Theinar

Theinar is a conlang made for the world Atheltar, acting as its lingua-franca of commerce, politics, and academics.

Classification and Dialects
Theinar is a synthetic language with origins centered in central southern Eston. It's historical classification before the Age of War (-212 AY to 0 AY) has been lost. This document primarily describes the literary register of Theinar used in political and academic contexts, and thus the phonology and grammatical features described here may not be universally applicable to its use in other parts of the world.

(Map of usage distribution)

Romanization
1only occurs in assimilation next to /k/

2/s/ occurs only next to alveolar plosives, derived from assimilation of /θ/. The sequence /tʃ/ is communicated with ⟨tsh⟩

3derived from a vowel shift that monophthongized many diphthongs.

Roots of nouns and verbs are always capitalized, and represents the location of primary stress. In compound words, only the first is capitalized, regardless of primary stress.

Adpositions
Theinar's adpositions are mostly split into two categories: prepositions, mostly dealing with time, and postpositions, mostly dealing with location and use. In many cases, postpositions can be made into prepositions to shift their meaning.

Posessives
Theinar has two forms of the possessive, one declining the owner and the other declining the owned. Selection of which possessive to use is determined by what the speaker wants to highlight in importance in the relationship, that gradient typically being left to right. Examples: Dathalaraf Nathliaf Nalthir Dathalar-af Nathli-af Nalthir Dathalar-GEN king-GEN sword Dathalar's king's sword

Nalthiron Dathalaraf Nathli Nalthir-on Dathalar-af Nathli sword-POSSD Dathalar-GEN king The sword of Dathalar's king

Nalthiron Nathlion Dathalar Nalthir-on Nathli-on Dathalar sword-POSSD King-POSSD king The sword of the king of Dathalar

Subject, direct object, and indirect object are determined by phrase structure outlined in the Syntax section.

Nouns can be pluralized with the -ta suffix, and negated with the sao- prefix.

Pronouns
Theinar has a rather simple set of pronouns, listed as follows: The clusive variants of the first person plural are derived from formal and informal varieties in Early Theinar, and represent the only deviation from standard declension Theinar pronouns take. Otherwise, pronouns are mostly treated as normal nouns, with the same plural, negative, and possessive forms.

Interrogative pronouns are constructed from the base Nama, and can be combined with certain adpositional affixes to take on different meanings. On its own, it means "what," and since animacy is ignored, can be used for "who" as well.

In non-question cases, Nama takes on an Ignorative context to convey uncertainty.

Examples: Dathalar narRuktether Ifar Namaleb. Dathalar tano-Rukteth-er       Ifar  Nama-leb. Dathalar REM.PST-attack-INFR.EV Yfaar IGNOR-because_of Dathalar attacked Yfaar for unknown reasons.

Dathalar narRuktetherki Ifar Namaleb. Dathalar tano-Rukteth-er-ki        Ifar  Nama-leb. Dathalar REM.PST-attack-INFR.EV-INT Yfaar IGNOR-because_of Why did Dathalar attack Yfaar?

Demonstratives
Theinar has a few demonstratives, which act similarly to the standard pronouns in relative clauses. The plural forms can be made using the standard

Examples:

Neshon, Na Renutosa Soto, Baseneian Neshon The person who lives here is missing.

Posessive Determiners
Possessive determiners act identically to any other possessive form.

Example:

Nalthiron E Sekeifan Keaf. Nalthir-on E  Sekeif-an Ke-af. sword-POSS 1SG sharp My sword is sharper than yours.

Eaf Nalthir Sekeifan Keaf. E-af   Nalthir Sekeif-an Ke-af. 1SG-GEN sword  sharp My sword is sharper than yours.

Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives exclusively follow the nouns they modify, and agree with verbs when they are not themselves acting as them.

Verb Forms
Theinar adjectives tend to act more like verbs than nouns, and in the simple copular sense tend to replace them altogether. To say "my sword is sharp, one says Eaf Nalthir Sekeifsa. E-af    Nalthir Sekeif-sa.  1SG-GEN sword   sharp-HAB My sword is sharp. (lit. My sword sharps.)

Comparatives and Superlatives
The comparative form of an adjective has multiple forms. Eaf Nalthir Sekeifan Keaf. E-af   Nalthir Sekeif-an  Ke-af. 1SG-GEN sword  sharp-IMPF 2SG-GEN My sword is sharper than yours. (lit. My sword sharps yours.)

