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| <span id="outlander"></span>
| | {{Category:Stories}} |
| = Outlander =
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| ''This article is about the language. For a resident of the Outer Belt<br />
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| or Moonlitter, see [The Outlands](The Outlands)''
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| <span id="phonology"></span>
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| == Phonology ==
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| Like all yinrih languages, Outlander possesses a very small phoneme<br />
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| inventory when analyzed from a human perspective. The language relies<br />
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| instead on subtle changes in pitch and volume to carry most of the<br />
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| meaning.
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| It's mostly a CTRL+C, CTRL+V of Commonthroat with the following changes:
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| * Gemination is allowed within morphemes, not just at morpheme boundaries. Yips may not be geminated.
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| * In addition to short, long, early, and late, there is an overlong timing. Overlong syllables occur in a few restricted environments.
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| * Two new tone contours: peaking (low high low) and dipping (high low high)
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| * Two new strength contours: cresting (weak strong weak) and troughing (strong weak strong)
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| * Overlong syllables may only occur alongside one of these new contours.
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| <span id="vowels"></span>
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| === Vowels ===
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| {| class="wikitable"
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| |-
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| ! Phonation
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| ! Tone
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| ! Weak
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| !
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| ! Strong
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| !
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| |-
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| | Short
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| | Long
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| | Short
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| | Long
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| |-
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| | Whine
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| | High
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| | d
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| | D
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| | f
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| | F
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| |-
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| | Low
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| | b
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| | B
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| | c
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| | C
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| |-
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| | Growl
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| | High
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| | j
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| | J
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| | k
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| | K
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| |-
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| | Low
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| | g
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| | G
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| | h
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| | H
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| |-
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| | Grunt
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| | High
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| | n
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| | N
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| | p
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| | P
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| |-
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| | Low
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| | l
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| | L
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| | m
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| | M
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| |}
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| <span id="contour-midpoints"></span>
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| ==== Contour Midpoints ====
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| Sound Symbol
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| -----
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| low a<br />
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| high e<br />
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| weak o<br />
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| strong u
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| <span id="consonants"></span>
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| ==== Consonants ====
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| {| class="wikitable"
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| |-
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| ! Sound
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| ! Symbol
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| |-
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| | huff
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| | q
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| |-
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| | chuff
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| | r
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| |-
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| | yip
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| | s
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| |}
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| <span id="grammar"></span>
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| === Grammar ===
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| Outlander uses a symmetric voice system. Focus is marked by syntax, with<br />
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| the focus coming first in the sentence. Verbs are marked for the role of<br />
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| the focus, with actor, object, benefactor, reason, being indicated.<br />
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| Other possible forms include locative and instrumental.
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| Word order is FVA (focus verb arguments).
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| Order is Actor, Object, Benefactor...?
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| <span id="pronouns"></span>
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| === Pronouns ===
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| Much like Spanish or French, Outlander uses a politeness distinction in<br />
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| its pronouns. This distinction is used in the third person as well as<br />
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| the second person as is seen in Spanish or French.
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| The Outlander term for this is qghrh /huff, short low strengthening<br />
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| growl; chuff, short low strong growl/, which means obligation or duty.<br />
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| It conveys the social relationship between the speaker and the referent<br />
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| of the pronoun.
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| The lowest form of obligation is transactional. This is the default form<br />
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| you use when you're not sure what else to use.
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| The next form is the amicable. It's used between friends. In some more<br />
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| pious corners of Moonlitter, and especially in the indipendent spacer<br />
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| city-state Wayfarers' Haven, humans are always addressed with amicable<br />
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| pronouns even in situations where the transactional form would be<br />
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| appropriate. The transactional/amicable distinction is quickly evolving<br />
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| into a species distinction.
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| The highest form is the familial, which is used between parents and<br />
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| their pups and between litter mates. Some groups of very good friends<br />
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| may use familial pronouns among themselves, but this is not universal.<br />
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| It usually occurs when friends meet as pups and stay close into<br />
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| adulthood.
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| It's very important to note that obligation is seen as a reciprocal<br />
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| relationship. Addressing someone with familial pronouns doesn't jsut<br />
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| mean "I think of you as family" but also "I expect you to treat me<br />
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| like family". Using more familiar pronouns when a less familiar form<br />
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| is expected is often seen as rude or even vulgar in some contexts,<br />
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| especially when a customer addresses an employee, or when employees of a<br />
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| business address one another. It's seen as burdening the listener with<br />
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| unwelcome obligations or implying a level of closeness that hasn't yet<br />
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| been earned.
