T-Shirt yet again, and Chevraqis revisions

On Thu, 5 Oct 2000, Sally Caves wrote:

> Double WOW!  Ailly!   I wish I had an easy "Teach Yourself Teonaht"
> page up there.  The one I put up a year ago is hopelessly outdated
> now that I've changed the capricious post-clitic indefinite particles.
> Maybe I should follow something sort of like "Welsh is Fun-tastic" by
> Heini Gruffydd.
Huh, and I thought the post-clitics were neat.  <wry g>

> It feels natural to me, too; I've worked hard trying to make it so,
> but remember that T. is a thirty year project of mine, and some of
> its idioms just grew.  I can pretty much tell if it's a tacked on
> gimmick, like the stupid post-clitic indefinites.  Or when T. was
> "ergative" for a month.  Didn't work.  Another conlang that sounds
> natural to me is Tokana.  Is Matt Pearson still on the list?
O fortunate person!  :-)

I can spot-on answer any questions about the associated *conculture* for
my current project, but that's because it's on the nth draft of a novel
that I've been working on for some 7 years (though the current draft has
no resemblance to most of the n-2 and earlier drafts).

> Tell me about your conlang, and you too, Yoon Ha Lee.
Gosh...Teoh's conlang is a lot better developed, and a lot more
original.  :-p

I've got a rudimentary amount of information up at
http//yhl.freeservers.com/conlang.html

I'm working on a reader with exercises, though it's probably gonna take a
looong time.

Mine's Chevraqis.  Sounds (Kirschenbaum):

vowels:
i: /i/ when word-final, before a vowel, or before h or y
   /I/ otherwise
e: /@/ when word final and the previous syllable also has e
   /e/ otherwise
a: /@/ when between two syllables that also have a
   /a/ otherwise
o: /O/
u: /u-/

diphthongs:
aé: /eI/ (I know it's an odd transliteration, but it has to do with
    how the alphabet is written)
aí: /aI/

quasivowels (Chevraqis classification, because alphabetically they're
  marked on the vowel):
h: /h/
y: /j/
r: /r/

consonants:
b:  /b/ initial/medial, /p/ final
m:  /m/
t:  /t/
d:  /d/
n:  /n/
s:  /s/
z:  /z/ initial/medial, /Z/ final
sj: /sj/ or /S/
ch: /tS/
j:  /dZ/
k:  /k/
q:  /?/, occasionally /k/ when it starts a word

The phonology's not nearly as sensible as it could be :-( but there are
some words I just can't bear to change after using them for 3-4 years
(before I even had a real conlang, just names).

Syllable structure:
(C)(r)V
(Q)V
(C)(r)V(n,v,b,r,s,z,t,d,k) if word-final
(Q)V(n,v,r,s,z,t,d,k) if word-final
where C is a consonant, V is a vowel or diphthong, or Q is a quasivowel.

The language is pitch-accented in backward trochees (I think):
mi'-ha-ra, A-bri'-o-ren, etc.

Morphology:
Chevraqis uses triconsontal morphology a la Arabic.  There are
two-classes of roots, i-class and a-class; you can tell by looking at the
root infinitive, which is how I list things (for convenience).

C *here* stands for a consonant or quasivowel.  (I need better notation.)

i-class    a-class
CiCaCu     CaCaCu [root infinitive/imperative]
CiCoCu     CaCoCu [causative infinitive]
CaCoCu     CeCaCu [generic infinitive]
CiaCaCu    CiaCaCu [habitual infinitive]
CieCaCu    CieCaCu [iterative infinitive]
daCiC(e)Cu daCaC(e)Cu [intensive infinitive]
daCeC(e)Cu daCeC(e)Cu [evolutive infinitive]
roCiC(e(Cu roCaC(e)Cu [attenuative infinitive]
roCeC(e)Cu roCeC(e)Cu [devolutive infinitive]
CiCaíCu    CaCaíCu [adjective infinitive]
CiCaCa     CaCeCa  [noun describing state]
CaCeCana   CaC(e)Cana [noun describing performer/profession]
CeCaCa     CeCaCa [noun describing tool]

