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.

{C} {C}

{C} {C}

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

mankra to eat 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 mankrash. "She eats./She is eating."

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."