Features for Taruven

Share & Bookmark

Phonology

Consonant Inventories WALS Large

21 short consonants

bdfgjklmnprstvxzðþŋšž

The short consonants come in breathy/aspirated and normal versions, and may be geminated, for a total of 21*2*2: 84 consonants

1 ungeminatable short consonant

h

1 long consonant

ř

WALS doesn't mention geminated consonants at all, so assume a total of 44 consonants

Vowel Quality Inventories WALS Average (5-6)

6 short vowels

i y ʉ u
e
ɑ

6 long vowels

i:y: ʉ: u:
e:
ɑ:

25 attested diphthongs (grave = falling, acute = rising)

aà aá aì aò aó aỳ eà eá eì eò eỳ ià iá oá oé oì oò uá uì uí yá yè yé yó yú

Geminated consonants can also act as syllable nuclei.

WALS counts this as 6 vowel qualities

Consonant-Vowel Ratio WALS High

44 / 6 = 7 1/3, "high" according to WALS

Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives WALS In both plosives and fricatives
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems WALS None missing in /p t k b d g/
Uvular Consonants WALS None
Glottalized Consonants WALS No glottalized consonants
Lateral Consonants WALS /l/, no obstruent laterals
The Velar Nasal WALS Initial velar nasal
Vowel Nasalization WALS Contrast absent
Front Rounded Vowels WALS High only
Syllable Structure WALS Moderately complex

CCVC, with strict rules for medial clusters:

CCVC + CCVC → CCVCCVC
Tone WALS Simple tone system
Fixed Stress Locations WALS No fixed stress
Weight-Sensitive Stress WALS Right-oriented: One of the last three

Penultimate if no heavy syllables, else leftmost heavy syllable. It is common for affixes to not affect stress, regardless of syllable-weight in the affix.

Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems WALS Combined
Rhythm Types WALS No rhythmic stress
Absence of Common Consonants WALS All present
Presence of Uncommon Consonants WALS 'Th' sounds

Both voiced, written {ð}, and unvoiced, written {þ}, are phonemic.

Morphology

Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives WALS Exclusively concatenative
Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives WALS Monoexponential case
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb WALS 10-11 categories per word
Locus of Marking in the Clause WALS Dependent marking
Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases WALS Head marking
Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology WALS Inconsistent or other
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology WALS Weakly suffixing
Reduplication WALS Full reduplication only
Case Syncretism WALS No syncretism
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking WALS Syncretic

Nominal Categories

Number of Genders WALS None
Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems WALS No gender
Systems of Gender Assignment WALS No gender
Coding of Nominal Plurality WALS Plural suffix
Occurrence of Nominal Plurality WALS All nouns, always optional
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns WALS Person-number stem
The Associative Plural WALS Unique affixal associative plural
Definite Articles WALS No definite or indefinite article
Indefinite Articles WALS No definite or indefinite article
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns WALS No inclusive/exclusive
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection WALS 'We' the same as 'I'
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives WALS Three-way contrast
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives WALS Identical
Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives WALS Unrelated
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns WALS No gender distinctions
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns WALS Pronouns avoided for politeness
Indefinite Pronouns WALS Generic-noun-based
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns WALS Identical
Person Marking on Adpositions WALS No person marking
Number of Cases WALS 10 or more cases
Asymmetrical Case-Marking WALS Symmetrical
Position of Case Affixes WALS Case suffixes
Comitatives and Instrumentals WALS Differentiation
Ordinal Numerals WALS One-th, two-th, three-th
Distributive Numerals WALS Marked by suffix
Numeral Classifiers WALS Absent
Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers WALS Formally different
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes WALS Possessive prefixes

Nominal Syntax

Obligatory Possessive Inflection WALS Absent
Possessive Classification WALS Three to five classes
Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses WALS Highly differentiated
Adjectives without Nouns WALS Without marking
Action Nominal Constructions WALS No action nominals
Noun Phrase Conjunction WALS 'And' identical to 'with'
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction WALS Identity

Verbal Categories

Perfective/Imperfective Aspect WALS Grammatical marking
The Past Tense WALS Present, no remoteness distinctions
The Future Tense WALS Inflectional future exists
The Perfect WALS No perfect
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes WALS Tense-aspect suffixes
The Morphological Imperative WALS Second person number-neutral
The Prohibitive WALS Normal imperative + normal negative
Imperative-Hortative Systems WALS Neither type of system
The Optative WALS Inflectional optative present
Situational Possibility WALS Affixes on verbs
Epistemic Possibility WALS Affixes on verbs
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking WALS No overlap
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality WALS Indirect only
Coding of Evidentiality WALS Verbal affix or clitic
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect WALS None
Verbal Number and Suppletion WALS None

