Igren

General Information
Igren is spoken by the people of Igren and is part of the Igra-Deepwood language family.

Phonology
1In noble names and loanwords from the Darkwood, /d/, /z/ → /dʲ/, /zʲ/ (romanized as dy and zy). /l/, /r/, /x/, and /n/ can also be palatalized in such words, but don't have to be.

2/v/ is only used in loanwords from the Wind Coasts.

All consonants have phonemic gemination. /j/ may not be geminated.

Phonotactics/romanization
Root words can have up to three syllables. After inflection, individual words may have more.


 * 1 syllable words: (C)V(C)(C)
 * 2 syllable words: (C)V(C)CV(C)CV(C)(C)
 * 3 syllable words: (C)V(C)CV(C)CV(C)CV(C)(C)

The onset of a syllable can include the following consonants: /m/, /n/, /t/, /z/, /l/, /r/, /ʃ/, /j/, /x/, /q/ ,and /g/. If not word-initial, /d/ and /s/ are allowed, as well as all geminated consonants.

The nucleus of a syllable can contain any vowel, however two consecutive syllables may not both contain a long vowel.

The coda of a syllable may contain /m/, /n/, /t/, /d/, /s/, /l/, /r/, /ʃ/, /g/ and /q/. syllable final consonants may geminate.

Word-final clusters must contain one sonorant and one obstruent. These first consonant of said clusters may geminate, but the second may not.

The onset and the coda of a syllable may not both geminate. The onsets of two consecutive syllables may not both geminate. Consecutive consonants may not geminate. The codas of two consecutive syllables may not both geminate. For gemination, double the letter. Stress is heavily dependent on vowel length and gemination. In the absence of gemination and all vowels are short, stress always falls on the second to last syllable (considering there is more than one syllable. One syllable words have one stressed syllable). If this is not the case, the syllable before a geminate (or the syllable with a geminate coda) will be stressed. If this is ambiguous, then the first long vowel will be stressed. If there are no long vowels, than the first vowel before a geminate will be stressed. If there is more than one long vowel, the first long vowel will be stressed.

Word order
Igren's primary word order is SVO.

Igren is primarily head-final with some exceptions. Relative clauses and genitives always follow the head, where demonstratives, numbers, and possessives always precede the head. Adjectives only sometimes follow the head, depending on context.

The order is: PosDemNumAdjNAdjGenRel

Examples:

these my three large swords that have handles

that pot of clay of Maxximis that holds water

Adjective order
Adjectives, depending on category, will follow or proceed the noun in specific orders. Adjectives fall into the following categories: they go in this order:
 * quantity
 * opinion
 * size
 * age
 * shape
 * color
 * origin
 * material
 * purpose

quantity-opinion-size-age-N-purpose-material-origin-color-shape-age

many evil large venerable golems of hunting of stone of blue of squarishness of exactly four hundred years of age

purpose, material, origin, color, and shape are always formed as genitives. Quantity, opinion and size are never formed as genitives. Age can be formed as a genitive, but doesn't have to be. In other words, there are only nouns for purpose, material, origin, color, and shape, there are only adjectives for quantity, opinion, and size, and there are both nouns and adjectives for age.

Some important information on flexibility with age: if there is a set age, as in a numerical value, it must be a genitive. Otherwise it's completely flexible, however putting it before the noun adds emphasis to the age. Genitive age constructions are the most commonly used ones. It is also possible to use both constructions at once if you would like to describe a quantitative age and a qualitative age both at once.

In old Igra, the protolang of modern Igren, age was never a genitive. In fact, every adjective preceded the noun. However, the language is evolving, and linguists speculate that over time all the adjectives will turn into genitives, and eventually Igren is likely to become head-initial.

The overall word order for modifiers follow these rules:

Pos-Dem-Num-quantity-opinion-size-age-N-purpose-material-origin-color-shape-age-Gen-Rel

Pronouns
Pronouns in Igren are simple and are not altered for number or gender. However, they are altered for level of respect. There are four levels of respect: nobility, clergy, merchants/serfs, and foreigners. Because of social isolation, second person foreign pronouns sound archaic, and first person foreign pronouns are hardly ever used, so in modern speech they have all merged. In the Igrin regions neighboring the golden coasts, however, these pronouns have remained in common use and pronouns as a whole are used slightly differently.

Furthermore, serfs and merchants will distinguish each other as separate. Merchant pronouns are only used by serfs and merchants, whereas everywhere else, serf pronouns are used for both.

Standard Igren pronouns
1Second person foreign pronouns are not used by the majority of speakers, so this might sound archaic. In modern speech, most people merge this with the merchant 2nd person gol or the serf qo.

When a noun phrase contains both possessive and demonstrative, they merge. If it contains a possessive, it must also contain a demonstrative. ne and xek are used twice, and this is because there is no semantic difference between "your thing that is near you" and "that thing that is near you," and there's no semantic difference between "my thing over here" and "this thing over here." There IS a difference between "their thing over there" and "that thing over there," as well as "their thing very far away" and "that thing very far away."

Proximal is used for things that are relatively closer to the speaker. Mesioproximal is used for objects relatively closer to the audience. mesiodistal is for objects that are not ambiguously closer to either the speaker or the audience, but are still within line of sight or close enough to see, and distal is used for objects that are either very far away from the audience and the recipient or hypothetical/undetermined. Myths and legends, for example, use distal exclusively.

Note that possessives/demonstratives do not change for respect/social class.

Verbs
All verb roots must end with a CV syllable, and affixation may exceed the three syllable limit for words.

Igren's verbs are inflected for aspect. Word order conveys tense, and all modality isconveyed through auxiliary verbs.

Tense and Aspect
Igren's tense and aspects are listed below: Below are the affixes for each aspect. Note that some verbs are irregular.
 * Nonpast
 * Past perfective
 * past habitual
 * past continuous __NEWSECTIONLINK__

Usually, the nonpast has no affix, but this is not always the case. Some irregular verbs are listed in the chart below:

Subordinate clause
Zool-clauses in Igren are clauses that allow the object of a verb phrase to be a sentence phrase. It's marked by replacing the object with the word for thing (with mandatory demonstritive), followed by the zool-clause marker zool."nax geene ne ya zool qo gaxxi""1. want- . thing 2. go""I want this thing: that you go""I want you to go"There are other subordinate clauses in Igren (work in progress).

Mood and modality
Igren has no grammatical mood. Rather, it uses some auxiliary verbs for some modalities, and all other modalities can be expressed through clarification and context.

Propositional modality
All propositional modality is expressed through context and clarification, such as using a zool-clause or specifying in a separate statement. There are no auxiliary verbs for these modalities. Some examples of propositional modality expressed in Igren:
 * nax laxama ne ya zool qo maha Oolm - I saw that you were in Oolm (visual modality)

Event modality
Event modality in Igren is expressed through auxiliary verbs. These verbs are found in the table below.

Copula
In Igren, the verb ini (to exist) is used to form a copula. Copulas in Igren are formed in the following way:
 * Qixi Xarzyan ini - literally "tall Xarzyan exists," but meaning "Xarzyan is tall."
 * Maxxye Yira inimaan: beautiful Yira exist-: "Yira was always beautiful"

Nouns and Adjectives
Nominative and Accusative case are both conveyed exclusively through word order.

The genitive case is marked through inflection. The affix for genitive is "xaa-." for example, xaaxarzyan means "of Xarzyan." Historically, the genitive case was marked with prepositions, but in modern Igren these prepositions have merged into the noun they modify. "iinix xaaxarzyan""armor -Xarzyan""armor or Xarzyan"There are no other grammatical cases. Other grammatical functions are conveyed through prepositions

Compounding
A lot of Igren words are compounds. Igren has a feature where one can combine a maximum of two words. The way this works is A+B -> B modifies A.

namixeer: namix (worker) + eer (act of trading) = merchant

Igrenix: igre (Igren, the place) + nix (act of speaking) = Igren, the language

Chart for compound applications:

Sample text
Here is some sample text:

Xarzyan geema ne ya zool