Common Saakkih

Common Saakkih is the earliest attested of the Saakkih languages, named so for their urheimat - the Saakkih peninsula in the modern-day Shinsali confederacy.

General information
Common Saakkih is a synthetic ergative-absolutive language. It has a relatively small consonant inventory (12 consonants) and a moderately-sized vowel inventory (10 vowels; 5 long and 5 short).

Consonants

 * Consonant gemination is contrastive and occurs in roots, across morpheme boundaries, and in affixes

Vowels

 * There are five diphthongs: /ai ae ao oi eo/

Allophony

 * /r/ is tapped before other consonants or word-finally
 * /l/ is velarized in the syllable coda
 * /n/ becomes [ŋ] before /k/ and /w/
 * /i/ is realized as [j] pre- and intervocalically
 * Intervocalic consonant clusters agree in voicing with the final consonant, i.e. -hd- is realized as [ʕd]
 * Two of the same vowels (i.e. /ee/) occurring across morpheme boundaries are realised as a single long vowel ([e:]) and the resulting long vowel may be stressed\
 * An exception is iii which is realized as [ji:]
 * A geminate consonant (for example, /s:/) followed by the same consonant, geminate or non-geminate, across a morpheme boundary will be realized as a single geminate consonant
 * Two different adjacent vowels that do not make up a diphthong are realised as separated by hiatus
 * Vowels become more lax before (not after) the pharyngeal fricative
 * /i/ > [ɪ]
 * /u/ > [ʊ]
 * /o/ > [ɔ]
 * /a/ > [æ]
 * /e/ > [ɛ]

Writing system

 * Except for below, all sounds are written as in the IPA
 * /ħ/ is written as h
 * Long vowels are written by doubling the vowel
 * Geminate consonants are written by doubling the grapheme

Phonotactics
Any syllables derivable from (C)(L)V(C) that do not violate the rules below is permissible, where C is any consonant, L is a liquid, and V is a short or long vowel or a diphthong. Stress
 * Geminate consonants do not occur word initially
 * Two liquids will not occur in a prevocalic consonant cluster
 * A long vowel followed by a long or short vowel of the same quality or vice versa (i.e., a and aa or ee and ee) will not occur and is broken up by an intrusive consonant, /n/. This is not true for vowels of different quality, meaning that sequences such as aaioo are allowed.

Stress is very regular and stress positioning is determined by the structures of respective syllables in a root. A syllable is considered light if it has a short vowel and long if it has a long vowel or a diphthong. Stress is characterized by a lengthening of the vowel that is stressed.

Stress in Common Saakkih follows these rules:
 * 1) If a word is monosyllabic, it is stressed.
 * 2) In a multiple-syllable word, stress always falls on either the penultimate or ultimate syllable of a word.
 * 3) Stress always falls on the penultimate syllable if it is heavy.
 * 4) If the penultimate syllable is light and the ultimate syllable is heavy, stress falls on the ultimate syllable.
 * 5) If both final syllables are light, stress falls on the penultimate syllable.
 * 6) If the vowels in the penultimate and ultimate syllable happen to be the same exact quality and length, the ultimate syllable receives stress

History
There is a list of historic sound changes to keep in mind when declining nouns or adjectives, conjugating verbs, or when utilising suffixal derivation in Common Saakkih. They are listed in the table below along with when they occur.

Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns are more or less regular and only exhibit irregularities in the ergative, absolutive, genitive, and locative cases and in the dative plural. The genitive personal pronouns are used in a manner of posessive adjectives but do not decline and appear last in the noun phrase.

Demonstrative pronouns
Demonstrative pronouns show a three-way distinction between proximal or first-person, medial or second-person, and distal or third-person. Demonstrative pronouns agree with the animacy class, noun, and case of a noun as well. They are regular and decline as adjectives.

Interrogative pronouns
Interrogative pronouns appear at the beginning of a sentence as opposed to interrogative adverbs, which appear at the end of the sentence following a verb. They are listed in a table below. Inka can be used as a determiner and mihaab is only used as a determiner and they appear before the noun they modify and decline as adjectives.

Nouns
Nouns are made distinct based on semantic animacy, wherein animate is further made distinct into human and non-human, providing for three noun classes: human, animate non-human, and inanimate. Most nouns are classified semantically, but as with any animacy system, there are digressions, and in Common Saakkih, these are reflective of their culture. Nouns that name things in nature, things dealing with astrology, or things dealing with weather, despite being semantically inanimate, commonly are classified under animate human or animate non-human. Noun endings across all three classes are similar, but they are, in fact, declined differently according to their animacy class.

The nominal system is mostly agglutinative, wherein nouns decline for eight cases: ergative, absolutive, dative, genitive, instrumental, ablative, locative, and inessive, and two numbers: singular and plural.