Word Order

Order of Subject, Object and Verb WALS No dominant order
Order of Subject and Verb WALS No dominant order
Order of Object and Verb WALS No dominant order
Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb WALS VOX
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase WALS No adpositions
Order of Genitive and Noun WALS No dominant order
Order of Adjective and Noun WALS No dominant order
Order of Demonstrative and Noun WALS Demonstrative-Noun
Order of Numeral and Noun WALS Numeral-Noun
Order of Relative Clause and Noun WALS Adjoined
Order of Degree Word and Adjective WALS No dominant order
Position of Polar Question Particles WALS Initial
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions WALS Initial interrogative phrase
Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause WALS Mixed
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase WALS Other
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun WALS Other
Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun WALS Other
Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb WALS [Neg-V] 
The prefix "ë-" on a verb marks negation on a clausal level.

Simple Clauses

Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases WALS Nominative - accusative (standard)
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns WALS Nominative - accusative (standard)
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking WALS Accusative
Expression of Pronominal Subjects WALS Mixed
Verbal Person Marking WALS Only the A argument
Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking WALS Zero in all 3sg forms
Order of Person Markers on the Verb WALS A precedes P
Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' WALS Indirect-object construction
Reciprocal Constructions WALS Distinct from reflexive
Passive Constructions WALS Present
Antipassive Constructions WALS No antipassive
Applicative Constructions WALS No applicative construction
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions WALS Morphological but no compound
Negative Morphemes WALS Negative affix
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation WALS Symmetric
Polar Questions WALS Question particle
Predicative Possession WALS Locational
Predicative Adjectives WALS Verbal encoding
Nominal and Locational Predication WALS Identical
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals WALS Possible

Complex Sentences

Relativization on Subjects WALS Gap 
"Gap" might not be the best since the verb is marked with a particle, but the marker doesn't agree with anything.

mirrō ukru nīkeaþ ševa saìes
mirrō u-   kru  nīke  -aþ  ševa saì   -es
cat   REL- kill mouse -OBJ go   river -LOC

The cat that killed the mouse walked to/from/along the river.
Relativization on Obliques WALS Pronoun-retention 
The resumptive pronoun for a direct object is incorporated.

nīke krury mirrō ševa saìes
nīke  kru  -ry  mirrō ševa saì   -es
mouse kill -RES cat   go   river -LOC

the mouse that the cat killed went to/from/along the river
'Want' Complement Subjects WALS Desiderative verbal affix 
mahašeŋŋ
maha -šeŋŋ
play -WANT

"I want to play"
Purpose Clauses WALS Balanced 
One of the interpretations of the complement of complemented clauses is as purpose, especially when the main verb is explicitly marked with -aš.

īel gunuaš letšah

īel      gunuaš       letšah
ī -el    gunu -aš     le- tšah
3s -CSUB stand -CCAUS SS- see

he/she stands up in order to see

Another way is the verb-suffix -mah

ī gaìnes ševamara lezigyskīn trīaþ

ī  gaìnes    ševamara         lezigyskīn     trīaþ
ī  gaìn -es  ševa -mah  -ra   le- zigh -skīn trī  -aþ
3s city -LOC go   -PURP -PAST SS- buy  -IRR  gift -OBJ

he/she went to the city in order to buy a gift
'When' Clauses WALS Balanced
Reason Clauses WALS Balanced
Utterance Complement Clauses WALS Balanced

Lexicon

Hand and Arm WALS Different
Finger and Hand WALS Different
Numeral Bases WALS Other base 
Several bases: base 2, base 5, base 8 and base 24, with base 8 as the most common
Number of Non-Derived Basic Colour Categories WALS 6 
šiar   Black
fear   White
kiar   Red
linnar Yellow
mar    Green
var    Blue

Another word, yár, covers brown, red, orange, yellow and white: all the "warm" colors
Number of Basic Colour Categories WALS 11 
šiar     Black
fear     White
kiar     Red
linnar   Yellow
sennar   Orange
kenar    Brown
mar      Green
kelmar   Light green
simmar   Dark green
var      Blue
kservar  Light blue
dhavvar  Dark blue
pān      Indigoish color
utarha   Color resembling Mayan blue
hfar     Violet
kšar     Lilac
minvar   Indigo
vyar     Gray

Another word, yár, covers the "warm" colors
Green and Blue WALS Green vs. blue
Red and Yellow WALS Red vs. yellow
M-T Pronouns WALS No M-T pronouns
N-M Pronouns WALS No N-M pronouns
Tea WALS Others

Conlang-specific

Conlang type Artlang

Phonotactics

Detailed Syllable Structure CCVC

Comments:

No comments yet