Shabkiuza

Shabkiuza is a synthetic language with minimal agreement features. It is notable for its mandatory use of subject pronouns and an extensive system of adpositions, which can optionally raise to preverbal position for emphasis. Distinction is made in discourse between in-group and out-group, and also between intentions of praise and insult. It also employs an optional but robust system of evidentials and modals to indicate the source of the speaker's knowledge, as well as his or her opinions on the information conveyed.

Setting
Shabkiuza is the name of the High Speech. It is spoken as a first language by the upper classes, and as a second language among a few of the middling, who themselves use the common speech (represented by English within the story.) The highborn are also expected to be fluent in the common speech, as indeed they must in order to interact with the middling.

This language has high prestige, and is carefully maintained by a language academy. They are responsible for maintaining the purity of the language, and removing any influence of the common speech in vocabulary or grammar. However, the two languages share very similar phonological features, and as a result, the high speech can be learned by one of the Middling with very little in the way of a "foreign" accent.

Most notable in the culture of the highborn is the frequent use of praise and insult, which are applied both to the self or others. Praise and insult are applied to pronouns by use of suffixes, and although they are always option (except in certain frozen expressions), it is rare not to hear them in normal speech.

In this setting, class distinction is paramount. Demonstratives, which take the form of prefixes applied to pronouns, indicate not only physical location relative to the speaker, but also group membership. The contrasts are between the in-group and out-group, where both members are of the high, and the high versus all others.

Subtlety and the ability to be ambiguous is prized among the highborn, and this is reflected in the language. A sentence consists of, at minimum, a pronoun and a predicate. All other information, including tense, mood, evidentiality, definiteness, etc., can be added optionally. However, these items are often left out if already supplied by the context, or if the speaker wishes to be truthful while attempting to deceive the listener.

Phonotactics
Shabkiuza has relatively free syllable structure, maximally CCVCC. Consonant length is phonemic, and indicated in the orthography by a doubled consonant. (The digraph [hh] is an exception, indicating /x/. The sequence /xx/ does not appear.)

Common complex initials are C + /r/, C + /l/, and /s/ + C (voiced). /z/ + C, /ʃ/ +C, and /ʒ/ + C appear, but rarely.

Syllable finals are usally simpler, with /r/ + plosive and /l/ + plosive the most common. Although /m/ and /n/ are phonemic, /ŋ/ is not; syllable final /n/ assimilates to the point of articulation of the following consonant.

The glides /j/ and /w/ appear only immediately before the vowel.

Words are always stressed on the first syllable of the stem. Any prefixes added to the beginning of the word do not change its stress.

Syllables can be either open or closed. Open syllables do not have a final consonant; closed syllables do.

There are five vowels in open, stressed syllables, /a:/, /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/. Closed, stressed syllables use /a/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /ɔ/, and /ʊ/. Unstressed syllables are typically /ə/, although the actual vowel may be closer to the stressed version, depending on the word and the speaker.

Orthography
In using the Roman alphabet, Shabkiuza is written using typical, continental values. There are also several digraphs. These are not treated separately for collation purposes. There are no diacritic marks, but an apostrophe (') is used to separate prefixes ending in a vowel with stems beginning with a vowel. It is also used to separate s'h and z'h when they are not intended to represent the above digraphs. It is not used for ch, since the letter [c] does not appear in any other context, or with [hh], since syllable ending /h/ and syllable beginning /h/ do combine to form the sound indicated by [hh].
 * A
 * B
 * D
 * E
 * F
 * G (always hard G)
 * H
 * I
 * J
 * K
 * L
 * M
 * N
 * O
 * P
 * R
 * S
 * T
 * U
 * V
 * W (represents /w/ only when it is alone in the syllable initial; otherwise represented by [u])
 * X
 * Y
 * Z
 * Ch
 * Sh
 * Hh (to represent /x/)
 * Zh

Basics
The basic sentence structure is SVO. Every sentence minimally consists of a pronoun followed by a verb (or non-verbal predicate.)

