Kaikutin is dead. Long live Okaikiar!
| From: | Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, May 24, 2003, 7:30 |
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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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