Taurahe

Taurahe is the language spoken by the Tauren from the Warcraft universe. This article is written about ceremonial Taurahe, which is consistent among most tribes.

Orthography
Taurahe does not have a native orthography, as Tauren typically have not kept physical records. If the language is written, it is typically in whichever script is available. This page uses a standardized IPA-based orthography, but such efforts are not prescriptive.

Phonology
Taurahe has 4 vowels and 20 consonants.

Vowels
There are 4 phonemic vowels, /e ʉ˞ o ɒ̜/.


 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! !Front !Central !Back !High !Low
 * e
 * ʉ˞
 * o
 * ɒ̜
 * }
 * ɒ̜
 * }

At the end of a word, /e/ is advanced to [i]. If an /e/ appears in a syllable before [i], it will harmonize and also become [i]. This will travel backwards until the morpheme boundary. /k'aŋase/ → [k'ɒ̜ŋɒ̜si]; /teʔeke/ → [tiʔiki]

Diphthongs
Diphthongs may appear in stressed syllables. All diphthongs are ascending, and all 16 potential diphthongs are possible.


 * /e/ → /j/
 * /ʉ˞/ → /ɻ/
 * /o/ → /w/
 * /ɒ/ → /ɫ/


 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

!↱ !e !u !o !a !e !u !o !a
 * ye
 * yu
 * yo
 * ya
 * re
 * ru
 * ro
 * ra
 * we
 * wu
 * wo
 * wa
 * le
 * lu
 * lo
 * la
 * }

Consonants

 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! colspan=2| ! Labial ! Alveolar ! Palatal ! Velar !Glottal ! colspan=2| Nasal ! rowspan=2| Plosive || Ejective ! Plain ! rowspan=2 | Fricative || Consonantal ! Vocalic
 * m
 * n
 * ɲ
 * ŋ
 * pʼ
 * tʼ
 * t͡ʃʼ
 * kʼ
 * rowspan=2|ʔ
 * p
 * t
 * k
 * k
 * f
 * s
 * ʃ
 * h
 * h
 * v
 * ʒ ʐ
 * ɫ
 * }
 * }
 * }

The vocalic fricatives are derived from vowels, rather than as voiced variants of the voiceless fricatives or as fricated plosives.
 * /e/ → /j/ → /ʒ/
 * /ʉ˞/ → /ɻ/ → /ʐ/
 * /o/ → /w/ → /v/
 * /ɒ/ → /ɫ/ → /ɫ/

Structure
Content morphemes are typically trisyllabic, following the model C(S)VCVCV. Stress is intensity-based and always falls on the first syllable of a word.

Indexes and Paradigms
Most words are built around tri-consonantal indexes which carry a general meaning, interfixed with vowel paradigms which distinguish words. For example, f-ʒ-ʐ- means "wild", m-ʒ-m- means "sad", k'-m-p means "gesture". Paradigms don't carry carry specific meaning, but help to classify the indexes. Paradigms include things like verbal conjugations and adjectival inflections.

Verbs
Verbs are conjugated according to tense, aspect, and mood.
 * Tense
 * Past: The wolf chased the strider.
 * Present: The sun rises over Thunder Bluff.
 * Future: We will celebrate tonight.
 * Aspect
 * Perfective: I stumbled.
 * Imperfective: I will be sleeping when you arrive.
 * Mood
 * Declarative: This roast is delicious.
 * Mirative: Wow! This roast is delicious!
 * Interrogative: Is this roast delicious?
 * Hortative: Would you like to take this letter to my father, please?
 * Optative: I hope you get well soon.
 * Potential: It may rain tomorrow.

Certain combinations may not occur. For example, the hortative, optative, and potential moods can only occur in the future tense.

A verb is composed of 3 parts, a verb tag (which marks tense and the potential and mirative moods, and which agrees with aspect), an index (which carries meaning), and the verb paradigm (which marks aspect and the declarative, hortative/optative, and interrogative moods).

Verbal tags
There are 16 verbal tags.