An example, albeit with mutations:

jiqachu (to listen/understand)
jiqochu (to cause to understand)
chaqochu (to listen/understand in generalization)
jiahachu (to listen/understand usually)
jiehachu (to listen/understand over and over)
dachiqechu (to understand much)
dacheqechu (to understand more and more)
rochiqechu (to understand but not very well)
rocheqechu (to understand less and less)
jihaíchu (understanding)
jiqaja (understanding, enlightenment)
chaqechana (scholar)
cheqaja (knowledge)

Nouns have 6 cases:
-(y)a [voluntary agent]
-(y)ia [involuntary agent]
-(y)e [voluntary experiencer]
-(y)ie [involuntary experiencer]
-(y)en [genitive]  marks alienable posession
-(y)ad [locative]  marks places/times, inalienable posession

For convenience I list nouns in the voluntary agentive, so the root form
of "scholar" would actually be *chaqechan-.

Also, "voluntary" and "involuntary" are matters of opinion.  The people
of Qenar often speak of elemental or mystical forces in the voluntary,
whereas the people of Avrezin tend to use the involuntary.

i.e. kenasa kanazaz (the fire burns--voluntarily)
vs.  kenasia kanazaz (the fire burns--but has no say in the matter)

There are no articles, and no singular/plural distinction is made in the
grammar.

Pronouns decline irregularly; I won't list the declensions, but they are
(voluntary agentive):

naí [1st person]
sjar [2nd person]
vri [impersonal 3rd person]
bri [personal 3rd person]

The personal is generally used with people or living things, and
sometimes with inanimates with personal significance (your sword, maybe).

The impersonal is used only insultingly of people, occasionally with
living things without personal significance (a random tree in the
forest), and often with inanimates.

Verbs:
Verbs conjugate appallingly regularly, and when conjugated make a
distinction between the dynamic and static forms, which have different
meanings.  I list dynamic meanings first.

miharu [infinitive/imperative] (to ask/wonder)
miharas/miharaz [present reportive]
miharad/miharat [present]
miharan/miharam [present probable]
mihariq/miharik [participle]
miharis/mihariz [past reportive]
miharid/miharit [past]
miharib/mihariv [past probable]

mihariq/miharik iras/irad/iran [present progressive]
mihariq/miharik aras/arad/aran [past progressive]

The reportive is used of things that the speaker has witnessed, or for
"fundamental truths" (religion, philosphy, math)--I think someone told me
the latter would be a "gnomic aorist" (?).  "Plain" present or past are
used when the speaker has reasonable certainty, and the probable is used
when there's some doubt.  There's no future per se; speakers use the
present or present probable (unless they're mystics, in which case they
might venture the present reportive).

Participles can't be used as pseudo-nouns or adjectives, but are used to
construct relative clauses or with the progressive forms.  The
auxiliaries you see are inu (to come) and asu (to go), which are
defective and rather irregular verbs.

Adjectives behave like verbs and generally agree with any verbs present.
You can just use the adjective sans copula (heck, I don't think Chevraqis
*has* a copula).

Also, any verb can be nouned by declining it, and any noun can be verbed
by conjugating it.  This doesn't always make sense semantically.  I'm
thinking it could be used idiomatically or as a poetic device.

So far I've got a couple conjunctions I can't find my notes for, and some
postpositions, which tend to be rather specific since they're derived
from serial verb constructions in Aragis, the ancestor language.  Some
examples:

baraín (at/during a place/time)
jacheq (into a building or dwelling)
qajeq (into an object)
sjareq (to a person)

Word Order:
Defaults to SOV but the case marking allows fairly free word order.  The
subject is often omitted if the listener is presumed to be able to deduce
it from context (as in Korean), e.g.

Naí chenare michanaz.  (I own a knife).
Chanaíraz.  ((It) is-sharp.)

Relative clauses:
This is very tentative, but "I visited the man who owns a black horse"
would be rendered something like: I black-horse-owning-he man visited,
with the resumptive pronoun functioning somewhat like "who" or "that."

Alphabet:  see website at http://yhl.freeservers.com/conlang/ch-alpha.html
It's written up-down, center-left-right, but read up-down, right-left due
to the way it's structured around vowels.  Astute observers will notice
heavy influences from Korean (Hangul) and a little from the Mongolian
alphabet (though I'm sure others look similar too).

Yoon Ha Lee, out of breath