Pronouns
The pronoun system in Shabkiuza is particularly important, since every independent clause must begin with a pronoun. Pronouns are inflected for person and number. Pronouns do not change in form, although they do require a prefix when appearing outside of the subject position. These prefixes will be covered in the section entitled Demonstrative Prefixes.

There are three numbers in Shabkiuza. Singular refers to a single individual; dual refers to two individuals, but only when they belong to the same group. (See In Groups and Out Groups, below.) The Dual can also be used in writing to refer to the writer and the reader--this is typically done using ge. The plural is used to refer to more than one individual, whenever the dual is not appropriate.

There are four persons The first person is distinguished between inclusive and exclusive in both the dual and plural. Inclusive we refers to both the speaker and the addressee; the exclusive we specifically excludes the addressee. Such exclusion is not necessarily insulting--for example, a husband might refer to his activities with his wife by using "go," thereby including an individual who may not be present, but excluding the addressee.

The third person is divided into five genders. Masculine and feminine refer only to natural gender except in a few frozen cases (such as in English, where a ship is referred to as "she") or when anthropomorphizing. The inanimate refers both to inorganic things (such as "rock"), and to ideas (such as "truth"). It is also used to refer to verbal nouns. Hha refers to organic, inanimate things such as fruit, wood, or a corpse. Fa refers to animate non-humans, such as plants and animals.

The Academy makes every effort to keep pronoun referents in tune with current knowledge. For example, seashells used to be referred to as sha, but when it was discovered that they are the byproduct of an animal, the correct pronoun was changed to hha.

In general, a change of state can act to remove animacy. A tree is animate; wood is formerly animate; and ashes (the result of burning wood) are inanimate. Borderline cases are decided by the Academy, and must be learned by rote.

Some nouns can refer to a thing without defining its material. For example, a bead can be made out of stone or wood. In these cases, it is typically decided that the change of state is sufficient to remove the latent animacy.

It is a matter of current debate whether viruses, which show aspects of both living and non-living creatures, should be referred to as sha, hha, or fa. Proposals to create a new pronoun specifically for such questionable cases have not been well received.

The third person dual and plural do not make distinctions for gender or animacy. When these distinctions are required, the group members can be spelled out with individual pronouns separated by conjunctions. (See Conjunctions below.) Note that dual and plural referrents are almost always in the same group; when contrasting between in and out groups, they are almost always named by separate pronouns. (This is more convention than grammar.)

The fourth person refers to a place. It is divided from the 3rd person because it takes different verbal morphology. Historically, chu was back-derived from dichu, dechu, and dachu. ("Here, there, yonder.") The verbal morphology was itself a relic of a discarded series of endings which showed verbal agreement for animacy.

It is important to note that the same noun might mean something different when referred to by chu. For example, embagon, "arena," means the physical structure when referred to by sha, but means a location if indicated by chu. For example:

(1) Chu le'embagon granta. "The arena is large." (It is a big place.)

(2) Sha le'embagon granta. "The arena is large." (It is a big building.)

One could imagine a context in which the arena covers a small area, but is a very tall structure.

Intransitive Verbs
Intransitive verbs in Shabkiuza function much as they do in English. Word order is SV.


 * traba to walk


 * jarba to arrive

appa to go

All regular verbs have a bare form ending in a vowel. There are irregular verbs, and these will be discussed separately. The table below shows the verbal morphology for regular verbs. Example Sentences

Eb trabat. "I walk./I am walking."

Zha jarbash. "She arrives./She is arriving."

Ma appav. "You go./You are going."

Non-verbal Predicates
Not all predicates are verbal. Any noun or adjective can serve as a predicate. It might be more accurate to say that non-verbal predicates can serve as nouns or adjectives. In fact, the categories "noun" and "adjective" are purely semantic in Shabkiuza, since they are grammatically identical.
 * granta large, big, tall
 * kinid small, short
 * gaja green
 * midian man
 * halian woman
 * forgo fruit
 * kahhal knife

The biggest difference between verbs and non-verbal predicates is that the latter are invariant.

Eb granta. "I am tall." Zha halian. "She is a woman."

Mahha kinid. "You all are short."

Chu granta. "This place is big."