 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

!colspan=2| !colspan=2|Declarative !colspan=2|Mirative !colspan=2| !Perfective !Imperfective !Perfective !Imperfective !colspan=2|Past !colspan=2|Present !rowspan=2|Future||Declarative !Potential
 * fuʔa
 * fyuʔa
 * fuʐaʐa
 * fyuʐaʐa
 * ʔet'a
 * t'yeʔa
 * t'eʐaʐa
 * t'yeʐaʐa
 * c'ula
 * c'yula
 * c'yuʐaʐa
 * c'yuʐaʐa
 * k'ava
 * k'yava
 * k'avaʐa
 * k'yavaʐa
 * }

Paradigms
There are 5 base paradigms for verbs, being -e-e-a, -u-u-a, -o-o-a, -a-a-a, and -a-a-e. This is the form the verb uses for the perfective declarative aspect and mood.

For example, "feʔeta" hunt, is comprised of the index f-ʔ-t- and the paradigm -e-e-a. "p'uvuka" hold, believe, is p'-v-k- and -u-u-a. The index/paradigm link is arbitrary.


 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

!colspan=2| !k-l-k'- bloom !f-t'-ʐ- fly !t-v-l- combat !c'-v-ʔ- throw !p'-v-n- success !rowspan=2|Declarative||Perfective !Imperfective !rowspan=2|Interrogative||Perfective !Imperfective !colspan=2|Hortative/Optative
 * kelek'a
 * fut'uʐa
 * tovola
 * c'avaʔa
 * p'avane
 * kyulek'a
 * fyut'uʐa
 * tyovola
 * c'yavaʔa
 * p'yavena
 * kwelek'a
 * fwut'uʐa
 * twovola
 * c'wavaʔa
 * p'wavane
 * kwelek'a
 * fwet'uʐa
 * twevola
 * c'wevaʔa
 * p'wavena
 * kelak'a
 * fut'aʐa
 * tovala
 * c'avaʔa
 * p'avane
 * }

Phrase order
Sentences are composed of phrases, discrete noun and verb phrases which move together. The phrase order is VSO, but there is quite a bit of movement that obscures the order. There is a strong tendency to separate the noun phrases via topicalization.

Verb Phrases
Perhaps the most important part of the sentence is the verb phrase, and every proper sentence will have at least one. Like noun phrases, the verb phrase follows a pattern: tense marker, any adverbs as desired, and the verb proper.

Active versus Stative
Verbs are either active or stative. Active verbs typical involve voluntary effort, such as running, hunting, or eating. Stative verbs involve less voluntary actions, such as sleeping, being seen, falling in love, or having a quality.

Valency
Every verb must have at least one argument, which is typically the subject, or the object in passive constructions.

Monovalent verbs have a single argument. The verb type, active or stative, is important now because it determines whether the argument uses yo or so. Active verbs use yo. Stative verbs use so.


 * Active
 * {|class="wikitable" style="text-align: left;"


 * Te
 * omse
 * lawyo
 * laworo.
 * PRS
 * hide
 * it.ACT
 * wolf
 * colspan=4|The wolf is hiding.
 * }
 * colspan=4|The wolf is hiding.
 * }


 * Stative
 * {|class="wikitable" style="text-align: left;"


 * Te
 * tsootsa
 * lawso
 * køsødø
 * tsawda
 * dengoke.
 * PRS
 * sleep
 * it.STV
 * deer
 * it.in.STATIC
 * night
 * colspan=6|The deer sleeps at night.
 * }
 * colspan=6|The deer sleeps at night.
 * }

In passive sentences, in which the subject is deleted, the object phrase (which will always be a so phrase) moves before the verb.


 * {|class="wikitable" style="text-align: left;"


 * Koso
 * stawko
 * te
 * maama.
 * it.STV
 * wheat
 * PRS
 * eat
 * colspan=4|The wheat is being eaten.
 * }
 * colspan=4|The wheat is being eaten.
 * }

Multivalent verbs take two or more arguments: active verbs take one yo and so, while stative verbs take multiple so. In simple sentences containing multivalent verbs, the subject will move before the verb.


 * {|class="wikitable" style="text-align: left;"


 * Lawyo
 * laworo
 * fø
 * sekada
 * lawso
 * køsødø.
 * it.ACT
 * wolf
 * RCT
 * chase
 * it.STV
 * deer.
 * colspan=6|The wolf chased the deer.
 * }
 * colspan=6|The wolf chased the deer.
 * }

The following example illustrates the semantic value of fronting the subject phrase.


 * {|class="wikitable" style="text-align: left;"


 * Te
 * pooka
 * so
 * anga
 * so
 * tsay.
 * PRS
 * love
 * STV
 * me
 * STV
 * you.
 * }
 * }

This ungrammatical sentence states, "Love me you". The verb pooka is stative thus uses so for both parties regardless of who loves whom. In a grammatical sentence, one of the noun phrases would move before the verb, identifying is as the subject (as does lawyo laworo in the preceding example). Leaving both noun phrases anga and tsay after the verb phrase implies that both are the subject, since no movement takes place if the verb has no object (like Te omse lawyo laworo.). This leaves us with a sentence "we love...". However, pooka must always take an object. To fix the sentence, we can do several things:
 * Move one of the noun phrases to the front, marking it as the subject and the other one as the object.
 * So anga te pooka so tsay: I love you.
 * So tsay te pooka so anga: You love me.
 * Move both noun phrases to the front. We are left with no subject so the sentence becomes passive. While multivalent verbs must have an explicit object, they are allowed to have a null subject.
 * So anga so tsay te pooka: We are loved.
 * Or simply insert a different subject.
 * Lawso royoma pøøse te pooka so anga so tsay.: My/your/our friend loves us.

Noun Phrases
Noun phrases are composed of four pieces of information: the class, the role, any adjectives if applicable, and finally the noun itself.

Classes
Taurahe has six noun classes. They are not arbitrary and are typically intuitive. The majority of nouns fall into one of the first four classes, since the final two are very limited in breadth. Each of these class words can stand alone to mean him, her, it, or are sometimes untranslatable.


 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

!Class !What sorts of things fall into this class? !Examples
 * law
 * living creatures, animals, persons
 * kaynakay tamed wolf, yamehe tribe, ngamolø druid
 * ko
 * natural objects
 * angaro seed, mawsa/motsa tree, papa drop of water
 * o
 * constructed objects
 * hatsaka arrow, totem totem pole, statse basket
 * ha
 * mythology and weather, other intangibles
 * walaste spirit, sawla water, asale knowledge, retsawm pressure, tawrahe language, yomapa cloud
 * am
 * body parts
 * pawne tooth, hastasta facial hair, sowako tail
 * tsaw
 * locations
 * korawfa mountain, wosore cultivated field, kakare village
 * }
 * pawne tooth, hastasta facial hair, sowako tail
 * tsaw
 * locations
 * korawfa mountain, wosore cultivated field, kakare village
 * }
 * }

Roles
The second part of the determiner is the thematic role. This typically tells how it relates to the verb phrase. The two most common roles are yo and so. Yo is only used to set up the subject of active verbs. So is used as the subject of stative verbs, and for other arguments relating directly to the verb. This is explained in the verb phrases section. Na is explained in the referents section.

Referents
There are three adjectives known as referents: mada, royoma, and noo. Each one acts as a possessive (his, her, its, their, our) for the corresponding noun phrase. Mada refers to the yo phrase, royoma to a nearby so phrase, and noo to a nearby na phrase.


 * {| class="wikitable"


 * lawna
 * soohalo
 * amso
 * noo
 * nostoka
 * it.POS
 * Tauren
 * it.STV
 * REFER-POS
 * face
 * colspan=5|The Tauren's face.
 * }
 * colspan=5|The Tauren's face.
 * }

In this example, noo acts as the word "its", where "it" refers to soohalo, the head noun of the noun phrase lawna soohalo, "the Tauren".

Locatives
While the most important roles have already been covered, the majority of roles are actually the locative roles, which describe movement and location. Taurahe considers two factors: the location (inside, outside, or on the surface of), and the motion (no motion, towards, away from, or past). These considerations fuse to form 12 distinct role markers.
 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! !Inside d- !Outside f- !Surface k- !no motion -a !towards -ay !from -o !past -aw
 * da (inside)
 * fa (outside)
 * ka (on)
 * day (into)
 * fay (towards)
 * kay (onto)
 * do (from)
 * fo (out of)
 * ko (off of)
 * daw (through)
 * faw (past)
 * kaw (along)
 * }

Pronominal Phrases
Class tags can stand on their own, acting as English pronouns, if they are preceded by the appropriate case tag. The two words anga "I" and tsay "you" are also used in this way.