Oscanez

General
Oscanez, or Oscan ( English: / ɒs.kə.ˈnez, ˈɒs,kən/ primarily called Oscan in English) [os.ka.ˈnez] is a Romance language on the dialect continuum between Spanish (Aragonese) and French (Occitan). It is spoken in the north of Spain, near southern France. It shares several features with Catalan and Aragonese, as well as French and Spanish. Oscanez is spoken by 10,000 to 20,000 people, primarily around the city of Osca in Spain.

Its name, Oscanez, comes from Late Latin -iscus (inflected for the feminine accusative -iscam) and the city Osca, in northern Spain. Historically, the inhabitants of Osca were ancient Iberians, and their language influenced the Oscanses (people of Osca). Some examples include the word cama, meaning bed from the Vescetani, and Oscanez's five vowel system.

Phonology
Oscanez is a (C)(C)V(C)(C)(C) language, with basic phonological rules.

Consonants
There are several allophones, mostly of plosives, in Oscanez. Between vowels, the voiced stops lenite into fricatives [β ð x]. /n/ has an allophone /ŋ/ before /k/ and /g/.  is /r/ when at the beginning of a word or phrase. Otherwise, it is its flap or a uvular trill. While [z] is not a phoneme, it has orthographic purposes. Word-finally, it is /s/ or /z/ depending on the vowel before it. If it is /o u/ then it is unvoiced, otherwise, it is voiced, and after all diphthongs it is unvoiced. Generally, /ɲ/ is merging with /nj/, but is still preserved word initially and other places. [r] has the allophone /ʁ/ when there is a doubled  in the orthography.

Vowels
Three of the above vowels have nasal counterparts, but all of the vowels have nasal allophones when before a nasal consonant. /a e i u/ lax into /ə/ in unstressed syllables. There is no length or voicing distinction. /a o u e/ have nasal allophones. When /i/ would be nasalized, it rounds into /y/, an allophone of /i/. Depending on the dialect, a sequence of /kw/ can be analyzed as [kɥ]. In standard Oscanez, the sequence is a normal falling diphthong. The nasal vowels are written as  or . Nasals are most common ending words, but can also occur ending syllables. In a word like caminan, the first m is pronounced, but the a is also nasalized. The final n is not pronounced, instead nasalizing the a. This leads to an articulation like [kã.ˑmi.nã]. Note that vowels followed by nasals are also affected, but within words the consonant is still articulated.

Diphthongs and Triphthongs
Oscanez has nine falling diphthongs, and one rising diphthong /au/. In fast speech, most of these diphthongs merge into the "stronger" vowel /a e o/. The falling diphthongs include all instances of /j/ followed by a vowel (except /i/, which is analyzed as a syllable), and /w/ followed by all vowels.

Prosody
Oscanez is syllable-timed. All syllables take the same amount of time to produce.

Words generally have stress on the penultimate syllable, unless they end with an  or , /õ/, or are duosyllabic. Words which have more than four syllables sometimes have stress on the third syllable. Words that have that third syllable accent will me marked with a <´> over the vowel.

At the end of a question intonation rises at the first word, and also at the end of the phrase. Otherwise, it is exactly like English.

Phonotactics
Oscanez has a (C)(C)V(C)(C) syllable structure.


 * Onset (can be null)
 * First consonant (C1): anything except for clusters including nasals or /s/.
 * Second consonant (C2): /f/ or /v/, a rhotic or lateral (if C1 is a plosive). The clusters /tl/ and /dl/ are not allowed.
 * Nucleus
 * Any vowel or diphthong can be positioned in the nucleus (/w/ is analyzed as the vowel /u/ as a falling diphthong in the nucleus).
 * A maximum of two vowels/semivowels are allowed together in the nucleus.


 * Coda (can be null)
 * First consonant (C1): /r/ /n/ /s/ or null.
 * Second consonant (C2): If there is a C1, then C2 is generally /t/ or /k/ (/k/ only if preceded by /s/). Otherwise, C1 is null and the final coda is /p t d s r n l/. /f/ is found in loaned words from Latin, such as subjontive /sub.ʒõ.ˑtif/.

