Theinar

Theinar is a conlang made for the world Atheltar, acting as its lingua-franca of commerce, politics, and academics.

Classification and Dialects
Theinar is a synthetic language with origins centered in central southern Eston. It's historical classification before the Age of War (-212 AY to 0 AY) has been lost. This document primarily describes the literary register of Theinar used in political and academic contexts, and thus the phonology and grammatical features described here may not be universally applicable to its use in other parts of the world.

Phonotactics
Literary Theinar is strictly CVC. but there are minimal restrictions on position of phonemes in a word.

Due to sound shift, /s/ has very little place in Theinar, and only exists in combination with /t/ either within an affricate (e. g. "tsum," to think) or across syllable borders (e. g. "Eston," the largest continent in Atheltar).

Theinar is lexically-stressed, with primary stress on the first syllable of the root.

Romanization
1only occurs in assimilation next to /k/

2/s/ occurs only next to alveolar plosives, derived from assimilation of /θ/. The sequence /tʃ/ is communicated with ⟨tsh⟩

3derived from a vowel shift that monophthongized many diphthongs.

Roots of nouns and verbs are always capitalized, and represents the location of primary stress. In compound words, only the first is capitalized, regardless of primary stress.

Nouns
Nouns can be pluralized with the -ta suffix, and negated with the sao- prefix. For instance, saoNalthirta means "not the swords" or "not swords."

Posessives
Theinar has two forms of the possessive, one declining the owner and the other declining the object owned. Selection of which possessive to use is determined by what the speaker wants to highlight in importance in the relationship, that gradient typically being left to right. Examples: Dathalaraf Nathliaf Nalthir Dathalar-af Nathli-af Nalthir Dathalar-GEN king-GEN sword Dathalar's king's sword

Nalthiron Dathalaraf Nathli Nalthir-on Dathalar-af Nathli sword-POSSD Dathalar-GEN king The sword of Dathalar's king

Nalthiron Nathlion Dathalar Nalthir-on Nathli-on Dathalar sword-POSSD King-POSSD king The sword of the king of Dathalar

Contrary to English's possessive marker, both markers in Theinar act on the level of the noun and not the noun phrase; thus, Neshonaf Kafsis Lao Neshon-af Kaf-sis   Lao Person-GEN hat-INSTR food The man with the hat's food meaining "the food of the man wearing the hat" would be grammatical, while Neshon Kafsisaf Lao would be ungrammatical.

Pronouns
Theinar has a rather simple set of pronouns, listed as follows: The clusive variants of the first person plural are derived from formal and informal varieties in Early Theinar, and represent the only deviation from standard declension Theinar pronouns take. Otherwise, pronouns are mostly treated as normal nouns, with the same plural, negative, and possessive forms.

Interrogative pronouns are constructed from the base Nama, and can be combined with certain adpositional affixes to take on different meanings. On its own, it means "what," and since animacy is ignored, can be used for "who" as well.

In non-question cases, Nama takes on an Ignorative context to convey uncertainty.

Examples: Dathalar narRuktether Ifar Namakas. Dathalar tano-Rukteth-er       Ifar  Nama-kas. Dathalar REM.PST-attack-INFR.EV Yfaar IGNOR-because_of Dathalar attacked Yfaar for unknown reasons.

Dathalar narRuktetherki Ifar Namakas. Dathalar tano-Rukteth-er-ki        Ifar  Nama-kas. Dathalar REM.PST-attack-INFR.EV-INT Yfaar IGNOR-because_of Why did Dathalar attack Yfaar?

Demonstratives
Theinar has a few demonstratives, which act similarly to the standard pronouns in relative clauses. The plural forms can be made using the standard declensions for nouns.

Examples:

Neshon, Na Renutosa Soto, Baseneian Neshon Na renuto-sa  soto, Basenei-an Person 3SG reside-HAB here, missing-IMPF The person who lives here is missing.

Thath Falo Basan Utoro. Thath Falo Basa-an Uto-ro DIST bird go-IMPF home-to That bird is going home.

Posessive Determiners
Possessive determiners act identically to any other possessive form.

Example:

Nalthiron E Sekeifan Keaf. Nalthir-on E  Sekeif-an Ke-af. sword-POSS 1SG sharp My sword is sharper than yours.

Eaf Nalthir Sekeifan Keaf. E-af   Nalthir Sekeif-an Ke-af. 1SG-GEN sword  sharp My sword is sharper than yours.

Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives exclusively follow the nouns they modify, and agree with verbs when they are not themselves acting as them.

