Difference between revisions of "Asuaneï"

Latest revision as of 13:23, 14 August 2007

Asuaneï (or Asvānēica) is a major language in Baranxtu and is a sister language of the predominant Baranxeï, to the point of being partially mutually intelligible.

In contrast to Baranxeï, Asuaneï is much more conservative in that it retains many grammatical distinctions from its predecessor than Baranxeï does.

History

Status

Phonology

Phonetic Inventory

Consonants

Standard Asuaneï has 27 phonemic consonants. It distinguishes voiced and unvoiced consonants, just like its sister language Asuaneï. Whereas it has lost all uvular and glottal phonemes, it retained the retroflex series from their common ancestor, and part of the palatal series (the palatal fricatives, however, changed to s and z).

Vowels

Standard Asuaneï regonizes 10 phonemic vowels; these are five length-distinguished pairs (i and i:, E and E:, u and u:, o and o:, a and a:). Schwa and the rounded versions of i, E and a are only allophones of the others.

Alphabet

Orthography

There are two concurrant orthographical systems, simply called the Traditional Orthography and the Modern Orthography (introduced in 1992).

The differences between the two are rather minor; mainly, the Traditional Orthography is oriented more closely to the standard pronunciation (including external sandhi), whereas Modern Orthography places a stronger emphasis on the roots of the words (but still shows internal sandhi).

This largely only affects words ending in a vowel other than a/ā, which change to y (e/ē and i/ī) or v (o/ō and u/ū) when preceding a word with an initial vowel. This change is expressed in writing by those using Traditional Orthography.

Romanization

The Romanization of Asuaneï is a letter-by-letter substitution of the Asuaneï Alphabet; therefore the system can easily be put in the same tables as those for the phonetic inventory.

Morphology

Nouns

Cases

Nominative Case

The nominative case marks the subject of a verb.

Genitive Case

The genitive case shows a relationship that may be thought of as one thing belonging to, being created from, or otherwise deriving from some other thing. It usually directly follows the noun it refers to.

Dative Case

The dative case marks the indirect object of a verb. In Asuaneï, it also marks the agent in a passive sentence.

Instrumental case

The instrumental case indicates that a noun is the instrument or the means the subject uses to achieve a goal or accomplish an action.

Accusative Case

The accusative case has two functions; it marks the direct object of a verb, and it also marks motion towards a noun.

Locative case

The locative case indicates a location in or by something.

Ablative case

The ablative case indicates motion away from a noun.

Vocative case

The vocative case is used when adressing someone.

Declension

There is a basic set of endings which are attached to the stem of a noun; however, nouns are separated into classes according to their terminal phoneme. Especially the vowel-classes have their own way of forming some cases, or special vowel merging rules.

Pronouns

Asuaneï formally has four personal pronouns which are in general declined like normal nouns. Thus, there are no special words for "my/your/his/her/its", instead the genitive form of the pronoun is used; however, many of these forms are exceptions to the normal rule as they partially derive from archaic declinations.

It should also be noted that the nominative form of a pronoun is usually absent and only used for emphasis.

Syntax

Dialects

Vocabulary

IDU Country Names

Language Names