Tseer

Tseezh/Lexicon
Swadesh list for Tseezh

This article describes Classical Tseezh. See Tseezh/Modern for Modern Tseezh.

Tseer
Created by	IlL
Setting	Verse:Tricin
Language family	Lakovic Ashanic Tseer

Tseezh (chezh; natively dowøds Tseezh Classical: /dowødz tʃẽr̝/ Modern: /dowədz tʃẽʃ/; Skellan: brits Txelx) is a Lakovic language spoken in Talma. It is inspired mainly by Hmong and Somali, with touches of Burmese (especially for Modern Tseezh), Vietnamese and Satem IE languages like Polish.

Tseezh was a prominent classical language of Talma, second to Windermere; it left a significant influence on Windermere and Skellan.

Todo

• Needs some vowel shifts
• i ü u e o a ì ǜ ù è ò à → i ø u e o a ii øø uu ee oo aa
• p > f
• final -g, -w disappear
• /w l/ > v w /v w/
• ś, g > kh /x/
• s- > θ > t /t/
• -s > -x
• š-, y- > x-
• c, ć > tx, ts
• t- > th /T/
• r > zh /r/

Numbers: don, oozhad, txim, khaag, omøøtx, dag, abood, xev, wooj, thab, taxaa, tzhøg

thanam = ice

tawsuug = example

odoxmed = ??? (odosméd = 'byproduct' in Eevo)

nasal vowels merge with nonnasal vowels before m/n/ng/l?

Final -ng disappears leaving nasalization (as in Skellan)

hox = angle

thamex = side

Phonology

Consonants

Classical Tseezh has 20 phonemic consonants: Syllable-final -dh is an allophone of /d/, and syllable final b d g are allophones of /p t k/.

m n ng /ŋ/

t th /ʈ/ k ' /ʔ/

b d g

f x /s~z/ kh /x/ h

tx /ts/ ts /tʃ/

v dh /ð/ (dh only occurs syllable finally)

w zh /r̝~ʒ/ j /j/

Notes

• /x/ is [ʂ] in some dialects
• b d g = [p t k] word-finally.

Vowels

Classical Tseezh has 12 vowels: 6 oral and 6 nasal.

a e i o u ø /a e i o u ɵ/

aa ee ii oo uu øø /ã ẽ ĩ õ ũ ɵ̃/

/ɵ/ will be transcribed as /ø/ for convenience.

Morphology

Tseezh grammar and morphology are rather conservative (unlike Windermere). For example it has retained the Proto-Lakovic reduplicated plural, pluractionality and gender in verbs and the grammatical function of Proto-Lakovic applicatives or triggers.

Pronouns

	I	thou (m.)	thou (f.)	he	she	we (exc.)	we (inc.)	you (pl.)	they (an.)
Subject clitics	-izh	-ekh	-ex	-in	-ix	-txaa	-ba	???	???
Full pronouns	zhii	khen	kheex	in	iix	txam	baa	???	???

'you' and 'they': from honorific expressions?

Todo: correlatives table

this, that = ti, fi

this/that man = ten, fen; this/that woman = teex, feex

here, there = mit, mif

Nouns

Each noun has an intrinsic gender, either masculine or feminine. Feminine is marked with -x (pronounced [s] after -b -d -g -f -kh, [əz] after x tx ts zh and [z] otherwise).

• ativ = son-in-law; ativx = daughter-in-law
• bakhoo = uncle; bakhoox = aunt
• athaay = lion; athaayx = lioness

Plurals are formed by reduplication with the reduplicant modified for phonotactic or euphonic reasons.

• athaay 'lion' > a'athaay 'lions'
• moog 'feather' > momoog 'feathers'

TODO: plural reduplication rules

Verbs

Verb template

TAM-pluractionality-feminine-voice-ROOT?

Agreement

Feminine subject: va-

Nutx-izh owna = I loved the girl (male speaker)

Vanutx-izh owna = I loved the girl (female speaker)

Voice

Passive: haa- (~ Windermere ha-)

Verbal number

Pluractionality is used when a verb is done multiple times or done to multiple objects.

Pluractionality: e-, ee- or eFe- (cf. Windermere frequentative enFă-)

TAM

Aspects/Tenses:

• Perfective aspect: unmarked
  • Intensive: tho- with past meaning, ~ Wdm. thu-
• Imperfective aspect: we- or reduplication
• Progressive: oL-, oo- (~ Wdm. ăL-, Modern oL- with non-past meaning)
• Jussive: af- (~ Wdm. hef-; Modern Tseezh uses xa- for imperative)

Derivation

• xi- = adjectivizer
  • xiwakoo = free, wakoo originally meant 'human'
• boo- = agentive
• (diminutive redup)