Allowed clusters across syllable boundaries include plosives followed by a rhotic, and nasals by their place of articulation plosive (/nk/, but not /mk/). /s/ is followed by unvoiced plosives, but when beginning a word must have a prosthetic /e/ (escola, not scola). /r/ can be followed by any sound, and /r/ can be followed by /s/ and vice versa. Plosives can also be followed by /ʃ/ or /ʒ/, with unvoiced taking the unvoiced fricative and vice versa. The dental fricatives cannot be followed by those two consonants. This rule also applies to /z/ and /s/ after dentals. /l/ /j/ and /ʎ/ cannot exist in clusters. In terms of other clusters, a maximum of three consonants can be grouped. If there is a plosive + liquid cluster, a fricative can precede them. Note that these words are generally Latin loanwords into Oscanez.

Orthography
Oscanez has very regular spelling, with each letter almost having a 1 to 1 correspondence in pronunciation. As stated before, vowels except /i/ nasalize when followed by a nasal. At the end of syllables the nasal letter is purely orthographic, only showing that the vowel before is nasalized. An example of this is in the word formajon, formation /for.ma.ʒõ/.

 is /s/ when followed by an /i/ or /e/, due to palatalization in Vulgar Latin. The same shift occurs with . To have a sequence like /ge/, it would be written with an , such as Ghinea, an African country.

 is totally null, only occurring orthographically when etymology is needed. This is showcased in the word hun which means man, but is pronounced [ũ].

A doubled ll is usually /ʎ/, such as in the world moller, but if beginning a word, it is /ʃ/, such as in the word llobia.

/ɲ/ is represented by  always.

 occurs in Latin based loanwords, such as example /eksample/.

Grammar
The grammar follows the general structure of most Romance languages, differing from Latin in its syntax and loss of grammatical case. Many verb affixes are preserved, and new compound tenses are created.

Nouns
Nouns in Oscanez have lost their Latin case endings, but preserved two of the three Latin genders.

Gender
Every noun is either masculine or feminine, with the old Latin neuter merging with the masculine. Regarding living things, most nouns correspond with the gender of the living thing described.

Not every noun can have its gender predicted, but there are several general rules. Generally, if a word ends in -o, -or, -n, -z (-z endings can be feminine adjectives) it is masculine. Nouns that refer to males such as padre (father) are also masculine. If the word ends in -a, -tat, ajon, then it is feminine. Words referring to females are also feminine.

Number
There are two numbers: singular and plural. The singular is the lexical meaning of the noun, while the plural is counted as an inflection of the noun. The plural is formed by adding /s/ to the end of the noun if it ends in a vowel, and /os/ for masculine nouns ending in a consonant. To form feminine plurals, add /as/ to the end of the consonant(s).

Most uncountable nouns are treated as plural, such as “las arenas” meaning English “sand.”

Articles
The masculine and feminine singular forms elide to  before vowels and null . For example, the grammatically correct form is “l’aventora” instead of suspected “la aventora.”

Thus:


 * lo cabalo = "[the] horse"
 * los cabalos = "[the] horses"
 * la linga = "[the] language "
 * las lingas = "[the] languages"

Like the definite article, the singular forms elide. The feminine changes to un before vowels. For example, the grammatically correct form of “an ear” is un urella.

The article is almost always carried by the noun, with the only exceptions being when other determiners modify the noun. In places where English drops the article, the article is kept. These include the subject for general nouns, objects, and almost any place where English could delete its article. For example, to write “Summer is good,” one writes “lo veran e bon.”

Possessive Determiners

 * 1) The formal second person vostet takes its determiners from the 3rd person part of the chart.

These agree in gender and number, which means that even if a group of people are possessing a singular noun, the noun takes the singular third person form.

These determiners can be used after a linking verb with the definite article to convey possessive pronouns. This construction is generally obsolete but is still used in some literature, and is equivalent to English "The dress is mine."