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| <span id="personal-pronouns"></span>
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| ==== Personal Pronouns ====
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| <span id="st-person"></span>
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| ===== 1st person =====
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| Singular Plural Inclusive Plural Exclusive
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| -----
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| lum pan lumq
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| <span id="nd-and-3rd-person"></span>
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| ===== 2nd and 3rd person =====
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| Obligation Person Singular Plural
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| -----
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| Transactional 2nd rb rB<br />
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| ::: 3rd rc rC<br />
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| Amicable 2nd sg sG<br />
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| ::: 3rd sj sJ<br />
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| Familial 2nd qm qM<br />
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| ::: 3rd qp qP<br />
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| Reverential 2nd rgr rgr<br />
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| ::: 3rd rkr rkr
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| <span id="demonstrative-pronouns"></span>
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| ===== Demonstrative Pronouns =====
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| Deixis Singular Plural
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| -----
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| Proximal Lr Lrl<br />
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| Distal Mr Mrm
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| <span id="nouns"></span>
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| ==== Nouns ====
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| <span id="attributive-and-possessive-postpositions"></span>
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| ===== Attributive and possessive postpositions =====
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| Ooutlander distinguishes possession and attribution. possession is<br />
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| marked with the postposition n /short high weak grunt/, and attribution<br />
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| is marked with the attributive postposition g /short low weak growl/. g<br />
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| covers situations such as composition and association, while n refers<br />
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| specifically to possession. As a rough rule, you use n whenever English<br />
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| would use -'s.
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| <pre> sPL g mrrBqqb
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| animal ATT healer
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| veterinarian
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| Jh g sFb
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| grass ATT sea
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| steppe
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| Mr khqkh n gqqgh
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| that guy POS tail
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| That guy's tail</pre>
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| Verbs
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| Verbs inflect for the semantic role of the main noun in the clause,<br />
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| called the focus or the subject. This is different from its syntactic<br />
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| role. In the English sentence The dog bit the man, the dog is the<br />
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| syntactic subject and the semantic agent, while the man is the syntactic<br />
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| object and the semantic patient. In English, we flip this relationship<br />
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| by using the passive voice. The man was bitten by the dog. Here, The man<br />
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| is the syntactic subject but the semantic patient. The dog is now an<br />
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| optional oblique argument syntacticlaly, but it's still the semantic<br />
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| agent.
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| verb paradigm
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| Focus non past past
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| -----
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| Actor - -qJ<br />
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| Object -sd -sD<br />
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| Benefactor -rn -rN<br />
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| Reason -qln -qLN<br />
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| Locative -sfb -sFB<br />
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| Instrumental -rjk -rJK
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| Nonpast Tense Actor Focus
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| <pre> bfb gkg lpl
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| bfb gkg-0 lpl
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| pup climb-ACT tree
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| The pup climbs the tree</pre>
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| Past Tense Actor Focus
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| <pre> bfb gkgqJ lpl
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| bfb gkg-qJ lpl
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| pup climb-ACT.P tree
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| The pup climbed the tree.
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| The pup was climbing the tree.</pre>
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| Nonpast Tense Object Focus
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| <pre> lpl gkgsd bfb
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| lpl gkg-sd bfb
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| tree climb-OBJ pup
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| the tree is climbed by the pup.</pre>
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| Past Tense Object Focus
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| <pre> lpl gkgsD bfb
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| lpl gkgsD bfb
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| tree climb-OBJ.P pup
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| The tree was climbed by the pup.</pre>
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| Nonpast Tense Benefactor Focus
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| <pre> lpl gkgrn bfb
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| lpl gkg-rn bfb
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| tree climb-BEN.NP pup
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| For the tree, the pup climbs [something].</pre>
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| Past Tense Benefactor Focus
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| <pre> lpl gkgrN bfb
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| lpl gkg-rN bfb
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| tree climb-BEN.P pup
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| For the tree, the pup climbed [something]</pre>
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| The order of arguments
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| I don't think I've mentioned this before, but here's how the different<br />
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| verb endings change syntax.
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| agent verb-ACT patient benefactor/indirect object patient verb-OBJ agent<br />
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| benefactor benefactor verb-BEN agent patient cause verb-CAU agent(?)<br />
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| patient benefactor
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| Marking Uncertainty
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| Outlander marks uncertainty, which covers both interrogatives and a mood<br />
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| similar to Commonthroat's nonauthoritative.
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| Uncertainty is marked with a particle placed at the beginning of the<br />
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| sentence, it is a reduplicated and reduced form of the following<br />
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| syllable, phonologically separate from the following word.
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| The particle consists of the onset consonant, if any, of the following<br />
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| syllable, followed by a single short plain vowel nearest to the start of<br />
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| the vowel of the following syllable. Rising strengthening vowels will<br />
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| become low weak, dipping weakening vowels will become high strong, and<br />
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| so on. When the following word is already a single short plain syllable,<br />
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| the particle is a reduplication of the whole word.
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| Etymologically, this particle may have evolved out of a characteristic<br />
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| stutter when the speaker is unsure of what they're saying.