Human noun declension
The plural suffix for human animate nouns is -k. There is an intrusive -a between the stem and case/number suffix(es) if the declined noun does not agree with Common Saakkih phonotactics. Below is an example declension of an animate human noun (haam [ħa:m] - man). Suffixes are in bold.

Non-human noun declension
The plural suffix for non-human animate nouns is -k as well. The intrusive vowel, used if suffixing the plural or case endings to a noun, is not -a as with human animate nouns, but -ee. Below is an example declension of an animate non-human noun (aleoti [aleoti] - fire). Suffixes are in bold.

Inanimate noun declension
The plural suffix for inanimate nouns is -a. If a declined noun would defy Common Saakkih phonotactics, there is an intrusive -i between the stem and case/number suffix(es). Below is an example declension of an inanimate noun (ilabb [ilab:] - piece (of something)). Suffixes are in bold.

Verbs
There are two types of verbs in Common Saakkih: consonantal and vocalic. The infinitival suffix is -s on vocalic verbs and -at on consonantal verbs. There are a few irregular verbs as well. They conjugate for three tenses: present, past, and future, two aspects: imperfective and perfective, and three moods: indicative, conditional, and imperative.

Consonantal verbs
Consonantal verbs end in -at in the infinitive and are exactly what they sound like - their stem ends in a consonant. Below is the active verb paradigm for the regular verb addipat [ad:ipat] - to punch. Endings are in bold.

Vocalic verbs
Vocalic verbs end in -s in the infinitive and are exactly what they sound like - their stem ends in a vowel. Below is an example conjugation of the vocalic verb oiriis [oiri:s] - to swim.

Causative
The causative mood is formed by a verbal suffix (-ikau) that is applied to the verb stem on both consonantal and vocalic verbs, for example maniikkau (to feed) is derived from the stem of maniikat (to eat). All causative verbs decline as vocalic verbs. Causative infinitives are represented with a final -s.

Irregular verbs
There are a few irregular verbs in Common Saakkih, meaning that they deviate from a conjugation slightly or are unpredictable in many of their forms. These include illos - to be, eerat - to do, aorasat - to become, othos - to use, and imbowaas - to want. These are detailed in a separate article:


 * Common Saakkih/Irregular Verbs

Nonfinite forms
There are three nonfinite verb forms in Common Saakkih: participles, gerunds, and infinitives. The infinitive and the gerund are identical in form, but have different functions. Participles are simple to form and decline as regular adjectives. Their endings, after the infinitive endings are removed, are below.

Adverbs
Adverbs in Common Saakkih simply follow the verb they modify. The most commonly used adverbs are the negative adverbs and interrogative adverbs, which are listed in a table below.

Adjectives
Adjectives follow the noun they modify and agree with case, gender, and number. There are two classes of adjectives - consonantal and vocalic. The consonantal nouns decline exactly the same as the noun they would modify but there are digressions from the nominal declension when declining vocalic nouns.

Consonantal adjectives
Consonantal adjectives are adjectives that end in a consonant. Below is an example declension of the consonantal adjective appeos [ap:eos] - sad. Endings are in bold.

Vocalic adjectives
Vocalic adjectives are adjectives that end in a vowel. Below is an example declension of the vocalic adjective kiislone [ki:slone] - new. Endings are in bold.

Comparative and superlative adjectives
Comparative and superlative adjectives are formed with simple particles that precede the adjective (and follow the head noun). The comparative particle is mio and the superlative particle is imio.

Syntax
Common Saakkih is a highly synthetic ergative-absolutive language. The word order is almost always EAV (ergative-absolutive-verb). The language is almost 100% head-initial, but there are prepositions. There are no articles but definiteness can be encoded by using a demonstrative pronoun following the head noun.

Relative clauses
Relative clauses follow the head noun and are always absolutely last in the noun phrase. They are constructed with a relative prounouns that agree with the head noun in gender, number, and case, declining as adjectives. There are three relative pronouns: pihau [pɪħau], which is used in clauses where the relativized element is the subject of the relative clause, olahau [olæħau], which is used in clauses where the relativized element is the direct object of the relative clause, and rinhau [rinħau], which is used in clauses where the relativized element is genitival.
 * Haame pihau liu utasan the man who saw me
 * Haame olahau alaas utase the man whom I saw
 * Haame rinhau baike liu utasan the man whose mother saw me

Subordinate clauses
Subordinate clauses are formed with a subordinating particle, a general one of which is de which demotes an entire clause to an argument of a verb and appears before the clause itself. There are other subordinating particles, which are listed in a table below.

Dictionary
Here is a complete Common Saakkih dictionary.

Numerals
Common Saakkih employs a biquinary system. It is highly regular. Numerals are listed in a table below. Ordinal numbers (i.e.first, second) are formed with the suffix -aas. Adverbial numbers (i.e. once, twice) are formed with the suffix -ihi. Fractions are suffixed with -ilod (uttilod - 1/2).

Example text
Ozymandias by Percy Bysse Shelley