Hha forgo. "It is a fruit." Some adjectives have intransitive verbal equivalents, which carry the meaning "to become x." Words ending in a vowel simply take verbal morphology; words ending in a consonant double that consonant and add a. Note that this is productive only for intransitive verbs. For example, there is no word *kahhalla, with a meaning of "to cut" or "to knife" someone. That verb is gamma. As such, the bulk of intransitive verbs formed in this way are formed from adjectives, not nouns. Midian and halian are exceptions, used both literally to discuss puberty, and figuratively for rites of passage. The use of "fruit" as an intransitive verb is also done in English.
 * granta (v.) - to enlargen, grow
 * gaja (v.) - to become green
 * forgo (v.) - to bear fruit
 * kinidda (v.) - to become smaller, shrink
 * midianna (v.) - to mature into a man, to grow manly
 * halianna (v.) - to mature into a woman, to become womanly

The Academy typically does not list verbs formed in this way in the dictionary unless their meaning is not readily apparent from the root word. (For our purposes, we will list them where a distinct Engilsh word exists, as an aid to translation.)

Note the pairs below.

Eb granta. "I am tall."

Eb grantat. "I am growing."

Ja midian. "He is a man."

Ja midiannash. "He is becoming a man."

A note on plurality: A bare noun can be singular, dual, or plural. To specify which, a pronoun is used. This construction will be shown later. Most common, however, a bare noun means singular unless otherwise specified by the context.

A note on definiteness: A bare noun can either be definite or indefinite. Definiteness is almost always indicated by the context. There are mechanisms to specify definiteness, for the purpose of contrast ("I don't just want a fruit, I want the fruit!") or disambiguation. This construction will be discussed in a later section.

Transitive Verbs
Sample Verbs: The direct object of a transitive verb is indicated with the direct object marker tal. The word tal can function either as a preposition or as a prefix, depending on its position in the sentence. It is part of a whole class of case markers that function in the same way. For the remainder of this grammar, we will refer to this class as markers.
 * gamma - to cut
 * henna - to do
 * vesha - to want
 * pere - to bake
 * mankra - to eat
 * hronto - to fight

Note the sample sentences below.

Eb gammat tal forgo. "I am cutting the fruit."

Ma veshav tal kahhal. "You want the knife."

Zha mankra tal forgo. "She is eating the fruit."

Ge hrontota tal midian. "We two are fighting the man."

In these cases, the marker functions as a prepositional phrase. More specifically, tal indicates in what way the object is related to the verb. Only the subject position can have a bare noun without a marker. Any other type of object must be indicated by a marker.

In this position, the marker receives full stress. If the following syllable is also stressed, there will often be a brief pause before the next word is pronounced, so that both can be given full weight.

The marker can optionally raise to prefix to the verb. In this position, it does not have stress. Moreover, the final consonant will sometimes change to match the first letter of the verb.

Eb talgammat forgo. "I am cutting the fruit." (It is the fruit I am cutting.)

Ma talveshav kahhal. "You want the knife." (It is the knife you want.)

Ge tahhrontota midian."We two are fighting the man." (It is the man we two are fighting.)

tal + h = tahh

tal + r = tarr

Note the translations. When the marker is prefixed to the verb, the associated object (which must immediately follow the verb) gains emphasis. This construction is often used when the object is an answer to a question. ("What are you cutting? It is the fruit I am cutting.)

Other Marker Phrases
Marker phrases are part of a broad category, with the prepositional phrases used in English representing only a small part. In general, and modification of the verb other than person, number, negation, questions, or past vs. non-past tense is mediated by a marker phrase. Examples include: Markers are a closed class, but a large one. As the Academy regularized the language, many markers that duplicated the meaning of other, more popular markers were declared archaic, and are no longer used. In recent years, some have been resurrected with alternative meanings to fill newfound semantic gaps. As a result, it can be difficult to read archaic texts, since the markers used may have drifted radically in meaning.
 * Progressive, continuative, habitual moods
 * Commands
 * Adverbs
 * Time
 * Direct and indirect objects
 * Prepositional phrases