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| <pre> rb sPsPqJ lum
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| rb sPsP-qJ lum
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| 2sg.TR seek-ACT.P 1sg
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| You were looking for me.
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| rb rb sPsPqJ lum
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| rb rb sPsP-qJ lum
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| UNC 2sg.TR seek-ACT.P 1sg
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| Were you looking for me?
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| You were looking for me?
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| l lum sPsPsD rb?
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| l lum sPsP-sD rb
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| UNC 1sg seek-OBJ.P 2sg.TR
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| You were looking for ME?</pre>
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| Reflexive phrases
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| A reflexive meaning can be given to a noun phrase by using the word beb<br />
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| /overlong peaking weak whine/ which means self or soul along with the<br />
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| possessive postposition n.
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| <pre> rb n beb
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| 2sg.TR POS self
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| yourself</pre>
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| Yip Stems
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| Yips cannot end a syllable, but some words and affixes end in an implied<br />
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| yip that manifests in different ways when an affix is added.
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| For example the word rgug(s) (mud volcano, geyser) is pronounced and<br />
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| written rgug when in the singular (which is unfortunately identical to<br />
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| the word for cloaca, which many pups and pups at heart find amusing.) In<br />
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| the plural, we would expect *rgugq, but because of the implied yip, the<br />
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| word takes the form of the plural suffix used for words ending in a<br />
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| consonant, -ql, yielding rgugqql.
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| So for yip stems, if a following suffix ends in a vowel, the yip is<br />
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| pronounced. If the suffix begins with a huff or chuff, the huff or chuff<br />
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| is geminated.
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| Imperatives
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| The imperative is formed with a special imperative pronoun kr /short<br />
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| high strong growl, chuff/. It is in the 2nd person and does not reflect<br />
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| obligation or number in either the standard Moonlitter or Partisan<br />
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| dialects, but the dialect spoken at Pilgrims' Rest, and subsequently at<br />
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| Wayfarers' Haven, has innovated a plural form krql.
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| <pre> kr qjK sg n rKGq
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| kr qjK-0 sg n rKG-q
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| 2.IMP wash-ACT 2sg.AMI POS paw-PL
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| Wash your paws.</pre>
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| Verbs in imperative sentences can be in the past tense. In this case<br />
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| they carry the notion that something should have been done but wasn't.
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| <pre> kr qjKqJ sg n rKGq
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| kr qjK-qJ sg n rKG-q
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| 2.IMP wash-ACT.P 2sg.AMI POS paw-PL
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| You should have washed your paws.</pre>
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| Verbs can also be inflected for other focuses besides the actor focus.
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| <pre> sg n rKGq qjKsd kr
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| sg n rKG-q qjK-sd kr
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| 2sg.AMI POS paw-PL wash-OBJ 2.IMP
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| Your paws must be washed.
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| Your paws, wash them.
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| sg n rKGq qjKsD kr
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| sg n rKG-q qjK-sD kr
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| 2sg.AMI POS paw-PL wash-OBJ 2.IMP
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| Your paws should have been washed.
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| Your paws, you should have washed them.</pre>
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| Expressing similes
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| mlem /short low strong grunt; overlong peaking strengthening grunt/<br />
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| means likeness or image or "something similar to something else". To<br />
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| express similes, you follow a noun phrase with g mlem eg mrBqqb g mlem<br />
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| literally "healer likeness" means "like a healer".
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| To say "X is like Y" you use the copula sb, which per an earlier<br />
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| post is actually transitive. It means that the actor is among the set of<br />
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| entities denoted by the object.
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| <pre> mqgrrgsdq sb rgugq g mlem
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| mqgrrgsd-q sb-0 rgug-q g mlem
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| opinion-PL COP-ACT cloaca-PL ATT likeness
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| Opinions are like Cloacas.</pre>
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| g mlem may have fossilized into a postpositive that can be appended to<br />
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| whole sentences and not just noun phrases to simply mean "like"
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| More uses for the attributive postposition
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| The locative focus may be used with time phrases
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| verb-verb compounds
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| expressing inclination or desire
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| You can use the verb qlem to smell like, to feel an emotion in front of<br />
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| a subordinate verb to mean to be inclined to. Unlike Commonthroat's<br />
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| serial verb constructions, the second verb is inflected in the<br />
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| subordinate state.
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| <pre> lum qlem bqrMr sjGq
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| lum qlem-0 SUB-rMr-0 sjGq
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| 1sg smell_like-ACT bq-eat-ACT fruit
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| I smell like eating fruit.</pre>
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| The verb endings must match (for now).
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| <pre> sjGq qlemsd bqrMrsd lum
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| sjGq qlem-sd bq-eat-OBJ 1sg
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| fruit smell_like-OBJ SUB-rMr-sd lum
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| It's fruit a smell like eating.
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| </pre>
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| <span class="internal-embed" src="tag>language"></span>
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