Kasiro

Sunazhum (talk) 01:51, March 29, 2013 (UTC)

Summary
The Kasīrō language is a medieval language once spoken by the imperial court of a certain powerful empire, having evolved from a pre-imperial form known as Ancient Kasīrō. Trade and military conquest brought this language to a zenith of prestige in the 1300s, but it gradually disappeared with the collapse of its patron empire. Regional dialects of Kasiro branched off and eventually became distinct modern languages that are still spoken today.

Alphabet
Kasiro has its own writing system, but a modified Latin alphabet is used for the purposes of study. This modified Latin alphabet contains 22 consonants: B b  Ch ch   D d   F f   G g   Gh gh   K k   Kh kh   L l   M m   N n   Ng ng   P p   R r   S s   Sh sh   T t   Ts ts   W w  Y y   Z z   Zh zh as well as 5 long vowels and 3 short vowels, making 8 vowels altogether: Ā ā  Ē ē   Ī ī   Ō ō   Ū ū   A a   I i   U u

Phonotactics
Kasiro does not allow any multiconsonantal onsets aside from a consonant and a semivowel (C + y/w). Only certain consonants, including aspirated plosives and nasals, may be codas. The largest possible syllable is, thus, CAVC, where A is a semivowel.

Diphthongs are not allowed in the standard dialect; vowels may not be adjacent to one another except across syllable lines. In fast speech or local dialect, however, adjacent vowels may be merged to form diphthongs.

Grammar
Kasiro is primarily a subject-verb-object (SOV) language, though SOV and VSO may be used as poetic devices. The following focuses on the grammar of Literary Kasiro, the standard dialect used by officials of the imperial court.

Verbs
Kasiro verbs are conjugated according to number, tense, aspect, mood, and voice. Person and gender are not marked. Verbs must agree with the noun on the number (singular or plural). There are three aspects: simple (i.e. "I write"), continuous (i.e. "I am writing"), and perfect (i.e. "I have written"). The verbs can be conjugated in active or passive voice.

Passive voice
Verbs can be inflected to passive voice by simply inserting the infix "- mū -" between the verb stem and the inflectional ending. For example, "had been written" (perfect past passive voice) would be sunamūtī, comprising of suna- (stem of "to write"), -mū-, and -tī (perfect past indicative singular ending).

Causative
A verb can be derived into causative form using the prefix " wi -". For example, "to cause to write" would be wisunara, comprising of wi-, -suna- (stem of "to write"), and -ra (infinitive ending).

Reflexive
The reflexive form of a verb may be expressed by placing the word  tsu  (lit. "-self") after the verb without needing to repeat the pronoun, such as Saō kutusātsu ("I see myself").

Supine
The supine form is expressed with the preposition na ("for") with the gerund form of a verb. For example, one says Saō mōsā na sunasē ("I read to write," lit. "I read for writing").

Copula
A copula links the subject of a sentence with the predicate, or subject complement. Kasiro uses two verb-like copulae, " tara " and " sura ", both of which correspond to the English copula "to be."

"Tara"
Tara expresses identity, membership, or a subset relationship, and is used when both the subject and the complement are noun phrases. For example, the sentence "I am a human" would be rendered Saō ta guma.

For the irregular conjugation of tara, see the Contionary entry.

"Sura"
Sura expresses emotion, property, relation, or position, whether temporary or permanent. It is used when the complement is an adjective or a dependent clause. For example, the sentence "I am sad" translates to "Saō su daba".

For the irregular conjugation of sura, see the Contionary entry.

Nouns
Declension of Kasiro nouns is subject to gender and number. The two genders for nouns (and adjectives) are strong and weak, and words are rather arbitrarily placed in either category according to whether the word ends in a consonant (strong) or vowel (weak). As Kasiro does not have any definite or indefinite articles, the noun kasan may mean either "a bird" or "the bird".

Strong nouns are made plural by adding the suffix "- ē ", i.e. kasanē ("birds") from kasan.

Weak nouns are made plural by adding the suffix "- mu ", i.e. parumu ("skills") from paru.

Although grammatical case is not marked, the genitive form of a noun is formed with the possessive suffix "- fi " or "- ī ". The noun marked should be the possessor, not the possessed, similar to the English "'s".

