Difference between revisions of "Redentran Musescorian"

Phonotactics

A Redentran Musescorian syllable includes a syllable nucleus consisting of a vowel sound or a vocalic consonant sound (one of l̩, ɬ̩, m̩, n̩, r̩, or r̥̍). Syllable onset and coda (start and end) are optional. A syllable can start with up to four consonant sounds, as in ẋbrjotna /ˈʒbrjot.na/, and can end with up to two, as in vilndra /ˈβiln.dra/. This gives Redentran Musescorian syllables the structure (CCCC)V(CC), where C represents a consonant and V a vowel or vocalic consonant. The consonants which may appear together in onsets or codas are restricted, as is the order in which they may appear. Onsets can have nine different types of clusters: a stop and approximant or trill, as in prokses /pr̥okˈsɛs/; a fricative and an approximant or trill, as in xlas /ʃlas/; a fricative and a stop, as in xterna /ˈʃtɛr.na/; a fricative, a stop, and an approximant or trill, as in sklhrhlnu /sklɛrˈeln.u/; l or r and j or w, as in rwuno /ˈrwu.no/; a stop, l or r, and j or w, as in trjaty /tr̥jatʰ/; a fricative, l or r, and j or w, as in flwar /ɸlwar/; a fricative, a stop, l or r, and j or w, as in ẋbrjotna /ˈʒbrjot.na/; a nasal and j or w, as in mwoða /ˈmwo.ða/; or an affricate and j, as in ċjudikaro /d͡ʒjuˈdi.kar.o/. Codas are much more limited, and can only contain two types of cluster: an approximant or trill followed by a nasal; and a trill followed by an unvoiced stop. The consonant produced by the apostrophe cannot be used in any onset clusters, and cannot be used at all in the coda.

Stress and Rhythm

Stress, while not phonemic, is still integral to understanding the language, as it gives an indication of what vowels are being used in the word. Since Redentran Musescorian vowels are often reduced, the stress allows the vowels to be determined. Stress in Redentran Musescorian is a combination of duration, intensity, and pitch. Stressed syllables are pronounced longer and louder than unstressed syllables, and are often pronounced at a higher pitch than the rest of the word.

Stress can occur anywhere in the word, but often tends to fall on either the first or last syllable. Classically, stress falls on the last front vowel (ay, e, ej, h, hj, i, iy) in the word, or on the first syllable containing a vowel if there is no front vowel in the word (i.e. all the vowels are one of a, aj, ij, o, oj, u, uy, y). For nouns, the stress always falls within the noun stem and never within a prepositional prefix; thus the word davanardok is stressed as davanárdok, not dávanardok. Syllables whose vocalic component is a vocalic consonant can never be stressed. When stress does not fall on the classic syllable (as in many loan words), the stress is marked using an acute accent. This marker is also used in dictionaries. Below is a list of words with the stressed syllable bolded.

• Redentro (Redentro)
• Gutaril (Slide)
• Kardrajv (To drive a car)
• Zuala (Blue)
• Mjelifjum (In front of the river)
• Kárwh (Highway)
• Rh́tijo (Ratio)

In terms of rhythm, Redentran Musescorian is a stress-timed language, with stressed syllables being noticeably longer than unstressed syllables; however, there are also breaks between words and long groups of consonants can also extend syllables, which is uncharacteristic of this type of timing. Timing is very lax in Redentran Musescorian, and often is abandoned entirely, especially in poetic settings.

Writing System

Alphabet

Redentran Musescorian is written with 25 letters of the basic Latin script (the letter "q" is not used), with the acute accent appearing on vowels, and a dot above appearing in "ċ" and "ẋ". There are also two other letters, "þ" and "ð", and the apostrophe is also used as a sound-producing character. Below is a chart of the letters of Redentran Musescorian.