Eaf Nalthir Sekeifan Lam Keafro. E-af   Nalthir Sekeif-an  Lam Ke-af-ro. 1SG-GEN sword  sharp-IMPF DET  2SG-GEN-to My sword is sharper than yours. (lit. My sword sharps more to yours.) To compare an object from a current state to a previous one, one possibility is the structure: Eaf Nalthir Sekeifan Lam Molal. E-af   Nalthir Sekeif-an  Lam Molal. 1SG-GEN sword  sharp-IMPF DET now My sword is sharper now. (lit. My sword sharps more now.) An identical construction can be used for a phrase like "my sharper sword", though this is really a shortening of the more proper construction utilizing a relative clause. In such cases, since it is derived from a relative clause the adjective will not agree with the verb, and will instead the inflections of the relative clause. Ex: Eaf Nalthir Sekeifan Lam asteilath! E-af   Nalthir Sekeif-an  Lam astei-lath 1SG-GEN sword  sharp-IMPF DET win-FUT.OPT My sharper sword shall win! (lit. My sword sharps more should win.) Superlatives are done identically, but with "most" or "least" replacing "more" or "less."

Tense
The distance of nar- varies by conversation and reference point, but most frequently extends to the limit of a week.

The future tense is not declined for, and instead relies on a construction making use of the coverb ro, "to arrive to".

Examples:

An imperfect form can be used if the action is has not yet begun. E roan seinta. E  ro-an          seinta. 1SG arrive_to-IMPF wait I am going to wait. (lit. I am arriving to wait.)

The perfect form can be used if that action is current and going to continue after (long enough that the present imperfect wouldn't be used). E ro seinta. E  ro        seinta. 1SG arrive_to wait I will wait (and already am). (lit. I have arrived to wait.)

The habitual form can be used for an action you will do many times in the future. This is most often seen to describe routines E rosa seinta. E  ro-sa         seinta. 1SG arrive_to-HAB wait I will wait (and will again).

Delimitative and Momentane can be combined with this to denote the length the action is expected to take. E roo seinta. E  ro-o          seinta. 1SG arrive_to-DEL wait I'll wait a while.

E roab seinta. E  ro-ab         seinta. 1SG arrive_to-MOM wait I'll wait a moment.

Evidential
Evidential moods are delineated as follows: The opinion evidential can often be substituted for "think" or "believe," and is used more frequently and broadly than the synonymous ways to communicate that. In some usage the opinion evidential is dropped when used in conjunction with synonymous phrases, and instead one of the other endings is used to communicate how that opinion was arrived at.

Examples: Na narFaras Man. Na nar-Faras. Man. 3SG REC.PST-make[DIR.EV] bread (I know) he made the bread.

Na narFaraser Man. Na nar-Faras-er. Man. 3SG REC.PST-make-INFR.EV bread (I can indirectly verify) he made the bread.

Na narFarasthum Man. Na nar-Faras-thum. Man. 3SG REC.PST-make-ASSUM.EV bread (I think) he made the bread.

E Tsuman Na narFaras Man. E  Tsum-an    Na  nar-faras. Man. 1SG think-IMPF 3SG REC.PST-make bread I think (that I can be sure) he made the bread.

Irrealis
Examples: Eso tanoseintalath! Eso     tano-seinta-lath 1SG.EXCL REM.PST-wait-FUT.OPT We should have waited!

Na saorasnaman thath falo. Na sao-ras-nam-an    thath falo. 3SG NEG-kill-POT-IMPF DIST bird He can't kill that bird.

Ke feithki na? Ke feith-ki na? 2SG know-INT 3SG You know him?

Verb Structure
Generally speaking, verbs are structured as [Negation-Tense-Stem-Evidential-Modality-Aspect], in which Irrealis moods follow Evidentials, with the exception of the interrogative, which must be placed at the end of the word.

Coverbs
Coverbs are verbs derived from adpositions. Some of them serve specific grammatical functions outside of this adpositional role, but most are pure lexical verbs.

Overall Structure
Theinar follows a rigid SVO structure. Including other phrase types, the structure is:

Subject] [Relative/Adjectival Clause] Verb [Object [Adpositional Phrase] [Indirect Object]

Adpositional Phrases
When an adpositional phrase has multiple constituents, each of them is. inflected individually. utomul safran ete utobennemul ketan uto-mul      safran ete utobenne-mul ketan house-between green and barn-between red between the green house and the red barn In non-literary contexts, the second repetition of the adposition is often dropped.