Adjectives
Kasiro adjectives usually precede the nouns they modify. An adjective must agree with its noun in gender and number. Most adjectives, by default, end in -u (singular strong ending) and are inflected thus:

Comparison
Adverbs for comparison precede the adjectives being modified. Ngar is a verb used for comparisons that translates roughly to "is... than". For example: where X and Y are objects being compared, and A is the adjective; the sentence translates to "X is more A than Y." Notice that ngar does not have an exact English translation, but rather is a verb used specifically for comparisons.
 * nwa means "more"
 * ōnā means "most"
 * tibu means "less"
 * tēbu means "least"

Adverbs
Adverbs are not inflected. They usually precede the modified verb or adjective. An adverb is formed by changing the last vowel of an adjective to "-ū".

Derivations
A number of derivational patterns exist in Kasiro, allowing the formation of new words.
 * adjective to noun (quality; -ness): "-wā"
 * adjective to noun (state or condition; -itude, -hood): "-shē"
 * adjective to noun (ability or inclination; ability): "-par"
 * adjective/noun to verb (-ize, -fy): "-ura"
 * adjective to adjective (somewhat; -ish): "-zhu"
 * noun to adjective (of or pertaining to; -al): "-wa"
 * verb to adjective (inclined or able to): "par-"
 * verb to noun (abstract; state, quality, condition; -ance, -ency): "-fat"
 * verb to noun (agent of an action; -er, -or): "-zhum"
 * verb to noun (result or process of action): "-nak"
 * "inhabitant of" (-ese, -an): "-gum"
 * "person relating to" (-an): "-gum"

Personal pronouns
Kasiro personal pronouns are open-class, meaning that new pronouns may be used and current pronouns are not set in stone. Personal pronouns in Kasiro are subject to categorization according to degree of formality and/or level of respect. Some popular personal pronouns include: In lieu of personal pronouns, many Kasiro speakers will instead use names or titles to refer to people where it may seem awkward in English. For example, a person named Mary may use "Mary" to refer to herself rather than saō or fō, and use "John" to directly address someone named John rather than gā or kan.

Reflexive pronouns are formed by the suffix "- tsu ." As in English, reflexive pronouns may be used to emphasize the antecedent, i.e. Dāōtsu kututā "He himself saw [it]"). Tsu is placed after the verb if the intent is "He saw himself," or Dāō kututātsu.

Possessive adjectives are formed simply by using genitive suffixes "-fi" or "-ī".

Syntax
The basic word order is subject-verb-object (SVO). Adjectives and adverbs precede the words they modify. Kasiro is a pro-drop language, often omitting the object if redundant. Subjects are usually not omitted, as Kasiro verbs are not conjugated for person and dropping of the subject may cause confusion. The topic-comment form may be used for Kasiro, in which old information, a "topic," is presented initially and is followed by new information, or a "comment."

Negations of verbs, noun phrases, adverbs, adjectives, etc. are formed by placing the adverb " ku " ("not") in front of the word. For example, ku sunara means "to not write." Kasiro lacks negative concord; double negatives instead lead to the negation of a negation, as in standard English.

The particle " si ," placed at the end of a sentence, is used to convert a statement into a yes-no (polar) question. Otherwise, non-polar questions (or wh-questions in English) are formed with interrogative words. Unlike English, the statement is not inverted when made into a question, so the statement "You are cold" becomes "You are cold?" rather than "Are you cold?"

Echo responses are often used when answering yes-no questions, but one-word adverbial answers may be used. In Kasiro, the "yes" and "no" words indicate agreement or disagreement with a sentence, rather than a positive or negative response as in English. As such, if Person A says, "Is she not pretty?", then Person B may respond, "No, she is pretty." In Kasiro, "yes" translates to " aya ," while "no" translates to " ku ."

Relative clauses
Relative clauses are formed with a complementizer and a resumptive pronoun. For example, "The man that I saw yesterday went home" would be "The man [that I yesterday saw him] went home." The complementizer used in all cases, corresponding to the English "that," is " gha ."

Prepositions
Kasiro prepositions must precede the noun phrase. As such, "preposition stranding" is not allowed. Common prepositions include:

Conjunctions
A conjunction is a grammatical particle that connects multiple words, sentences, phrases, or clauses together. Some common conjunctions include: