Senzengish

General Information
Senzengish (natively Daylos Esensohnger or Sensohnger /sénsəŋ̊əɾ̥/) is a language spoken by the conquering people of a gigantic religious empire on the moon Chesnon. The intelligent species native to the moon are also called Chesnon in English.

Consonants

 * /ŋ̊/ is not a separate phoneme in all but the carefullest of speech.
 * A preceding consonant (except for /s/ and /ɾ/) causes /j/ to match in manner of articulation and to be coarticulated with it. ex. Hratjék /ɾ̥ɐtjék/ [ɾ̥ɐdˈɟek] "Rachek province"
 * Syllable-initial /s/ matches the voicing of a preceding consonant. ex. Sensohnger /sénsəŋ̊əɾ̥/ [ˈseˑnzŋ̩ŋɹ̩ɾ̥]

Vowels

 * The central vowels are so-called reduced vowels. They can only appear in unstressed syllables and "full" vowels tend not to appear in unstressed syllables except in compound words (such as numbers like dàswunáolu /dɑswɪ̈nɑ́əlɪ̈/ "seven dozen") and in some affixes (such as kò-, the abessive case marker, in kòsiwhélma /kosɪ̈wʰélmɐ/).
 * The correspondance between full and reduced vowel is not always clear and depends on the speaker or dialect.
 * The reduced vowels merge into [m̩] before /m/ and /m̥/, [n̩] before /n/ and /n̥/, [ŋ̩] before /ŋ/ and /ŋ̊/, [l̩] before /l/ and /l̥/, [ɪ] before /j/, [ʊ] before /w/ and /wʰ/, and [ɹ̩] before /ɾ/ and /ɾ̥/. ex. ambher /ɑ́mbʰəɾ̥/ [ˈʔɑˑm̤b̤ɹ̩ɾ̥] "cold"

Phonotactics
(C)V(m, n, ŋ, p, bʰ, t, dʰ, k, gʰ, s, l, j, w, ɾ)
 * Syllable-final consonants match a following consonant in voicing. ex. rasgho [ˈɾɑˑz̤g̤ə] "the ground" vs. paldin [ˈpɑˑldn̩n̥] "a house"
 * Word-final consonants are voiceless except for semivowels. ex. moar /móɐɾ̥/ "the idiot"


 * Syllable-final breathy-voiced consonants introduce breathy-voice on the preceding vowel or vowel cluster. ex. duwégh /dɪ̈wégʰ/ [dʊˈwe̤ˑg̤] "the emperor"
 * An epenthetic glottal stop is appended onto the beginning of a full vowel if the full vowel begins a word or is directly after a vowel. ex. Ungwadh /úŋwɐdʰ/ [ˈʔuˑŋgwɐ̤d̤] "(a name)", kòajsin /koɑ́jsɪ̈n̥/ [koˈʔɑˑjzn̩n̥] "spineless"
 * An epenthetic homorganic voiced stop is inserted between a nasal and approximants or flaps. ex. Henras /xénɾɐs/ [ˈxeˑndɾɐs] "(a name)"

Stress
Stress is typically placed on the first syllable of the root, but it occasionally occurs elsewhere. Stressed vowels are longer than unstressed vowels.

Romanization

 * The following consonants are written identically to their IPA symbols: m, n, p, b, t, d, k, g, s, l, j, and w.
 * /ŋ/ is written ng, /x/ is written h, and /ɾ/ is written r.
 * Voiceless nasals, approximant, and flap are written with a preceding h: hm, hn, hng, hl, and hr. In the syllable coda, they are written as voiced, without the h.
 * Murmured consonants are represented by a following h: bh, dh, gh, and wh.
 * In the syllable coda, the non-murmured stops are written according to etymology, despite the fact that they neutralize in that position.
 * Full vowels are a, e, i, o, and u. Reduced vowels /ɪ̈/, /ə/, and /ɐ/ are written i or u, e or o, and a respectively.
 * Stress is marked on polysyllabic words with an acute accent if it is not on the first syllable of the root and unstressed full vowels are marked with a grave accent.

Nouns
Nouns decline according to case and definiteness. Case is shown by prefixes and definiteness is shown by irregular suffixes or consonant change.

Case

 * 1) The ergative, genitive, and illative prefixes lose their final consonant before another consonant.
 * 2) The instrumental and intrative-comitative prefixes final nasals merge in place of articulation with a following consonant.
 * 3) The genitive and abessive prefixes are the only ones with full vowels.

Definiteness
Indefiniteness is signified by -(s)in, and definiteness is signified by -o/a, -r/s, -adh, or no suffix at all. The definite is the dictionary form.
 * 1) Any coda nasal, stop, or approximant.

Relative pronouns
met

Determiners
Articles, demonstratives, quantifiers, possessives, numerals decline according to number (sg, du, pl) and appear after the noun.

Possessives
ex. Palda peát uhláhijga lor. "Those two's house is beautiful."

Adjectives
Undeclined, prefix a /ɐ/ for the adjacent adjective (written separate), between noun and determiner.

Verbs
Verbs are conjugated according to aspect, voice, tense, and polarity.

Affix order
aspect-stem-voice-tense-polarity At nasemrin a ten lorumsebh met bajukadh otareworumsebh. "It wasn't said at the meeting that he wasn't a good leader."

Aspect
Verbs typically have an inherent verbal aspect of either perfective or imperfective. There are several prefixes to turn verbs perfective (ot-) or imperfective (pi-, de-), some of which have distinct derivational meaning. For example, perfective rek- signifies the end of events (rekhidh "stop eating"), and imperfective so- signifies the beginning of actions (sohidh "be starting to eat").

Voice
There are many grammatical voices in Senzengish.
 * Active: no suffix
 * Passive: suffix -or- (hidhor "be eaten")
 * Middle: the middle voice is principally used to indicate reciprocality and reflexivity. The suffix is -une- (rasghune "knock each other down").
 * Causative: the causative affix is -wha-, which can be a prefix or suffix (so "feed" can be translated as hidhwha or whahidh) always adjacent to the stem. It can be combined with the passive and middle voices.

Applicatives
Any verb can take these voice suffixes, promoting an oblique argument to the absolutive case, and demoting the original absolutive to the ergative case.
 * Ehat moasin dehidhhno. "He eats like an idiot."
 * Era lisal bid wesghajum, ngetjupsih. "I left at that time, disgusted."

Tense
Past -(u)m, Future -(i)s

Negation
Verbs are negated with an invariant suffix -sebh which goes after any other suffix.

Regular verbs
hidh "eat" (perf), dehidh "be eating" (imperf) arew "speak" (imperf), otarew "say" (perf)

Irregular verbs
Lor "be" is irregular in that it has no active forms. The passive forms behave as active. It is also irregular in that the usually reduced vowels of passive, middle, and vowel-initial applicative voice suffixes are stressed, so they become full vowels. Consonant-initial applicative voice suffixes are preceded by a stressed e, ex. Era dhenso bid lerè. "I am from that place." Wes "go" (perf) is irregular due to its multiple roots. In the present active, all applicatives, and causative (only when the causative affix is placed after the root) the root is wes-. In the passive and middle voices the root is we-. In the past active and future active the root is waj-. The verb's imperfective counterpart piden is regular.

Overall word order
Subject-Object-Obliques-Verb-Abverbs

Noun phrases
Noun-Adjectives-Determiner