Verse:Mwail/Old Gloob

Themsármai: Gávthā themsármā

Themsaran
themsármā
Pronunciation	[/θè̞msarꜜmaː/]
Created by	–
Extinct	220 v.T.
Language family	Zachydic Raxo-Talsmic Talsmic Themsaran
Language codes
ISO 639-3	qth

Mwail/Old Gloob gávthā themsármā
Type
Fusional
Alignment
nominative-accusative, head-marking
Head direction
Initial	Mixed		Final
Primary word order
Verb-subject-object
Tonal
Yes
Declensions
Yes
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
Masculine/feminine
Nouns decline according to...
Case		Number
Definiteness		Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice		Mood
Person		Number
Tense		Aspect

Themsaran is my first constructed language, for my conworld of Hheergrem. It is intended to be a head-initial, head-marking language with a plausible development from an erstwhile dependent-/double-marking language. The grammar and syntax has been heavily influenced by Semitic and Celtic languages, with some drawing from Japanese, while the aesthetics draws on Germanic, Celtic, Finnish, Semitic, and Gyeongsang Korean. The morphology is an experiment with non-concatenative morphology: as Celtic utilizes initial consonant mutations, and Semitic uses vowel patterns, I decided on a language using tone patterns grammatically. The grammar is also an experiment on using inflections and agreement to show grammatical relations without case, which explains the gender system (however minimalistic), the different types of switch-reference on verbs, the applicative voice and borderline polysynthesis. So I guess it ends up a tad more like some Native American languages. Other purposes of my language include mixing in un-English verb syntax, such as the use of optatives in subordinate clauses, and using principally non-finite subordinate clauses in the indicative.

todo

• Develop script
• Tabulate lists
• Examples for everything
• Improve aesthetics
• Expand explanation on infinitive and supine
• Ditch thematic vowels?

Notes on notation

Glossary

• ^CLF: classifier tone pattern (non-desinential or desinential)
• H: vowel hiatus with next syllable
• N: denotes a homorganic nasal
• Z: denotes r before a vowel or voiced C, s before a voiceless C, z before z

Background

See also: Themsaran/Sound changes from Proto-Talsmic.

The Themsaran (/ˈθɛmsɑɹən/) language (Themsaran: gávthā themsármā [gáʊ̯fθàː θè̞msármàː] "the Themsaran throat") was traditionally classified into a separate subbranch of the Zachydic language family, along with other para-Themsaran languages which are/were natively spoken in the island of Tálsỳm off the northwestern coast of the Pattiya subcontinent. (Since then, Talsmic's close ties to Ractamic languages, such as Raxic, has gained widespread recognition.) Due to its long period of isolation and substrate influence (the substrate is sometimes speculated to have been a head-initial polysynthetic language), Themsaran was a typological and lexical outlier in the Zachydic family, within which it was distinguished by its heavily head-marking inflection in both clauses and possessive NPs as well as its strongly head-initial syntax. It also notably employs a combination of tone changes and affixes to convey grammatical information. The language possesses mixed fusional and agglutinative inflection, and nominative-accusative morphosyntax (mostly). The name of the language comes from the Themsár region, from whose dialect arose the prestige language of the island. This elevated language existed in a state of diglossia with the diverse and often mutually unintelligible vernacular "dialects". Noble Themsaran was used as a living language by the ruling class for a period spanning 600 years until its demise in the year ca. 220 v.c., and was continued to be used as an important literary, academic and religious language on the island and surrounding mainland areas.

Phonology

Consonants

Noble Themsaran (gávthā ħéntā) used 23 consonants (24 if /ʔ/ is analyzed as becoming silent V_V), a rather modest inventory for a Zachydic language.

Consonants
		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Radical	Glottal
Nasal		m /m/	n /n/			n [ŋ]
Plosive	voiceless	p /p/	t /t/			c /k/	q /ʡ/	(ʔ)
	voiced	b /b/	d /d/			g /g/
Fricative	voiceless	f /f/	th /θ/	s /s/		ch /x~ɣ/	ħ /ħ~ʜ~ʢ/	h /h~ɦ/
	voiced		ð /ð/	z /z/
Affricate			ŧ /t̪s̪~ts~tɕ~tʃ/
Approximant		v /ʋˠ/			j /j/
Trill			r /r/
Lateral app.			l /l/		ł /ʎ/

/ʋˠ/ behaves both as an obstruent and as an approximant. [ʔ] may occur only in morpheme boundaries.

Geminate /x/ and /θ/ are represented respectively by cch and tth in the Romanization.

Conditioned allophony

Phoneme	Allophone	Condition(s)
/ħ/	[ħ~ʜ]	#_, C[+voiceless]_, V_V
	[ʢ]	C[+voiced]_
/h/	[ɦ]	V_V, C[+voiced]_
/n/	[ŋ]	_C[+velar/radical]
C[+obstruent, ±voiced]	C[+obstruent, ∓voiced]	_C[+obstruent, -guttural, ∓voiced]

Vowels

Themsaran has six vowels, short and long. Short vowels have one mora (except for epenthetic i/y which has zero morae), and long vowels have two morae. Short vowels in open syllables were pronounced approximately 1.5 times as long as short vowels in closed syllables; long vowels in closed syllables, 2.5 times as long; open long vowels, thrice as long.

	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	i /i/	ī /iː/	y /ʉ̜/	ȳ /ʉ̜ː/	u /u/	ū /uː/
Mid	e /e̞/	ē /e̞ː/			o /o̞/	ō /o̞ː/
Open			a /a/	ā /aː/

y ȳ is a close central half-rounded vowel.

The short high vowels and a are mid-centralized: a i u y are pronounced [ɐ ɪ ʊ ʏ̜̈].

Tone

Pitch accent, or tone, is phonemic in Themsaran. The following is the notation for tones:

	Short	Long	Diphthong
Unmarked	a	ā	ai
Initial high/falling	á	ā́	ái
Initial rising	-	ā̌	aí
Non-initial tonic	á	ā́	ái

The pitch accent of a word (of more than one mora) consists of two components: the lexical tone/downstep which may not exist, and the position of the downstep (the latter is confined to appear after the 3rd-to-last mora). A low-tone word starts low and has the highest pitch at the tonic mora, which is immediately before the downstep, whereafter the pitch drops sharply. A high-tone word starts high, dips low and rises up to the point of the second downstep.

The following rules govern the marking of Themsaran pitch accent:

1. The initial syllable is marked if it is the tonic syllable. If it is not, it is marked as "high".
2. If the tonic syllable is non-initial, it is marked with an acute accent.

If the downstep occurred word-finally, the first syllable of a following high tone word would have slightly lower pitch. In pausa, a word final high short syllable is realized as a falling, short vowel.

Clitics, unmarked, phonologically behave as parts of the following word and inherit the tone of the following word. Preceding a word with high lexical tone, the clitic is marked as high.

Stress

The first syllable is very lightly stressed, and there are no secondary stress phenomena.

Phonotactics

The maximal syllable structure is CCCjVCC, where V is any vowel or diphthong, and the second consonant in the complex coda must be an obstruent. /h/ is disallowed to occur in coda; radicals are prohibited word-finally. Up to CCCj medial clusters are permitted.

Permitted initial CC- clusters:

• [any obstruent except v] + {l, r, n}
• [non-labial obstruent] + {v, m}
• f + {t, ŧ, c, ch, q, ħ}
• s + {p, f, t, th, ŧ, c, ch, q, ħ}
• ch + {t, ŧ}
• c + {th, s}
• m + {l, r, n}

Permitted CCC- clusters:

• s + {p, t, ŧ, c, q} + {l, r, n}
• f + {t, ŧ, c, ħ} + {l, r, n}

Permitted -CC clusters:

• Any geminate excepting vv, jj, qq, ħħ, hh
• {m, n, l, r, v} + {any coronal obstruent}
• {n, l, r} + {any non-radical, non-labial obstruent}
• {m} + {p, b, f}
• {l, r} + {p, b, f}
• {f, s} + {t, ŧ, c}
• {p, f} + {s, t, th}
• s + {p, t, ŧ, c}
• ch + {t, ŧ}
• c + {th, s}

Permitted medial clusters are, roughly, those which begin like final clusters, may or may not have an "intersection" segment and end like initial clusters.

Vowel hiatus

Vowels hiatus if a /*ʔ/ (or sometimes /*h/ or /*j/) used to be between them. If the vowel is not part of the diphthong and it has low tone it is marked with the grave accent.

Examples:

• lōsóè 'blue' (f. sg. attr. indef.)