Orthography

Generally, Redentran Musescorian does not preserve obsolete pronunciation rules, except in the case of a few digraph merges, notably the ij-aj merge, the ej-hj merge, and the er-hr merge. It is considered more important to have the spelling reflect the pronunciation of the word than to have the historical spelling of the word preserved. Additionally, there have been relatively few pronunciation changes in Redentran Musescorian vocabulary since the codification of the alphabet system. This means that generally there is one letter for each phoneme and one phoneme for each letter (although these phonemes occasionally have multiple pronunciations.

Redentran Musescorian does not have pronounced gemination, but written gemination can occur in compound words, for example "Mjuzskorrun". If the compound word expresses the meanings of the constituent words, then gemination is usually preserved (for example "fjummarðaċjov", "a port on a river" is spelled with a double m showing its composition "fjum + marðaċjov", "river + port"). If the compound word no longer expresses the meanings of its constituents, as is the case with many place names, the written gemination is often dropped (for example "Redentro", composed of "Red+dentro", "people here + rest" is no longer spelled "Reddentro" as in Old Musescorian). Gemination is also preserved in compound words ending with "r" whose final vowel should therefore be rhotic. This is the case with words like "Mjuzskorrun", which still contains the geminate r even though the root "Mjuzskor" has no real meaning in Redentran Musescorian.

There are, in addition to the twenty-nine letters of the alphabet, nine additional digraph vowels, which are as follows:

• aj, ij: aɪ̯
• au: /aʊ̯/
• ay: /æ/
• ej, hj: /eɪ̯/
• iy: /ɪ/
• oj: /oɪ̯/
• uy: /ʌ/

The acute accent is used to indicate that the stress in the word is on the marked syllable instead of the syllable it would regularly be on.

Grammar

The grammar of Redentran Musescorian is very similar to that of colloquial Mityazyanda, with several of Mityazyanda's quirks, including the lack of any articles. One of Mityazyanda's quirks is notably missing from Redentran Musescorian; the language does not use Mityazyanda's case system, instead using a prefix (ke-) to denote possession and relation, and a separate word (luy) to denote conjunction. This use of prefixes as prepositions means that Redentran Musescorian is agglutinative, while Musescorian is much more isolating. Redentran Musescorian does not use formal Mityazyanda's sentence structure system, instead using the simplified system of SVO word order used by colloquial Mityazyanda. The language distinguishes four major word classes: verbs, nouns, adjuncts (adverbs and adjectives), conjunctions. These word classes are exemplified in the following sentence:

Nouns

Redentran Musescorian nouns are only inflected for number, but can also take one or more prepositional prefixes denoting them as either secondary nouns or indirect objects. They are semantically divided into proper nouns (names) and common nouns, and grammatically divided into countable and uncountable nouns. Countable nouns are inflected for number, while uncountable nouns are always used in the plural inflection. This is different from Musescorian, where uncountables are always used in the singular inflection. Generally, nouns are inflected for plural number through the use of the plural suffix "-(h)þ", but nouns ending in "i" use the alternative suffix "-ð", and some nouns have irregular plural forms.

Regular Plural formation:

Singular: 'omis, klmarða, rhunẋi

Plural: 'omishþ, klmarðaþ, rhunẋið

Irregular plural formation:

Singular: ðjhẋ, framox, bhfrax, paylux, arinvi, erdi

Plural: ðjhð, framoþ, bhfra'ið, payluþ, arinviþ, erdiþ

Prepositional prefixes

Nouns in Redentran Musescorian can be declined into cases through the use of prepositional prefixes. These indicate possession (xi'e), spatial relation (enh, aph, aprh, etc.), temporal relation (dava, per, etc.), origin (per), direction (da, etc.), and general relation (ke), among other things. Notably missing from the system is any subject-object distinction. These are determined entirely through word order. Most of these can be used to denote an indirect object phrase. Below is a table of some prepositional prefixes and their meanings:

Pronouns

Unlike in English, Redentran Musescorian pronouns are unambiguously considered to be nouns. This is because pronouns work in the place of nouns both syntactically and functionally in all situations. Pronouns in Redentran Musescorian can take prepositional prefixes in exactly the same way as regular nouns. However, pronouns do not inflect for pluralness in the same way as nouns.

