Bäladiri

General Information
Bäladiri is a Westerlander language of the central lowlands. Despite its general genetic affiliation with other Westerlander languages, it is part of the lowlands Sprachbund, having come under the influence of several dragon herder languages.

Bäladiri is, generally speaking, an agglutinative language that features prominent consonant gradation patterns triggered by stress shifts and certain types of affixes. It features marginally distinctive stress that tends to be either penultimate or antepenultimate. It has some partially opaque and obscured stem alternations deriving from earlier gradation and contraction rules.

Bäladiri is natively written in a Westerlander abugida, with a Dragon Imperial implementation used among certain communities.

Phonology
/pp p b tt t d kk k g ʔ/  /f v vv θ ð s z ʂ ʐ x γ/  /mm m ɳɳ ɳ ɲɲ ɲ ŋŋ ŋ/  /rr r ll l jj j/  /ts tts dz ddz tʂ ttʂ dʐ ddʐ/ 

/i i: y y: ɨ ɯ ɯ: u u:/  /ɛ ɛ: ø ø: ɜ ɜ:/  /ɐ ɑ ɑ:/ <ä a ā> /ɑi ɑu iɑ ɛɑ ɛi/ 

Bäladiri features marginally distinctive stress in a few loanwords and the occasional native relic or remnant. As its stress falls almost exclusively on the penultimate syllable, it isn't considered salient enough a feature to be marked in common usage; stress is indicated only in linguistic descriptions.

Consonant Gradation
Bäladiri features prominent consonant mutation that takes the form of gradation: its gradation is a lenition system that weakens consonants in certain morphological environments.

Most consonants are considered to lie somewhere on an axis, moving down it when specific types of lenition are triggered. As a result of several phonemic merges and multiple consonant shifts, many consonants have multiple lenited forms. The consonantal axes are:

Nouns
Bäladiri nouns generally fit into only one declension: they all take the same set of suffixes (though their nominative singulars might be unique), but are characterised by the presence of two stems; this phenomenon derives from earlier stress alternations that then caused consonant lenition and vowel reduction.

They inflect for five cases (nominative, accusative, ergative, vocative and oblique), and two numbers (singular and plural); the singular is generally characterised by an etymological nasal in the accusative and ergative, and the plural by a dental in all cases. Some Bäladiri nouns preserve a more ancient dual, which is characterised by the presence of a labial obstruent.

>>  Example nouns   << ---         SG         PL  NOM   mávës      máutis        ["friend"; *mȧva-s] ACC  máunas     máutas ERG  máuna      máuta VOC  máve       máutë OBL  mávë       mávët SG        PL  NOM   máθïl      máultis       ["olive"; *mȧθul-Ø] ACC  máulnas    máultas ERG  máulna     máulta VOC  máule/máθe máultë OBL  máθï(l)    máθï(l)t [sáppïs,  samúnas]  ["kinsman" *sȧppu-s] [úkät,    ughónas]  ["happiness" *u̇ko-t] [súngë,     sûnas]  ["brother" *su̇ŋa < *su̇ŋa-s] [básïs,    báunas]  ["stench" *bȧsus] [gháprï, ghavrínas] ["pigeon" *ḡȧpri] [móšpï,  možvúnas]  ["wealth" *mȯčpu] [káumën,  kāmánas]  ["moron" *kȧwaman] [fólpïn, folvínas]  ["cause" *folpin (loanword)] [párpï,  parvínas]  ["bottom" *pȧrpi (loanword)] [ärkádžï, ärkáunas] ["leader" *ärka-džu (loanword)] [ilúnnë, ilughánas] ["ally" *i-lu̇na]

Adjectives
Bäladiri adjectives come in two classes: one class of nominal adjectives that stand with nouns and modify them directly, and one class of verbal adjectives that conjugate and are usually used as modifiers through relative clauses.

Verbs
>>>     Example verb       <<< --- --> INF SG        DU        PL  NOM   aghádē     ////     agháitis     ["see sth."] ACC  agháinas   ////     agháitas ERG  agháina    ////     agháita VOC  aghádē     ////     agháitë OBL  agháde     ////     aghádet .................... --> PRES MOMN 1ST  ágōn      ákār      ákais 2ND  ákal      aghále    aghíli 3RD  ágam      agháse    ákaus .................... --> PRES CONT 1ST  aghádōn   aghátār   aghátais 2ND  aghátal   aghðále   aghðíli 3RD  aghádam   aghðáse   aghátaus -- --> IMMI MOMN 1ST  ágrōn     ákrār     ákrais 2ND  ákral     aghrále   aghríli 3RD  ágram     aghráse   ákraus .................... --> IMMI CONT 1ST  aghrádōn  aghrátār  aghrátais 2ND  aghrátal  aghðrále  aghðríli 3RD  aghrádam  aghðráse  aghrátaus -- --> PAST MOMN 1ST  ákai      agháitä    ákail 2ND  ákä       aghátä     ákal 3RD  ágain     agháindä   ágaunn .................... --> PAST CONT 1ST  aghátai   aghðáitä   aghátail 2ND  aghátä    aghðátä    aghátal 3RD  aghátain  aghðáindä  aghátaunn

General Word Order
Bäladiri has a generally free word order, as its extensive inflections give it configurational liberty. Even as such, Bäladiri tends to follow the principle of putting its objects and intransitive subjects before the verb, and transitive agents and other arguments after it.

Case Marking
Case marking in Bäladiri is generally straightforward. Aside from the adpositions that require a specific case nearly at random, the language assigns cases fairly logically:
 * The Nominative marks the subjects and agents of active sentences, and the patient role in a passive sentence
 * The Accusative marks the patient role of active sentences
 * The Ergative marks the agent role of a passive sentence (a former demoted nominative)
 * The Vocative marks an addressed party
 * The Oblique marks secondary arguments; almost never occurs without an adposition

Some verbs require different case assignments respective to argument roles; this phenomenon of quirky case most frequently occurs with the three core cases.

Passivisation
Unlike proto-North-Westerlander, Bäladiri lacks a specific passive verb inflection or analytic construction; Bäladiri passives are formed by case reassignment. With passivisation, the accusative argument gets promoted to the nominative, whereas the old nominative argument is demoted to an ergative. These pseudopassive sentences are syntactically and semantically identical to absolutive-ergative active sentences; the nominative patients of these sentences come before the verb, and their ergative agents follow the verb.

Verb Agreement
Bäladiri verbs feature a more ergative syntactic alignment: they agree in person and number to the intransitive subject and the transitive patient, instead of agreeing with a specific case argument.

Relative Clauses
Bäladiri relative clauses are introduced with the relative demonstrative  (declines like a regular noun).