This article is about the language. For a resident of the Outer Belt or Moonlitter, see The Outlands

Like all yinrih languages, Outlander possesses a very small phoneme inventory when analyzed from a human perspective. The language relies instead on subtle changes in pitch and volume to carry most of the meaning.

It's mostly a CTRL+C, CTRL+V of Commonthroat with the following changes:

• Gemination is allowed within morphemes, not just at morpheme boundaries. Yips may not be geminated.
• In addition to short, long, early, and late, there is an overlong timing. Overlong syllables occur in a few restricted environments.
• Two new tone contours: peaking (low high low) and dipping (high low high)
• Two new strength contours: cresting (weak strong weak) and troughing (strong weak strong)
• Overlong syllables may only occur alongside one of these new contours.

Outlander uses a symmetric voice system. Focus is marked by syntax, with the focus coming first in the sentence. Verbs are marked for the role of the focus, with actor, object, benefactor, reason, being indicated. Other possible forms include locative and instrumental.

Word order is FVA (focus verb arguments).

Order is Actor, Object, Benefactor…?

Much like Spanish or French, Outlander uses a politeness distinction in its pronouns. This distinction is used in the third person as well as the second person as is seen in Spanish or French.

The Outlander term for this is qghrh /huff, short low strengthening growl; chuff, short low strong growl/, which means obligation or duty. It conveys the social relationship between the speaker and the referent of the pronoun.

The lowest form of obligation is transactional. This is the default form you use when you're not sure what else to use.

The next form is the amicable. It's used between friends. In some more pious corners of Moonlitter, and especially in the indipendent spacer city-state Wayfarers' Haven, humans are always addressed with amicable pronouns even in situations where the transactional form would be appropriate. The transactional/amicable distinction is quickly evolving into a species distinction.

The highest form is the familial, which is used between parents and their pups and between litter mates. Some groups of very good friends may use familial pronouns among themselves, but this is not universal. It usually occurs when friends meet as pups and stay close into adulthood.

It's very important to note that obligation is seen as a reciprocal relationship. Addressing someone with familial pronouns doesn't jsut mean “I think of you as family” but also “I expect you to treat me like family”. Using more familiar pronouns when a less familiar form is expected is often seen as rude or even vulgar in some contexts, especially when a customer addresses an employee, or when employees of a business address one another. It's seen as burdening the listener with unwelcome obligations or implying a level of closeness that hasn't yet been earned.

Personal Pronouns

1st person

SINGULAR   PLURAL INCLUSIVE   PLURAL EXCLUSIVE (Moonlitter only)
---------- ------------------ ------------------------------------
lum        pan                lumq

2nd and 3rd person

Transactional

Person       SINGULAR   PLURAL
------------ ---------- --------
2ND PERSON   rb         rB
3RD PERSON   rc         rC

Amicable

Person       SINGULAR   PLURAL
------------ ---------- --------
2ND PERSON   sg         sG
3RD PERSON   sj         sJ

Familial

Person       SINGULAR   PLURAL
------------ ---------- --------
2ND PERSON   qm         qM
3RD PERSON   qp         qP

Reverential

Person       SINGULAR   PLURAL
------------ ---------- --------
2ND PERSON   rgr        rgr
3RD PERSON   rkr        rkr

Demonstrative Pronouns

DEIXIS     SINGULAR   PLURAL
---------- ---------- --------
PROXIMAL   Lr         Lrl
DISTAL     Mr         Mrm

Nouns

Attributive and possessive postpositions.

Ooutlander distinguishes possession and attribution. possession is marked with the postposition n /short high weak grunt/, and attribution is marked with the attributive postposition g /short low weak growl/. g covers situations such as composition and association, while n refers specifically to possession. As a rough rule, you use n whenever English would use -'s.

  sPL    g   mrrBqqb
  animal ATT healer
  veterinarian

  Jh    g   sFb
  grass ATT sea
  steppe 

  Mr   khqkh n   gqqgh
  that guy   POS tail
  That guy's tail

Verbs

Verbs inflect for the semantic role of the main noun in the clause, called the focus or the subject. This is different from its syntactic role. In the English sentence The dog bit the man, the dog is the syntactic subject and the semantic agent, while the man is the syntactic object and the semantic patient. In English, we flip this relationship by using the passive voice. The man was bitten by the dog. Here, The man is the syntactic subject but the semantic patient. The dog is now an optional oblique argument syntacticlaly, but it's still the semantic agent.

verb paradigm

Focus          NON-PAST   PAST
-------------- ---------- ------
Actor          -          -qJ
Object         -sd        -sD
Benefactor     -rn        -rN
Reason         -qln       -qLN
Locative       -sfb       -sFB
Instrumental   -rjk       -rJK

Nonpast Tense Actor Focus

  bfb gkg lpl
  bfb gkg-0     lpl
  pup climb-ACT tree
  The pup climbs the tree

Past Tense Actor Focus

  bfb gkgqJ  lpl
  bfb gkg-qJ lpl
  pup climb-ACT.P tree
  The pup climbed the tree.
  The pup was climbing the tree.

Nonpast Tense Object Focus

  lpl gkgsd bfb
  lpl  gkg-sd       bfb
  tree climb-OBJ    pup
  the tree is climbed by the pup.

Past Tense Object Focus

  lpl gkgsD bfb
  lpl  gkgsD       bfb
  tree climb-OBJ.P pup
  The tree was climbed by the pup.

