Common Saakkih

Common Saakkih is the earliest attested of the Saakkih languages, named so for their urheimat - the Saakkih peninsula in the modern-day Shinsali confederacy.

General information
Common Saakkih is a synthetic ergative-absolutive language. It has a relatively small consonant inventory (12 consonants) and a moderately-sized vowel inventory (10 vowels; 5 long and 5 short).

Consonants

 * Consonant gemination is contrastive and occurs in roots, across morpheme boundaries, and in affixes

Vowels

 * There are five diphthongs: /ai ae ao oi eo/

Allophony

 * /r/ is tapped before other consonants or word-finally
 * /l/ is velarized in the syllable coda
 * /n/ becomes [ŋ] before /k/ and /w/
 * /i/ is realized as [j] pre- and intervocalically
 * Two of the same vowels (i.e. /ee/) occuring across morpheme boundaries are realised as a single long vowel ([e:]) and the resulting long vowel may be stressed
 * A geminate consonant (for example, /s:/) followed by the same consonant, geminate or non-geminate, across a morpheme boundary will be realized as a single geminate consonant
 * Two different adjacent vowels that do not make up a diphthong are realised as seperated by hiatus
 * Vowels become more lax before (not after) the pharyngeal fricative
 * /i/ > [ɪ]
 * /u/ > [ʊ]
 * /o/ > [ɔ]
 * /a/ > [æ]
 * /e/ > [ɛ]

Writing system

 * Except for below, all sounds are written as in the IPA
 * /ħ/ is written as h
 * Long vowels are written by doubling the vowel
 * Geminate consonants are written by doubling the grapheme
 * /w/ is represented as w before a vowel and word-finally, but as u before a consonant

Phonotactics
Any syllables derivable from (C)(L)V(C) that do not violate the rules below is permissible, where C is any consonant, L is a liquid, and V is a short or long vowel or a diphthong. Stress
 * Geminate consonants do not occur word initially
 * A long vowel followed by a long or short vowel of the same quality or vice versa (i.e., a and aa or ee and ee) will not occur and is broken up by an intrusive consonant, /n/. This is not true for vowels of different quality, meaning that sequences such as aaioo are allowed.

Stress is very regular and stress positioning is determined by the structures of respective syllables in a root. A syllable is considered light if it has a short vowel and long if it has a long vowel or a diphthong. Stress is characterized by a lengthening of the vowel that is stressed.

Stress in Common Saakkih follows these rules:
 * 1) If a word is monosyllabic, it is stressed.
 * 2) In a multiple-syllable word, stress always falls on either the penultimate or ultimate syllable of a word.
 * 3) Stress always falls on the penultimate syllable if it is heavy.
 * 4) If the penultimate syllable is light and the ultimate syllable is heavy, stress falls on the ultimate syllable.
 * 5) If both final syllables are light, stress falls on the penultimate syllable.

Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns are more or less regular and only exhibit irregularities in the ergative, absolutive, genitive, and locative cases and in the dative plural.

Demonstrative pronouns
Demonstrative pronouns show a three-way distinction between proximal or first-person, medial or second-person, and distal or third-person. Demonstrative pronouns agree with the animacy class, noun, and case of a noun as well.

Nouns
Nouns are made distinct based on semantic animacy, wherein animate is further made distinct into human and non-human, providing for three noun classes: human, animate non-human, and inanimate. Most nouns are classified semantically, but as with any animacy system, there are digressions, and in Common Saakkih, these are reflective of their culture. Nouns that name things in nature, things dealing with astrology, or things dealing with weather, despite being semantically inanimate, commonly are classified under animate human or animate non-human. Noun endings across all three classes are similar, but they are, in fact, declined differently according to their animacy class.

The nominal system is mostly agglutinative, wherein nouns decline for eight cases: ergative, absolutive, dative, genitive, instrumental, ablative, locative, and inessive, and two numbers: singular and plural.

The ergative suffix across all three declensions is -e but it will become -i if the stem ends in /i/ due to a historic vowel shift of /ie/ to /i:/. If the stem ends in /i:/, the ergative suffix will be -e as expected.

Human noun declension
The plural suffix for human animate nouns is -k. There is an intrusive -a between the stem and case/number suffix(es) if the declined noun does not agree with Common Saakkih phonotactics. Below is an example declension of an animate human noun (haam [ħa:m] - man). Suffixes are in bold.

Non-human noun declension
The plural suffix for non-human animate nouns is -k as well. The intrusive vowel, used if suffixing the plural or case endings to a noun, is not -a as with human animate nouns, but -ee. Below is an example declension of an animate non-human noun (aleoti [aleoti] - fire). Suffixes are in bold.

Inanimate noun declension
The plural suffix for inanimate nouns is -a. If a declined noun would defy Common Saakkih phonotactics, there is an intrusive -i between the stem and case/number suffix(es). Below is an example declension of an inanimate noun (ilabb [ilab:] - piece (of something)). Suffixes are in bold.

Verbs
There are two types of verbs in Common Saakkih: consonantal and vocalic. The infinitival suffix is -s on vocalic verbs and -at on consonantal verbs. There are a few irregular verbs as well. They conjugate for three tenses: present, past, and future, two aspects: imperfective and perfective, two voices: active and passive, and three moods: indicative, conditional, and imperative.

Consonantal verbs
Consonantal verbs end in -at in the infinitive and are exactly what they sound like - their stem ends in a consonant. Below is the active verb paradigm for the regular verb addipat [ad:ipat] - to punch. Endings are in bold. Deviations do occur from this paradigm: if a verb stem ends in -w it will become -b- adjacent to u. If an expected form would yield -ns- intervocalically, it becomes -s- and the vowel before it is lengthened if it is not already long.

Vocalic verbs
Vocalic verbs end in -s in the infinitive and are exactly what they sound like - their stem ends in a vowel. The intrusive -n- rule, the w <> b rule, and the ie > ii rule, and the -ns- > -ss- rule all apply here. Below is an example conjugation of the vocalic verb oiriis [oiri:s] - to swim.

Irregular verbs
There are a few irregular verbs in Common Saakkih, meaning that they deviate from a conjugation slightly or are unpredictable in many of their forms. These include illos - to be, eerat - to do, aorasat - to become, othos - to use, and imbowaas - to want. These are detailed in a separate article:


 * Common_Saakkih/Irregular_Verbs

Nonfinite forms
There are three nonfinite verb forms in Common Saakkih: participles, gerunds, and infinitives. The infinitive and the gerund are identical in form, but have different functions. Participles are simple to form and decline as regular adjectives. Their endings, after the infinitive endings are removed, are below.

Adverbs
Adverbs in Common Saakkih simply follow the verb they modify. The most commonly used adverbs are interrogative particles, which are listed in a table below.

Adjectives
Adjectives follow the noun they modify and agree with case, gender, and number. There are two classes of adjectives - consonantal and vocalic. The consonantal nouns decline exactly the same as the noun they would modify but there are digressions from the nominal declension when declining vocalic nouns.

Consonantal adjectives
Consonantal adjectives are adjectives that end in a consonant. Below is an example declension of the consonantal adjective appeos [ap:eos] - sad. Endings are in bold.

Vocalic adjectives
Vocalic adjectives are adjectives that end in a vowel. Below is an example declension of the vocalic adjective kiislone [ki:slone] - new. Endings are in bold. The intrusive -n- rule is very productive with vocalic adjectives, as well as the ie > ii rule.

Comparative and superlative adjectives
Comparative and superlative adjectives are formed with simple particles that preceed the adjective (and follow the head noun). The comparative particle is mio and the superlative particle is imio.