Pronouns are used to refer to entities deictically or anaphorically. A deictic pronoun points to some person or object by identifying it relative to the speech situation. For example, the pronoun mi refers to the speaker and the pronoun el refers to the addressee. Anaphorical pronouns such as ed and þot, refer to an entity already mentioned or assumed by the speaker to be known by the audience.

Verbs

Redentran Musescorian verbs are inflected agglutinatively for tense, mood, and negativity. The copula verb era has inflection for active (era) and passive (erak) linking, although the copula verb va, which is interchangeable, does not. Negation is indicated with the addition of the prefix n(e)-.

Most verbs have seven tenses. The primary forms are the infinitive, simple present, simple past, simple future, active participle, passive participle, and conditional tenses. The present tense is marked with the suffix -(a)x, while the past is indicated with the prefix eb(h)-. The future tense is marked with the suffix -(i)nix. The active participle is marked with the prefix h(g)- and the suffix -(i)ċ, while the passive participle is marked with only the suffix -(i)ċ. The conditional tense is marked with the prefix þ(u)-. Perfect forms are indicated by adding the suffix -(h)ð to the simple tense form (after any other suffixes). Verbs can be negated by adding the prefix n(e)- to the verb (before any other prefixes). Compound tenses such as the past-present (eb(h)-(i)nix) are possible, but uncommon.

Asubjective verbs, or verbs used without a subject noun, denote in Redentran Musescorian either actions which are executed without an executor, as in the sentence "faylux," meaning "it is raining," or are used as nouns referring to that action, as in the sentence "peda vax nobazor," which means "running is difficult." Somewhat archaically, subjects may be placed after the objects to mean "at a time when...". An example of the latter usage may be found in the Redentran national anthem: "Nebhteneg friða an, neb’avi mir ’avix sran!", meaning "When we were not peaceful, we could not exist in the way that we now do."

Imperative sentences are formed by placing the verb first. The sentence then follows Verb–Subject–Object form. Historically, a prefix r(o) was also added to the subject, though this practice is becoming less common. Care should be taken to avoid confusing imperative ordering (VSO) with the archaic subject-last ordering described above (VOS).

Adjuncts

In Redentran Musescorian, adjuncts are used as both adjectives and adverbs. The same words, with no alteration, may be used to modify nouns and verbs by providing additional information about their referents. Adjuncts are placed before the noun or verb they modify, except in hyphenated sequences, and do not change to agree with their referents. For example, in the phrases friðaðo pajoza and friðaðo garzonhþ, the adjunct friðaðo does not change form to agree with the number of the noun.

Adjuncts are not inflected for degree of comparison; instead additional adjuncts are added in front of the adjunct periphrastically. The adjunct plen is placed in front of other adjuncts to indicate that the following adjunct applies strongly to its referent in the same way as the English word very. Mor is used to indicate comparatives. Mor plen indicates much more. Plen mor is used to indicate superlatives.

Syntax

Redentran Musescorian is mostly agglutinative. Particles are used to convey time, negation, and both spatial and temporal relationships. Word order plays an important role in parsing a sentence. It is a nominative–accusative language.

Basic constituent order

Redentran Musescorian word order, in contrast to that of Mityazyanda, is exclusively subject–verb–object (SVO). Word order is the only indication of whether a noun is a subject or an object. The subject precedes the verb and the objects follow it. The example below demonstrates this property:

Indirect objects are indicated through the use of a prepositional prefix, and when both indirect and direct objects are provided, indirect objects are presented immediately after the verb, and direct objects are after the indirect objects.

Clause syntax

In Redentran Musescorian, a sentence may be composed of one or more clauses, which may in turn be composed of one or more phrases. A clause is usually built around a verb, and includes its constituents. Within a sentence, there is always at least one main clause;other clauses may be subordinate to main clauses. Subordinate clauses may function as subject or objects to the verb in the main clause. They are marked in sentences using the special conjunctions go and rh. For example, in the sentence Mi tenegax go þot mjalox rh, "I have (the one) that moves," the main clause has the verb tenegax, but the object of the sentence is go þot mjalox rh, or "the one that moves."

There are three main types of subordinate clause in Redentran Musescorian. Relative clauses are clauses that function as a modifier or specifier to some part of the main sentence, and immediately follow that noun, as in the sentence Mi bhfrax apurebat go þot vax aprhfjum rh, "I live in the city that is on the river." In this sentence, the clause "that is on the river" describes the city. Absolute clauses are clauses that replace some part of the main sentence, as in the sentence Mi vergax go þot erakx þur, "I like (the one) that is over there," where there is no noun. Absolute clauses which replace indirect objects generate hyphenated sequences. The final type of subordinate clause is a verbal clause. Verbal clauses are applied to verbs, as in the sentence Ċugar vax go Jelmaþ durax mi rh hkasataċ, "Jelmaþ told me that Ċugar is getting married." Notice that, in order to rewrite the sentence in English, the primary and secondary clauses are switched. The actual word order is "Ċugar is [go] Jelmaþ tells me [rh] getting married." What distinguishes verbal clauses from absolute clauses is the use of the word þur (this) in the latter, but not in the former.

Carrythrough sentences are a feature unique to Redentran Musescorian which allows a sentence to have multiple main clauses. When the direct object of one sentence is the subject of the sentence immediately following it, the sentences may be merged, as in Vilman ebhvita gjutes eb’udina, "Vilman saw the teacher was cleaning." It is possible to write such sentences in English only through the use of secondary clauses, but in Redentran Musescorian, both of the clauses of this sentence recieve equal emphasis.

Hyphenated sequences

Hyphenated sequences are a quirk of Redentran Musescorian that evolved from the use of prepositional prefixes. Because prepositional prefixes derive from a noun declension system, they are only attached to nouns and numbers. For this reason, nouns that carry prepositional prefixes are placed before the adjuncts that modify them. This results in a need to differentiate between adjuncts which modify the indirect object and those that modify the direct object. In speech, this is achieved through timing and stress; adjuncts modifying indirect objects are spoken more quickly and in a staccato manner, while those modifying direct objects are spoken more slowly. In writing, adjuncts which modify indirect objects are chained to the indirect object using hyphens. For example, in the sentence El berniþ enhmarda-mix mi, meaning "He meets me at my house," "at my house" is enhmarda-mix. As mentioned above, relative clauses do not generate hyphenated sequences, but absolute clauses do. Compare Mi bhfrax apurebat go þot vax aprhfjum rh, "I live in the city that is on the river," with Mi bhfrax aphgo-þot-vax-aprhfum-rh., "I live in (the one) that is on the river."

Vocabulary

The vocabulary of Redentran Musescorian is vast, and it is impossible to know exactly how many words Redentran Musescorian (or any other language) has. Studies are still being done on the origins of many common words, because the necessary analysis of the linguistic corpora would have been nearly impossible without modern computers. Many word derivations are simply best-guesses.

Word origins

Writing System

The Grand Commonwealth of Redentro
Capital City: Thermapole (de facto)
Culture	Redentran Musescorian · Unity Day
Districts	Penzer · Thermapole and Mityazyanda · Umalura · Wirthal · Zdelmyor and Amaskurath
Major Cities	aprhFjum · Dhurgam · Koiz Pontidh · Mudhen · Penzer · Redentro City · Spertor · Thermapole · Wander · Wirthal
Indigenous Peoples	Mityazyanda · Zdelmyor · Amaskurath
Government	Council of Kings · Executive Congress · Legislative Congress
Geography	Amaskurath Forest · Blue River · Nepinzyu-Teryago · Zdelmyor Rainforest
Miscellany	Redentran Dollar