H'snme

=Setting and Description=

H'snme is a language where nouns and verbs are simply the same word type; they align the same, both can carry the same suffixes and information and both have the same priority.

=Phonology and Orthography=

Phonotactics
To define the phonotactics of H'snme one needs to divide the phonemes into classes. The following table demonstrates them:

There are certain constrictions to syllables:

In addition to syllable constrictions, there are a few other rules that are of note:
 * 1) There can't be more than four modifiers per letter.
 * 2) There can't be more than two fricatives or plosives next to each other.
 * 3) One phoneme can't repeat itself unless it is modified differently.

Sound Mutations
For the language to function properly, three mutation laws are in effect. They are, for purpose of analysis, classified as final, medial and initial.

Regressive Metaphony
Regressive Metaphony is a sound change in which central and back vowels inside the root get influenced by frontal [ɛ] and [ɨ] in suffixes. It is caused only by suffixing and is productive.

I will use a simple example root of "faty" (~sky). Using the simplest derivational suffix of "-c'e", giving the new word of "fātyc'e" (heavenly). Here, the vowel [a], under the effect of [ɛ], turned into [æ]. As you may have noticed, each letter when fronted receives a macron above it (since it is the only common diacritic within the limited set of Latin and Latin-Extended). There exists a limit to regressive metaphony: one frontal can influence only one back vowel, and it happens to the nearest.

The root "łaku" (~time) is a perfect example. The same suffix of "-c'e" makes the word "łak ū c'e" (timely), not "łākūc'e". This is due to the amount of vowels in the suffix. This process is called Umlaut in Germanic languages. It bears simmilarity to the inverse of a softer form of vowel harmony.

Bleeding Effect
Bleeding effect is a sound mutation involving modificators. The bleeding effect occurs when two fundamentally same consonants (nasalised, lateralised, palatalised, aspirated, labialised, voiced or velarised vs. plain), first modified and the second not, come together in the span of two syllables without any C-class phonemes in between.

The following example demonstrates:

Here, the root "tudñ" (~action) received the deminutive suffix of "-etsz", becoming "tūdñetsz" (~small action); the bleeding effect morphs the pronounciation without actually doing anything to the latin spelling.

Consonant Harmony
Consonant harmony is a sound change in which consonants from prefixes morph into different ones. This happens due to differences in points of articulation. While harmonising, the distinction is made between the main root consonant and the main prefix consonant. The consonant morphed, if there is no corresponding consonant of the same place of the same class (fricative vs. plosive), the class switches.

The following example demonstrates: "sfū" (~start) is the root; adding the corresponding negation prefix, "ŋł'ep-" makes the root "ŋł'etsfū" (~end). Note that [p] morphed into [t] while in "þwol" (~need) it becomes "ŋł'epþwol" (~needlesness).

The following table demonstrates the morph:

=Grammar=

Morphosyntactic Alignment
The morphosyntax of H'snme is different from that of most languages. The alignment isn't the classic Subject-Agent-Patient, but based on Priority.

Each major part of speech gets a priority tag, namely -TOP, -AVRG, and -LOW.

The priority system isn't just a fancy way of saying "tripartite", where the S, A, and P parts of speech invariantly get a class of cases, but actually a very fluid system partially based on emphasis, importance, focus and obviously priority.

Essentially, any part of speech can get any of the three priority tags based on how important it is related to the details and the bigger picture. Each simple sentence (a finished thought that has an action, an optional patient and optional modifiers) has priorities.

The priority laws (or rules, if laws sound too harsh) are often the only line dividing the priorities from anarchy. They are a set of boundaries priorities can't break unless it is specified so.

The rules are as listed:
 * In every sentence, there must be a -TOP priority, unless the sentence isn't very important, therefore the main priority turns to -AVRG.
 * An adjective cannot get tagged higher than the word it modifies, unless the attribute is more important than the word.
 * An -AVRG tag can exist almost exclusively if there already are -LOW and -TOP tags.
 * In any one simple sentence, there can be at most three tags, therefore no repetition of tags is allowed.

Morphology and Syntax
Grammar is divided into two basic categories: Morphology and Syntax.

Morphology
Morphology of H'snme is divided into two categories, the Formatives and Modifiers. Formatives are the noun-verb hybrid while modifiers represent something close to an adjective-adverb hybrid.

Formatives
The formatives are mostly what IE languages call nouns, verbs and numbers. In cross-language translations, they are marked with a tilde in the target language.

In more-less recent times (~1500) years, nouns and verbs lost their distinction but kept their corresponding features such as tense, case, mood, evidentiality and others. Being unique in that words can take on both cases and tenses, H'snme allows for some interesting combinations.

Cases
Cases are a strange feature in the language: they are often combined to make new meanings. The following table lists the cases and their meanings:

Number
Grammatical number in H'snme is fairly regular, with six different numbers. They are as listed:

*It's usually bigger than six instances.

Note that the base form is the dual (which historically was confused with the plurative).

Person
H'snme follows a less-than-generic pattern of person. Even though the first three persons are as in most languages (I, you, him), the fourth person is even more distant (someone). The following table explains this properly:

Syntax
=Dictionary= =Example text=