial" cases, verb, adverbs.
        Modifiers always immediately follow the modified word; there
        is no inflectional agreement between them.

-Mark

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Joseph Fatula <fatula3@...>