Verb Forms
Theinar adjectives tend to act more like verbs than nouns, and in the simple copular sense tend to replace them altogether. To say "my sword is sharp," one says Eaf Nalthir Sekeifsa. E-af   Nalthir Sekeif-sa. 1SG-GEN sword  sharp-HAB My sword is sharp. (lit. My sword sharps.)

Comparatives and Superlatives
The comparative form of an adjective has multiple forms. Eaf Nalthir Sekeifan Keaf. E-af   Nalthir Sekeif-an  Ke-af. 1SG-GEN sword  sharp-IMPF 2SG-GEN My sword is sharper than yours. (lit. My sword sharps yours.)

Eaf Nalthir Sekeifan Lam Keafro. E-af   Nalthir Sekeif-an  Lam Ke-af-ro. 1SG-GEN sword  sharp-IMPF DET  2SG-GEN-to My sword is sharper than yours. (lit. My sword sharps more to yours.) To compare an object from a current state to a previous one, one possibility is the structure: Eaf Nalthir Sekeifan Lam Molal. E-af   Nalthir Sekeif-an  Lam Molal. 1SG-GEN sword  sharp-IMPF DET now My sword is sharper now. (lit. My sword sharps more now.) An identical construction can be used for a phrase like "my sharper sword", though this is really a shortening of the more proper construction utilizing a relative clause. In such cases, since it is derived from a relative clause the adjective will not agree with the verb, and will instead the inflections of the relative clause. Ex: Eaf Nalthir Sekeifan Lam asteilath! E-af   Nalthir Sekeif-an  Lam astei-lath 1SG-GEN sword  sharp-IMPF DET win-FUT.OPT My sharper sword shall win! (lit. My sword sharps more should win.) Superlatives are done identically, but with "most" or "least" replacing "more" or "less."

Tense
The distance of nar- varies by conversation and reference point, but most frequently extends to the limit of a week.

The future tense is not declined for, and instead relies on a construction making use of the coverb ro, "to arrive to".

Examples:

An imperfect form can be used if the action is has not yet begun. E roan seinta. E  ro-an          seinta. 1SG arrive_to-IMPF wait I am going to wait. (lit. I am arriving to wait.)

The perfect form can be used if that action is current and going to continue after (long enough that the present imperfect wouldn't be used). E ro seinta. E  ro        seinta. 1SG arrive_to wait I will wait (and already am). (lit. I have arrived to wait.)

The habitual form can be used for an action you will do many times in the future. This is most often seen to describe routines E rosa seinta. E  ro-sa         seinta. 1SG arrive_to-HAB wait I will wait (and will again).

Delimitative and Momentane can be combined with this to denote the length the action is expected to take. E roo seinta. E  ro-o          seinta. 1SG arrive_to-DEL wait I'll wait a while.

E roab seinta. E  ro-ab         seinta. 1SG arrive_to-MOM wait I'll wait a moment.

Evidential
Evidential moods are delineated as follows: The opinion evidential can often be substituted for "think" or "believe," and is used more frequently and broadly than the synonymous ways to communicate that. In some usage the opinion evidential is dropped when used in conjunction with synonymous phrases, and instead one of the other endings is used to communicate how that opinion was arrived at.

Examples: Na narFaras Man. Na nar-Faras. Man. 3SG REC.PST-make[DIR.EV] bread (I know) he made the bread.

Na narFaraser Man. Na nar-Faras-er. Man. 3SG REC.PST-make-INFR.EV bread (I can indirectly verify) he made the bread.

Na narFarasthum Man. Na nar-Faras-thum. Man. 3SG REC.PST-make-ASSUM.EV bread (I think) he made the bread.

E Tsuman Na narFaras Man. E  Tsum-an    Na  nar-faras. Man. 1SG think-IMPF 3SG REC.PST-make bread I think (that I can be sure) he made the bread.

Irrealis
Examples: Eso tanoseintalath! Eso     tano-seinta-lath 1SG.EXCL REM.PST-wait-FUT.OPT We should have waited!

Na saorasnaman thath falo. Na sao-ras-nam-an    thath falo. 3SG NEG-kill-POT-IMPF DIST bird He can't kill that bird.

E Asteireth! E  Astei-reth 1SG win-IMPV I have to win!

Ke feithki na? Ke feith-ki na? 2SG know-INT 3SG You know him?

Verb Structure
Generally speaking, verbs are structured as [Negation-Tense-Stem-Evidential-Modality-Aspect], in which Irrealis moods follow Evidentials, with the exception of the interrogative, which must be placed at the end of the word.

Adpositions
Theinar's adpositions are mostly split into two categories: prepositions, mostly dealing with time, and postpositions, mostly dealing with location and use. In many cases, postpositions can be made into prepositions to shift their meaning.

