Ashouctian

General information
Ashouctian is a fusional nominative-accusative mostly head-intial language. Word order is strictly SVO. It is mostly head-initial in that adjectives follow the nouns they modify, adverbs follow the verbs they modify, the language has postpositions, but genitive phrases preceed the head noun. The language makes extensive use of consonant gradation in it's declension and conjugation. There is also a high rate of infixing for a fusional language.

Nouns decline for three cases: nominative, oblique, and genetive, as well as to indicate plurality. Verbs conjugate for person, number, tense (past, present, and future), aspect (imperfect, perfect, and progressive), mood (indicative, subjunctive, interrogative, imperative, and conditional), and voice (active, passive, and mediopassive). Some of these are expressed periphrastically, however. Adjectives agree with the noun they modify in case and number, and adverbs simply follow the verb they modify.

Phonology
Ashouctian has a rich consonant inventory of 70 distinct consonants, but only 4 distinct vowels.

Vowels

 * There are also four diphthongs: /ai/, /au/, /əi/, and /əu/

Allophony

 * After (but not before) a labialized consonant or in between two labialized consonants, unrounded vowels are often rounded.
 * Alveolar plosives become retroflex before a retroflex fricative or approximant.
 * Word-final ejectives are pronounced as a plain consonant
 * Word-final labialized consonants are often, but not always, pronounced as a plain consonant

Phonotactics
Syllable structure is (E)(C)(ɻ, r, S)V(C) where E is an ejective consonant, C is any consonant, S is a sibilant, and V is any vowel or diphthong. However, onsets including all three of (E)(C)(ɻ, r, S) do not occur, nor an onset of (N)(S) where N is a nasal and S is a sibilant. Any consonant may end a syllable.

Orthography

 * Main article: Ashouctian Orthography

Ashouctian uses the Latin alphabet and employs a complex orthography using only the following letters:


 * a á b c d e é f g h i í l m n o ó p r s t u ú

Consonant mutation

 * Main article: Ashouctian consonant mutation 

Ashouctian consonants undergo multiple forms of mutation during declension and conjugation. This generally only effects word-final consonants or ultimate consonants, but it can effect other consonants due to infixing as well. Different conjugations, declensions, and infixes trigger different mutations and not all mutations are regular.

Verbs
Ashouctian verbs conjugate for person, number, 3 tenses (past, present, and future) 3 aspects (imperfective, perfective, and progressive), 5 moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive, conditional, and interrogative), 3 voices (active, passive, and mediopassive) and polarity. Some constructions are periphrastic and use auxillary verbs or particles, such as the conditional mood, the progressive aspect, and the passive and mediopassive voices.

All Ashouctian verbs end with -em/iaem in the infinitive and this form also functions as a verbal noun and can undergo declension.