Nonpast Tense Benefactor Focus

  lpl gkgrn bfb
  lpl  gkg-rn bfb
  tree climb-BEN.NP pup
  For the tree, the pup climbs [something].

Past Tense Benefactor Focus

  lpl gkgrN bfb
  lpl  gkg-rN bfb
  tree climb-BEN.P pup
  For the tree, the pup climbed [something]

The order of arguments

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but here's how the different verb endings change syntax.

agent verb-ACT patient benefactor/indirect object patient verb-OBJ agent benefactor benefactor verb-BEN agent patient cause verb-CAU agent(?) patient benefactor

Marking Uncertainty

Outlander marks uncertainty, which covers both interrogatives and a mood similar to Commonthroat's nonauthoritative.

Uncertainty is marked with a particle placed at the beginning of the sentence, it is a reduplicated and reduced form of the following syllable, phonologically separate from the following word.

The particle consists of the onset consonant, if any, of the following syllable, followed by a single short plain vowel nearest to the start of the vowel of the following syllable. Rising strengthening vowels will become low weak, dipping weakening vowels will become high strong, and so on. When the following word is already a single short plain syllable, the particle is a reduplication of the whole word.

Etymologically, this particle may have evolved out of a characteristic stutter when the speaker is unsure of what they're saying.

  rb sPsPqJ lum
  rb     sPsP-qJ    lum
  2sg.TR seek-ACT.P 1sg
  You were looking for me.

  rb rb sPsPqJ lum
  rb   rb     sPsP-qJ    lum
  UNC  2sg.TR seek-ACT.P 1sg
  Were you looking for me?
  You were looking for me?

  l lum sPsPsD rb?
  l   lum sPsP-sD    rb
  UNC 1sg seek-OBJ.P 2sg.TR
  You were looking for ME?

Reflexive phrases

A reflexive meaning can be given to a noun phrase by using the word beb /overlong peaking weak whine/ which means self or soul along with the possessive postposition n.

  rb     n   beb
  2sg.TR POS self
  yourself

Yip Stems

Yips cannot end a syllable, but some words and affixes end in an implied yip that manifests in different ways when an affix is added.

For example the word rgug(s) (mud volcano, geyser) is pronounced and written rgug when in the singular (which is unfortunately identical to the word for cloaca, which many pups and pups at heart find amusing.) In the plural, we would expect *rgugq, but because of the implied yip, the word takes the form of the plural suffix used for words ending in a consonant, -ql, yielding rgugqql.

So for yip stems, if a following suffix ends in a vowel, the yip is pronounced. If the suffix begins with a huff or chuff, the huff or chuff is geminated.

Imperatives

The imperative is formed with a special imperative pronoun kr /short high strong growl, chuff/. It is in the 2nd person and does not reflect obligation or number in either the standard Moonlitter or Partisan dialects, but the dialect spoken at Pilgrims' Rest, and subsequently at Wayfarers' Haven, has innovated a plural form krql.

  kr qjK sg n rKGq
  kr    qjK-0    sg      n   rKG-q
  2.IMP wash-ACT 2sg.AMI POS paw-PL
  Wash your paws.

Verbs in imperative sentences can be in the past tense. In this case they carry the notion that something should have been done but wasn't.

  kr qjKqJ sg n rKGq
  kr    qjK-qJ     sg      n   rKG-q
  2.IMP wash-ACT.P 2sg.AMI POS paw-PL
  You should have washed your paws.

Verbs can also be inflected for other focuses besides the actor focus.

  sg n rKGq qjKsd kr
  sg      n   rKG-q  qjK-sd   kr
  2sg.AMI POS paw-PL wash-OBJ 2.IMP
  Your paws must be washed.
  Your paws, wash them.

  sg n rKGq qjKsD kr
  sg      n   rKG-q  qjK-sD kr
  2sg.AMI POS paw-PL wash-OBJ 2.IMP
  Your paws should have been washed.
  Your paws, you should have washed them.

Expressing similes

mlem /short low strong grunt; overlong peaking strengthening grunt/ means likeness or image or “something similar to something else”. To express similes, you follow a noun phrase with g mlem eg mrBqqb g mlem literally “healer likeness” means “like a healer”.

To say “X is like Y” you use the copula sb, which per an earlier post is actually transitive. It means that the actor is among the set of entities denoted by the object.

  mqgrrgsdq sb rgugq g mlem
  mqgrrgsd-q sb-0    rgug-q    g   mlem
  opinion-PL COP-ACT cloaca-PL ATT likeness
  Opinions are like Cloacas.

g mlem may have fossilized into a postpositive that can be appended to whole sentences and not just noun phrases to simply mean “like”

More uses for the attributive postposition

The locative focus may be used with time phrases

verb-verb compounds

expressing inclination or desire

You can use the verb qlem to smell like, to feel an emotion in front of a subordinate verb to mean to be inclined to. Unlike Commonthroat's serial verb constructions, the second verb is inflected in the subordinate state.

  lum qlem bqrMr sjGq
  lum qlem-0         SUB-rMr-0  sjGq
  1sg smell_like-ACT bq-eat-ACT fruit
  I smell like eating fruit.

The verb endings must match (for now).

  sjGq qlemsd bqrMrsd lum
  sjGq  qlem-sd        SUB-rMr-sd lum 
  fruit smell_like-OBJ bq-eat-OBJ 1sg
  It's fruit a smell like eating.