Phonological rules

• *mʔ, *nʔ, *lʔ, *rʔ > mp, nt, lt, rt
• *mh, *nh, *lh, *rh > mf, nth, lth, rth
• coronal obstruent + sibilant_i > sibilant_isibilant_i
• CC[+resonant]{C, #} > CyC[+resonant]{C, #}
  • Cyj{C, #} > Ci{C, #}
• CC[-resonant]C > CiC[-resonant]C
• jy[ː] > i[ː]
• z > r / V_C[-semivowel, +voiced, ~{/z/}]
• h > [ː~] / _C[+fricative]
• *ʔ > [ː~] / _C
• c > ch / _{d, t, ŧ}
• *tk, *ck *tkʰ > cht, chŧ, cth
• q
  • > ħ / _{t, ŧ}
  • > v / _C[+voiced +obstruent]
• nr > ndr, lr > ldr

• -ms (m, c): instrument noun; éðħams: trophy, prize
• -noth- (c): capable/worthy of patienthood, [verb]-able; (vingái 'die' > vinganóth 'mortal', frínqái 'to despair' > frínqanóth 'futile, vain')
• -őf- (c): weaker pejorative, "just some"
• -org- (th): pejorative
• -re (f, c, less productive): patient/resultative; gavȳ̌re 'small piece, exemplar' < gavȳnî 'take out, examine'; pastáre 'staircase, scale, program, protocol' < pastái 'stratify, layer'
• -se (f, c): singulative
• -tán (f, c) "[noun] material" híchatán 'batter' < híchái 'bake'
• -tv- (c) [noun]-like
• -yng- (plural, c): associative plural
• -ȳré (f, g): place noun (ā́thym 'holy' > ā́thmȳré 'shrine, sanctuary')
• -ýthe (f, c): state of being [adjective], most often used for mental states; probably related to ýthe 'color, manner'

Verbs

• -scái/-ái (less productive): cause to be [adjective] (ðúoscái 'lengthen'; qēscái 'strengthen'; ārdái 'magnify, greaten, enlarge')
• -inái: do the action of [noun]
• -trī́: intensive
• -dm- iterative
• -achlái: :see/depict as
• -ðħái: un-, dis- (intransitive)
• -brī́: un-, dis- (transitive)
• -(i/u)t- (with tone change): transitivizer (not productive)

Compounding

Compounding and incorporation is the main, characteristically Themsaran method of derivation.

Noun-adjective compounding occurs by removing the ending of the noun (and inserting -o- for first declension, -e- for second declennsion, and -i- for third declension of the noun if phonotactically required). If the compound is a noun with a supplemental meaning by the adjective, the lexical tone is that of the noun; on the contrary, as an adjective with the meaning colored by the noun, the lexical tone is adopted from the adjective. (e.g. cólyn (1st decl., high tone) + simáttym (accent paradigm c) = cólnosimáttym 'wind' + 'northern' = 'north wind'; sōrachráth 'royalty, royal household' < sôr 'house' + achráth 'royal'; post-classical neologisms include ðálfaromīdáth tradition < ðál- 'passing, transmission' + fáromīdáth 'legitimate'; thilqārdé 'broadsword, claymore' < thilqé 'sword' + ârd 'big, great').

Compounds headed by the final noun are largely 'kind of noun' compounds (noun-noun/adj-noun) and are much less productive than the right-branching ones often of a noun-adjective form.

Verb-verb compounding also occurs, e.g. duaħivingī́ 'go extinct, perish, die out' < duaħī́ 'fade, be erased' + vingī́ 'die'.

Incorporation

Nouns and adverbs can be incorporated into verbs as they can into adjectives. This is primarily a derivational, rather than grammatical, device.

qḗdmoplaħemā́m

may he grant strength to us

Personal names

Names are often from definite/possessed nouns, definite or predicative adjectives, and verb forms.

Literature

Zinnṓðrir

Zinnṓðrir or simply nṓðrir (plurale tantum) is the Themsaran term for rhymed prose, a very popular literary form for oratory and other didactic works in both classical and post-classical periods, but not uncommon either for ordinary descriptive writings.

Poetry

The criteria to be considered poetry is for there to be a quantitative meter pattern in addition to rhyming.

Sample texts

Look, a bānner!

Ymbānscávasar gávthe mī́ cḗmērā́c.

This language was made to attract fame/renown at one time.

Énħēn lāmennīdī́r chīriī́diī ie arvētnothī́diī íe máugamalánī, arramlévas bānscivā́sī.

Because of the bestness of its fineness, its believability and its ways of using, its being made to attract fame was agreed upon.