Theubeg

General information
Theubeg was the language of a once proud empire, whose refugees took residence in the north. Theubeg is a language isolate which evolved from Proto Theubeg-(language). It evolved into two languages, High (language) and Vulgar (language). Theubeg lives on as an isolated dialect of some mountain villages. The language of the northern natives, (language), was heavily influenced by Theubeg.

Phonotactics
The syllable structure of Theubeg is CV(C), with C standing for all consonants and V standing for all vowels. If two of the same consonants are adjacent to each other, they geminate. The standard stress pattern places stress on syllables with the vowels /i/ or /o/. If those vowels are not present, /ɪ/ and /ɯ/ take precedence. In a series of identical adjacent syllable vowels, the first one takes precedence.

Dialects
There are three distinct village dialects of Theubeg that survive in the present, each with minimal lexical shift and enough resemblance to be mutually intelligible to each other and speakers of the standard literary Theubeg.

Northern Theubeg
The northern dialect is closest in resemblance to the classic literary variant of Theubeg. The stress pattern is virtually unchanged except for loanwords in which the foreign stress pattern is approximated. Other changes consist of lenition in between vowels, and almost zero lexical change, although words may be borrowed from their neighbors. The sound changes can be described (in IPA) as follows:


 * /ɣ/ is transcribed as gh and /ɹ/ as r.
 * theubeg /ðɯbɪg/ becomes theuveg /ðɯvɪg/.

Nouns
Nouns decline for definiteness and otherwise are without declension. The prefix /je/ is added to the noun to make it definite. There is a series of derivational morphemes specific to nouns listed below. The morphemes are placed before the word.

Verbs
Verbs conjugate for voice with the active voice being unmarked, and the passive voice being marked with the prefix /wa/. The derivational morphemes for verbs are:

The supine verb is placed after the verb it modifies.

Copula
There is only one copula that links the subject with the predicate, which is /mun/.

Numerals
Theubeg uses a base ten numeral system.

Adjectives
Adjectives modify both nouns and verbs. When the tense and aspect are not nonpast and perfective, adjectives can describe them in detail. They also serve as determiners of mood. An important adjective is the negative polarizer /wucske/. The adjective order is this:
 * 1) Head
 * 2) Tense/Aspect
 * 3) Mood
 * 4) Qualifier
 * 5) Quantifier
 * 6) Modality
 * 7) Demonstrative

The derivational morphemes for adjectives are:

Tense/Aspect
The tense/aspect adjective is attached to a verb. If the adjective is attached to the subject instead, the clause takes on a subjunctive mood.

The imperfective aspect may be elaborated on with more adjectives.

Mood
There are only three moods expressed through adjectives attached to verbs. Unmarked verbs default to the indicative mood.

Modality
These adjectives express probability, neccessity, evidentiality and mirativity.

Quantifiers
These words indicate the quantity of the modified word.

Postpositions
Postpositions indicate a word's relationship to another. The postpositional phrase is placed before the modified word. Some postpositions can be used as nouns.

Collocations
Set series of words that act as postpositions. The special collocations are listed, while there are many other possible combinations.

Conjunctions
Conjunctions link clauses or words/phrases together, with the conjunction coming before the word/phrase it forms a phrase with. Conjunction phrases are placed after the modified mostly.

Collocations
Set series of words that act as conjunctions. The special collocations are listed, while there are many other possible combinations.

Pro-words
Pro-words are substitutes for words or referents to previous words.

Demonstratives
The three demonstratives are:
 * proximal - /kolkos/
 * medial - /jugki/
 * distal - /csopel/

Interrogatives
Interrogatives can modify nouns or act as pronouns.

Pronouns
Pronouns can become collective when adding the exclusive /wit/ or inclusive /pocs/ morphemes.

Pro-verbs
The three pro-verbs are:
 * to do - /waskol/
 * to be - /dsine/
 * to use - /dula/

Pro-adjectives
Pro adjectives are used to classify nouns or to describe a demonstration. The classifiers can be omitted except when counting, in which case they go after the number.

Referents
The three referents are:
 * subject of previous clause - /pics/
 * object of previous clause - /qosi/
 * verb of previous clause - /dunu/

Sentence Structure
The word order of Theubeg is VSO. Relative clauses are formed by relativizer conjunctions. Other conjunctions form different subclauses if necessary.

Example text
jecinibi wicel zas meupobeu gojet

zas mazina csukescondi kalenet

def .forest inside pfv.npst to-vanish 1.inan.pro

pfv.npst to-reveal midnight outsider

One vanishes in the forest.

Midnight reveals an outsider.

=See also=
 * /Thematic Dictionary/
 * /Writing System/
 * /Conversation/
 * /Figurative Speech/
 * /Naming/
 * /Mathematics and Measurement/
 * /Time and Astronomy/
 * /Arts/