The list below gives some of the markers which closely resemble prepositions in English. Other markers, such as those that have a verbal or adverbial function, will be presented in later sections. Eb gammat tal midian vek kahhal. "I cut the man with a knife."
 * vek - with (an instrument)
 * mal - with (a person)
 * enda - at (a time)
 * tig - in, inside (a place or thing)
 * fana - outside of
 * por - carrying, wearing
 * himi - into (movement inside)
 * pob - out of (movement to the outside)
 * ho - to (movement to a place)
 * he - to (transfer of something to a person, indirect object)
 * nor - from (movement from a place)
 * nera - from (from a person, opposite of he)
 * nech - by (meaning through the action of someone or something, not location)
 * chan - movement or passage through a place

Eb gammat tal midian tig embagon. "I cut the man in the arena."

bleka - to give

Eb blekat tal kahhal he midian. "I give the knife to the man."

Eb trabat por kahhal nor embagon.  "I walk carrying a knife out of the arena."

The actual order of the marker phrases does not matter, although there are more common and less common arrangements. Direct and indirect objects tend to be closer to the verb than other marker phrases. Whenever there is movement from a place to a place, or transfer of something from someone to someone else, the from almost always comes before the to. Alternate orders are permissible, however, and often found in song or poetry in order to maintain meter.

In all of these cases, it is possible to prefix a marker to the verb in order to emphasize that object. Only one such marker can be prefixed at a time.

Eb talgammat midian vek kahhal. "It was the man whom I cut with a knife."

Eb vekgammat kahhal tal midian. "It was with a knife that I cut the man."

Note that when a marker is prefixed to the verb, the object must immediately follow the verb.

There is no theoretical upper limit to the number of marker phrases that a verb can take. In practice, if the sentence starts getting too long, it will be rephrased into multiple sentences for easier comprehension.

Subordinate Clauses
Subordinate clauses are extensively used in Shabkiuza, much more so than in English. They are used when a noun serves as the subject of the sentence and when an adjective modifies a noun. They are also used for noun and adverbial clauses.

Noun subjects
In order to use a noun in subject position, it must be used in a relative clause attached to a pronoun.

Ja granta. "He is tall."

Ja lemidian granta. "The man is tall." (Literally, "He that is a man is tall.")

Note the prefix le that appears in front of the word for man, midian. This is the marker for the subject position; however, it only ever appears as a prefix. In a dependent clause, the prefixed pronoun indicates which element in the dependent clause refers to the element it modifies.

Other Clause Modifiers
Here is another example:

"The man who I cut is tall."

In this case, who is part of the dependent clause who I cut, or in typical SVO word order, I cut who. The "missing" piece is the direct object. So in Shabkiuza, the missing element would be indicated by raising the direct object marker tal to prefix to the verb in the dependent clause.

Ja lemidian a eb talgammat, granta.

Note the extra particle a. This particle appears whenever the missing element is not the subject, to divide the subordinate clause from the rest of the sentence. Also, it is customary to use a comma to separate long subjects from the predicate, and this also models the prosody of the language.

Here are some more examples:

Hha leforgo legaja, kinid. "The green fruit is small."

Sha lekahhal a deb veggammat tal forgo, gaja. "The knife with which I cut the fruit is green." (eb becomes deb in non-initial position; see the section on Demonstratives)

Ja lemidian letrabash chan embagon, gammash tal forgo vek kahhal. "The man who is walking through the arena cuts the fruit with a knife."

Note from the above examples that verbs in dependent clauses are still conjugated. When the subject is missing, it takes its morphology from the person and number of the subject to which it refers. Also, notice that verbs in subordinate clauses can take other marker phrases as in an independent clause.

Zha appash ho embagon. "She goes to the arena."

Chu le'embagon a zha ho'appash, granta. "The arena to which she goes is big."

Note that apostrophes separate the elements in le'embagon and ho'appash. This indicates that the vowels are to be pronounced in hiatus, i.e., separately. Although not strictly necessary in these cases, if the marker ended in an i or u, then the orthography would be ambiguous between the hiatus and diphthongs.