Some phrases in English that would be dependent clauses may here be achieved with adpositional phrases. To return to an example from the Comparatives and Superlatives section, if one wished to make use of the adposition kas, "resulting from," to communicate a causal relationship, they would do so in the following manner: E asteilath Nalthironkas E Sekeifan! E  astei-lath  Nalthir-on-kas     E   Sekeif-an 1SG win-FUT.OPT sword-POSS-because 1ST sharp-IMPF I shall win because my sword is sharper! A complete list with explanations as to usage and meaning is provided in the Lexicon section.

Coverbs
Theinar's coverbs are a set of verbs derived from its adpositions. Some of them serve specific grammatical functions (e. g. indicating the future tense, as displayed by ro in the Tense section), but most solely serve some basic lexical function.

Overall Structure
Theinar follows a rigid SVO structure. Including other phrase types, the structure is:

Subject] [Relative/Adjectival Clause] [[Verb [Adverb [Indirect Object] [Object [Adpositional Phrase]]]]

Adpositional Phrases
When an adpositional phrase has multiple constituents, each of them is. inflected individually. utomul safran ete utobennemul ketan uto-mul      safran ete utobenne-mul ketan house-between green and barn-between red between the green house and the red barn In non-literary contexts, the second repetition of the adposition is often dropped.

Relative Clauses
Relative clauses are marked with Fan, Thath, and Na as described in the Demonstratives section. Such relative markers are often dropped in speech, but are required in literary contexts. Though Na does not generally distinguish animacy, there is a tendency to use Na when referring to humans and either Fan or Thath for objects, depending on proximity. An object you are holding, for instance, would use Fan. Neshon, Na E narFarab Na Salarala, Renutosa soto Neshon Na     E   nar-Far-ab      Na  Salarala  Renuto-sa  soto Person 3SG[RM] 1SG REC.PST-meet-MOM 3SG yesterday reside-HAB here The person that I saw yesterday lives here.

Nalthir, Fan E narBemulab Utoko, narKekathan. Nalthir Fan     E   nar-Bemul-ab      Uto-ko   nar-Kekath-an Sword PROX[RM] 1SG REC.PST-found-MOM house-at REC.PST-break-IMPF The sword that I stumbled upon at the house was broken.

Translation of Schleier's Fable
This translation is given in a more conversational variant of the language. The most noticeable changes are the dropping of relative markers and adjective agreement, along with multiple more minor changes to choice of phrasing.

Theinar
IPA: /ˈɛkin, na ˌʃa͡onaʀˈtaθ ˈtsafkɪn, narˈloʃa ˈfakʃata, fan naʀˈdofθɛn ˈfaʃar ˈdubɛt, fan naʀˈdofθɛn ˈlokfanta lɛd, ˈɛtɛ fan naʀˈdofθɛn ˈjiθə ˈnɛʃon. ˈɛkin naʀˈkas͡ti͜a, ˈɛ.af ˈʃoljata ˈfaθan ˈnɛʃonkaʃ ˈkuθoʀo.an ˈkɛta. ˈfakʃata naʀˈkas͡ti͜a, ˈɛkin, ˈloʃa͡o. ˈɛtaf ˈʃolja ˈfaθan ˈiʃa.ikaʃ, ˈnɛʃon, ˈkuθoʀoˌli, ˈfaʀaʃa ˈjaʃula ˈθaʃulo nat ˈtsafkinʃiʃ. ˈɛtɛ, ˈɛkin ʃaoˈtaθan ˈt͡safkin. ˈɛkin ˈluʃa fan, numa naʀˈbaʃa ˈjiθa ˈbateʀo./

Line-by-line Gloss: Ekin Na  sao-nar-Tath     Tsafkin nar-Losa      Faksa-ta sheep 3SG NEG-REC.PST-have wool   REC.PST-sense horse-PL

Fan nar-Dofthen Fassar dubet, one REC.PST-carry wagon heavy one REC.PST-carry load     big  and one REC.PST-carry swiftly person

sheep REC.PST-say 3SG-GEN soul sad-IMPF person-because_of command-IMPF you-PL

horse-PL REC.PST-say sheep sense-DEL 1PL.EXCL-GEN soul-PL  sad-IMPF TOPIC-because_of

person command-er make-HAB clothing warm    3SG-DAT wool-INSTR  and  sheep NEG-have-IMPF wool

sheep sense[PERF] this then REC.PST-go swiftly plains-to

English
A sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: "My heart pains me, seeing a man driving horses." The horses said: "Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool." Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain.