Shinsali

Consonants

 * All consonants can occur as geminates and there are many minimal pairs.

Vowels

 * Vowels can form closing and opening diphthongs with /j/ and /w/.\
 * There are no long vowels. Two vowels in a row (other than with i/j or u/w) are pronounced with hiatus, not as a dipthong or with a glottal stop.

Orthography
Most phonemes correspond to their standard IPA symbol. The ones that do not are listed in the table below.

Phonotactics
The syllable structure is simple (C)(L/A)V(C). There are no consonant clusters other than syllble-initial consonant-liquid/approximant clusters. However, some consonant clusters never occur such as alveolar-retroflex or vice versa and pharyngeal consonants with a liquid or resonant.

Verbs
Shinsali verbs are very complex. They are aspect- and mood-heavy, but have no morphological tense. Verbs of motion, as with many languages, are more complex than other verbs. In Shinsali, verbs of motion indicate deictic information as well as indicating the shape of the object in motion. Verbs are almost exlusively prefixing but verbs of motion take on suffixes to indicate other infomation, such as deictal suffixes and a suffix indicating the shape of the object in motion. The deictal prefixes are used to denote the relation of the speaker and the subject.

Pronominal Prefixes
If there is a third-person suffix there must be a deictal prefix that indicates the relation of the speaker and a third-person object unless the object is invisible to the speaker and the adressee(s). There are standalone pronouns but they are only used with prepositions.

Mood prefixes
Moods in Shinsali are unique in that every mood has a negative form, for example, the negative indicative translates to "not" in English, the negative imperative translates to "Don't ___!", and so on. However, there is no negative dubitative mood.

Deictal prefixes
Deictal prefixes indicate the relation of a third-person subject to the speaker and are only used in the precense of a third-person subject.

Verb stem
The verb stem in the most simple part of a Shinsali verb. Multiple verbs in a list (ex: ____ and ____ and _____) or structures like (verb) to (verb) (such as ask to leave, need to cry, etc) are stacked serially in one verbal construction. Stative verbs also act as adjectives (e.g. to be blue, to be good).

Deictal suffixes
Deictal suffixes are only used on verbs of motion and indicate motion. If any of these suffixes "take" an object, it goes in the prepositional case.

Object shape suffixes
These are used for what is in motion. For example, in the sentence "i run" an animate classifier would be used because the object in motion is a first-person speaker. Sometimes they are used in place of an object if specifying it is unnecessary.

Nouns
Nouns in Shinsali are inflected as well as verbs. Nouns decline for 5 cases, definiteness, plurality, and take on prefixes for posession.

Definiteness and plurality
Definiteness and plurality are indicated fusionally in a single prefix. If a posessive prefix is used alongside a plural prefix, the definite prefix is used.

Personal pronouns
Shinsali has standalone pronouns, but they are rarely used outside of the genitive and prepositional cases due to pronominal indication on verbs. However, they are commonly used alongside pronominal prefixes for emphasis. The pronouns below are in the nominative case but can take on case prefixes.

Reflexive pronoun
The reflexive pronoun in Shinsali is the word "ang" which can be translated as self. It takes on the corresponding posessive prefix to indicate person, such as "zamang" which means "myself".

Modifiers
Adverbs, adjectives, and stative verbs are not distinct in Shinsali. They inflect for comparison and directly preceed the noun or verb they modify. Comparison is demonstrated on the modifier amakj (fast) below.

Syntax
Shinsali is a polysynthetic-agglutinative nominative-accusative head-final language.