Demonstrative Determiners
There are two degrees of proximity expressed by the four sets of determiners. They developed from Latin iste and eccum (*accum) illum, respectively. These roughly correspond to English “this” or “that,” with the remote determiners having a farther spatial distance than English “that.” For this reason, many speakers use este when referring to objects that in English would normally be determined with “that.”

Interrogative Determiners
The interrogative determiner means what or which depending on the modified noun. It agrees only in number.


 * 1) As described in the orthography, the doubled ll within words is pronounced /ʎ/

Cual can be used in exclamations meaning something along the lines of “how!” or “what!” For example, saying “Cual bela masion!” means “What a beautiful house!”

Quantifiers
The Latin adjective multus evolved into Oscanez molt. This corresponds to “much, a lot, many” in English. As before, it agrees in gender and number.

Its antonym meaning “very little, a small amount, little” is three different words strung together with an article. There are other quantifiers which are vocabulary, such as tre de, meaning “three of.”

Verbs
Verbs in Oscanez are categorized into four classes of infinitives, those that end in -ar, -re, -er, and -ir. There are three moods in Oscanez, indicative, imperative, and subjunctive. There are five simple tenses in the indicative: future, present, imperfect, perfect, and conditional. Of these tenses, there are only two in the subjunctive: present, imperfect. All of the tenses can be combined with forms of abre to form perfect compound tenses. Using the gerundive and forms of estar, all continuous tenses can be formed. There are two copulas, estar and esir.

Present and Future Indicative
The present indicative is used to describe actions that exist currently and is inherently imperfect. It describes the subject in a state of being or in action. For example:

Jo s'alt (I am tall).

Nos vivimos en la ciutat (We live in the city). For the first conjugation -ar verbs (not ending with a -t or -n in the stem) there are the following endings: Note that -n stems such as andar, to walk, have no ending in the first person singular (ant, I go). Note the final devoicing of the /d/. Obsolescent canar (native form of borrowed caminar) preserves this stem in its first person of can. All -er verbs follow this paradigm. The verb debre is an irregular -re verb, having the same present endings except for the third person singular, (dep, he should), and the plural, (deben, they should). -ir verbs only differ with -re verbs in the third person plural and the infinitive.

The present in Oscanez is used to describe ongoing actions occurring at one time, states of being in a present time frame.

The future tense in Oscanez is used in future actions, commands / prohibitions, and polite requests. The future is regular for nearly every conjugation, simply adding the following endings to the infinitive. -re verbs add different endings to the stem. Note that in -re verbs the final  becomes accented <é> because it is the last syllable, making the word an acot.

There are several verbs in Oscanez which undergo a stem change in the future and conditional. These are common verbs.

Past Tenses
There are two different past tenses in Oscanez, which are differentiated by aspect. The perfective aspect creates the preterite tense (also called the past historic), and the imperfective creates the imperfect.

Imperfect
The imperfect in Oscanez is used to denote habitual or continuous action in the past. In English, it can be translated as "used to X, or was Xing." There are certain words which, in the imperfect, can be translated with the English simple past. These include: sabre, conoscre, voller, sentir, podre, and deber.

The imperfect is the most regular tense system in Oscanez, with its only irregulars in the word esir and ir.

Esir
Esir is the essential copula. It descends from Vulgar Latin *essere, with major irregularity. Esir is generally used as a personal linking verb describing occupation / profession, nationality / origin, personal (permanent) adjectives. When used as a simple linking verb, esir does not take articles. Generally, estar is used in emotional or physical condition, but esir can be used for permanent condition. For example, to say “She is a beautiful woman” with the specific connotation of this woman always being beautiful, one says “E bela fema.”

If the present indicative or subjunctive first person links with a word with a vowel, the form of esir contracts into s'.

Estar
Estar is the stative copula. It descends from Vulgar Latin *stare, with some irregularity. Estar is generally used whenever esir would not be used. It is used in all progressive tenses with the gerundive, and in time, emotional or physical conditions, location, and temporal descriptions. For example, to say, “She is beautiful today,” one says “Está bela ue.”