Ükäntel

Consonants

 * Dental consonants are laminal, with /θ/ being interdental in most environments.
 * Alveolar consonants are apical.
 * Palatal consonants are laminal.

Allophony

 * Stops are voiced intervocalically, following a nasal, or preceding /ʒ/, and are unvoiced otherwise.
 * /h/ appears as [x] following a back vowel, [ç] after a front vowel (and likewise /hh/ as [x: ç:]) and only appears as [h] pre-vocalically. [x ç] are both weakly fricated.
 * If /h/ is preceded by a different fricative, /h/ will assimilate and lengthen the preceding fricative, i.e. /sh/ is realized as [s:]. This does not happen following an affricate.
 * Short /r/ is tapped while geminate /r/ is trilled.
 * When affricates are geminate, the stop component is lengthened.
 * Dental consonants and alveolar consonants most often assimilate in place to each other regressively.
 * Regressive assimilation occurs when both consonants of cluster come from the set of consonants /n t̪ s l̪ ɾ/, or in the case of /nθ/.
 * The cluster /θn/ is realized as [θn̪].
 * /t͡s/ forces a preceding or following dental consonant to become alveolar, notably with /θ/ becoming [s].
 * /θ/ does not assimilate except to /t͡s/ and forces a following alveolar consonant to be laminal in articulation with /ɾ/ remaining apical. It may be important to note that /sθ θs/ remain the same.
 * Plain alveolar consonants will become palatal consonants (i.e. /n t͡s s r/ > [ɲ t͡ʃ ʃ ʒ]) next to another palatal consonant regardless of order.
 * /nj t͡sj sj rj/ become [ɲ t͡ʃ ʃ ʒ]. /j/ is elided after existing /ɲ t͡ʃ ʃ ʒ/.
 * /ʃʒ ʒʃ/ are realized as [ʒ: ʃ:] respectively.

Allophony

 * /i y u/ are realized as [ɪ ʏ ʊ] before sonorant consonants.
 * /e ɤ/ are lowered to [ɛ ʌ] following a syllable containing an instance of the same vowel and always if word-final.
 * Unstressed /i/ is elided in specific, syllable-permissive environments.

Phonotactics
Ukantel syllables minimally consist of only a vowel and maximally are CVC. The syllable can thus be transcribed as (C)V(C). Any consonant can appear as the onset or coda, and any single vowel can act as a syllable nucleus. /ø o/ do not appear word-finally, having become /e ɤ/ in that environment. This rule is productive, so suffixes containing the archiphoneme /O/ and no coda consonant thus may possibly have four variants due to a historical sound change.

Considering syllable boundaries, long vowels do not occur as a result of two juxtaposed morphemes and always result in an identical short vowel. Two unlike vowels in sequence are broken up by the addition of a sonorant in between the vowels, which is detailed in the morphophonology section below.

Stress
Stress is non-phonemic and falls on the first syllable of a word. Stressed vowels are pronounced significantly longer than unstressed vowels, approximately 50% to 60% longer. Vowels are not regularly reduced when unstressed, although some phonological processes occur only with unstressed vowels.

Orthography
Ukantel orthography is largely phonemic and even represents certain allophonic processes in the written language. The sounds are written as in IPA unless listed in the table below.
 * The word-final replacement of  with <ë e> respectively is indicated orthographically.
 * <ńń ńć ńś ńŕ gg gk> are spelled , that is, orthographic <ń g> will become  if followed by those specific consonants.
 * Alveolar-palatal assimilation is indicated orthographically.
 * In the environment of <ń ć ś ŕ> the alveolar consonants are written with an acute accent unless the sequence is  followed by one of <ń ć ś ŕ>.
 * The sequences coalesce to <ń ć ś ŕ>.
 * <śŕ ŕś> remain unchanged.
 * All processes detailed in the morphophonology section are indicated orthographically.

Morphophonology
Morphophonological processes are rampant in Ukantel, including the characteristic vowel harmony, as well as partial vowel reduplication and epenthesis.

Vowel Harmony
Vowels in Ukantel pattern in front-back pairs with /i/ patterning neutrally. /y e ø æ/ alternate with /u ɤ o ɑ/ respectively, with archiphonemes being transcribed as /U E O A/. Vowels do not harmonize according to roundedness and thus all grammatical suffixes have two variants, unless the sole vowel is /i/ where one variant exists, or unless the suffix is an open syllable and contains the archiphoneme /O/ where four variants exist as per /ø o/ having become /e ɤ/ word-finally.

Vowel harmony is not violated by any native Ukantel roots or morphological deriviants thereof. Compounds generally, however, do not adhere to vowel harmony if individual roots contain differing vowel qualities. Loanwords also do not necessarily adhere to vowel harmony.

Reduplication
Many grammatical suffixes in Ukantel use a reduplicated vowel from the preceding syllable as its own syllable nucleus. This is transcribed in grammars using a capital V in place of the vowel. A few verbal suffixes, personal suffixes on verbs, posessive suffixes on nouns, a few case suffixes, the comparative and superlative morphemes on adjectives, as well as various derivational morphemes all utilize this process. /ø o/ do become /e ɤ/ word-finally in this instance.

Anaptyxis
Anaptyxis, or the insertion of a vowel, is necessary with certain grammatical suffixes as the stringing together of certain morphemes would violate the Ukantel syllable structure. In many instances, the reduplicated vowel detailed in the above section is only present if syllabically necessary, and this is often considered an example of anaptyxis, but is in fact separate due to various suffixes where the reduplicated vowel is always present. Some suffixes contain two consonants in what would seem to be a syllable onset, or some suffixes consist of a single consonant. If either of these types of suffixes follow a morpheme ending in a vowel, no insertion is not necessary. When following a morpheme that ends in a consonant (in both cases) or if sandwiched in between two consonants (in the latter case only), a vowel is inserted before the suffix in question, which is -E in all environments. In suffixes where two consonants ocur in what would seem to be a syllable coda, the epenthetic vowel is inserted after the suffix in question.

Excrescence
Excrescence, or the addition of a consonant, is necessary when two juxtaposed suffixes would result in a vowel sequence. The consonant inserted is always a sonorant. If the first vowel is unrounded, the in-between sonorant is /j/. Similarly, if the first vowel is rounded, the in-between sonorant is /w/.

Elision
Elision is productive in Ukantel with the consonant /j/ and the vowel /i/.
 * /j/ is elided following other palatal consonants, i.e. /ɲ tʃ ʃ ʒ/.
 * The elision of /i/ happens when unstressed in certain syllabic environments, which can trigger further allophony or morphophonology. This happens furthest as possible from the stressed syllable and does not occur if there are more than two /i/ in succession.
 * VCiCV > VCCV
 * VC1iC1C2V or VC1C2iC2V > VC1C2V

Non-verbal Morphology
Ukantel is an exclusively suffixing agglutinative language. Morphology is largely regular outside of certain stem alterations that occur due to regular morphophonologic, phonotactic (specifically word-final /O/ regularly becoming /E/), or orthographic rules. Throughout this section, archiphonemes are used. Annotations will not be made where vowel epenthesis would possibly occur but will be where reduplication only occurs if syllabically necessary, denoted by an asterisk following the suffix.

Posession
Posession is indicated by a suffix in Ukantel, which precedes the case and/or number suffixes if present. With the first- and second-person plural posessor suffixes, the reduplicted vowel is always included if the posessed noun ends in a consonant, unlike other suffixes where reduplication is optional based on syllabic structure, and is omitted if the posessed noun ends in a vowel. In a noun-noun posessive construction, the posessed noun is indicated with the third person singular/plural posession suffix, which is sometimes called a construct state due to the influence of Semitic linguistics.

Case
Ukantel has 16 case suffixes, 8 singular and 8 plural; the nominative singular is unmarked. The nominative case is used to mark the subject of a sentence, more specifically, the agent of a transitive verb and the patient (also called the experiencer) of an intransitive verb.

The accusative case is used to mark the patient (also called the object) of a transitive verb. When making a transitive verb causative, both the causee (the subject of the non-causal clause) and the original object appear in the accusative case, with the causee appearing second. -e is used following stems or a preceeding morpheme that end in a consonant and -ne following those ending in a vowel.

The dative case is used to mark the recipient or geographical destination of an object, the object of verbs implying transfer or perception, the purpose or beneficiary of an action, as well as posession when coupled with the copula.  

The genitive case is used to mark the posessor of another noun, a noun which modifies another noun, description, geographic origin, and composition.

The instrumental case is used to mark the means by which an action is done, whether physical or abstract.

The comitative case is used to mark with whose company an action is done or to express adornment.

The temporal case is used to mark when an action is done and can be applied to numbers to mean at ___ o'clock, or to noun phrases to mean on _____.

The durative case is used to specify the length of an action or during what the action took place, meaning effectively for x ____ (where x is a numeral) or during _____ or throughout ______.

Personal pronouns
As in most languages, personal pronouns in Ukantel are irregular. The temporal and durative forms of the pronouns exist but are not used in colloquial speech, and thus are not listed in the table below. They are formed by suffixing the case edings to the nominative stem, except the first person singular, whose stem is tä. Ukantel is a pro-drop language, meaning subject pronouns are omitted unless for emphasis.Similarly, genitive pronouns are usually omitted in a posessor-posessed structure unless for emphasis.

The accusative case pronouns are used as reflexive pronouns. The dative pronouns are used similarly for verbs that require a dative object.


 * Yeten aśuhtolhët.
 * 1SG.ACC stand-CAUS1-NEG-PFV-1SG
 * I didn't stand up.

The genitive pronouns can be used either attributively, although they are usually omitted in this usage unless for emphasis, or predicatively.

Demonstrative pronouns
Ukantel makes a two-way proximity distinction in its demonstratives. Demonstratives decline slightly irregularly across case and number due to the proximal demonstrative having a stem in att which surfaces as at in the nominative case and the distal demonstrative having a stem in elö which surfaces as ele in the nominative case. Their stems are listed in the table below.

Interrogative pronouns
Interrogative words and phrases are formed regularly from a few interrogative roots either on their own, declined across cases, or with modifiers or particles. Ka 'what' is the most common interrogative root used in forming interrogative compounds.

Modifiers
Modifiers in Ukantel can be separated into three categories: Constituents of all three categories behave similarly to verbs. When used to modify a noun, there are no agreement markers and modifiers precede the head noun. When used as a predicate, modifiers take a derivational suffix and then verbal suffixes in order to agree with a subject.
 * 1) Numerals
 * 2) Non-numeral quantifiers
 * 3) Adjectives

Verbal morphology
Verbs in Ukantel are morphologically regular; there are no irregular or suppletive forms. They take a multitude of suffixes to indicate finite grammatical information and suffixes that construct non-finite forms.

Finite Verbal Morphology
Finite verbs serve as the main verb of a clause. Suffixes attach to finite verbs in a fixed order, illustrated in the table below.

Stem
The stem of a verb in Ukantel is the bare form of the verb and is a bound morpheme. Stems do not have any restrictions insofar as their syllabic structure.

Voice
The active voice in Ukantel is unmarked. More than one voice suffix may be applied to the verb, however, doubly causative verbs are not possible morphologically and instead use a periphrastic construction. Furthermore, the meaning of a derived form is not always apparent from the meanings of the suffixes attached alone.

Mode
Modality distinctions in Ukantel are diverse, with finer distinctions being made than in most languages. The table below presents the suffixes and examples can be found below. The necessitative mode indicates that the action is required.


 * At öyleyä ńesähidkit.
 * this man-DAT listen-NCS-CONT-1SG
 * I have to be listening to this man.

The permissive mode indicates that the action is allowed.


 * Ayët öse täyä ölöćeśläyür.
 * mother-1SG city-ACC 1SG-DAT leave-PRM-NEG-FUT
 * My mother will not let me leave the city.

The abilitative mode indicates that the action is able to be performed.


 * Ükäntele senćöt.
 * Ukantel-ACC speak-ABIL-1SG
 * I can speak Ukantel.

The potential mode indicates that the action is likely.


 * Yön üney śün sokhërhë.
 * that-DIST dog 2SG.ACC bite-POT-PRF
 * That dog could have bitten you.

The obligative mode indicates that the action is heavily suggested but not required.


 * Äle näsnäkäś.
 * water-ACC drink-OBG-CONT-2SG
 * You should be drinking water.

The desiderative mode indicates that the action is wanted.


 * Köŕŕü unkaya astuńut.
 * night-TMP sky-DAT see-DES-1SG
 * I want to see the sky at night.

Polarity
Negation is indicated with the suffix -l.

Tense
Morphologically, Ukantel distinguishes three tenses, of which the present tense is unmarked. Compound tenses are expressed periphrastically.

Aspect
Ukantel distinguishes between three aspects morphologically. Other aspectual meanings are conveyed through double verb constructions using auxiliaries.

Person
Similar to the posessive suffixes on nouns, the reduplicated vowel in the first- and second-person plural forms is always present if preceded by a consonant.

Non-finite Verbal Morphology
Non-finite verb forms in Ükäntel are numerous and common in the language. This includes the infinitive, gerunds, and participles. and converbs.

Infinitive
The infinitive form of a verb ends in -hE. As the infinitive is the citation form of a verb, this presents an ambiguitity concerning roots that end in vowels and roots that end in a consonant cluster or geminate consonant, as roots of the latter type end in -EhE due to anaptyxis. In a dictionary, an asterisk is placed before those forms with -EhE due to anaptyxis. In speech and writing, however, distinguishing these forms is unnecessary. The infinitive in Ukantel is found in constructions where one finite verb is a constituent of another.

Gerund
The gerund in Ukantel is the nominal form of a verb that is not entirely deverbal, meaning it can take some of the morphological suffixes and arguments that a finite verb would. Entirely deverbal nouns are listed under derivational morphology. The gerund is marked with -Vr.


 * Urënëśka ńeser śüyä ćinäyür.
 * parent-2SG-DAT.PL listen-GER 2SG.DAT help-FUT
 * Listening to your parents will help you.

Participles
Participles in Ukantel function as verbal adjectives, meaning they serve to modify a noun. They use the same endings as normal finite verbs, with the addition of an ending for a present tense participle, but nothing marking imperfective aspect, both of which are unmarked in finite verb forms, and do not take personal affixes. Third-person singular verb forms are often indistinct from a similarly-constructed participle because of this. To show nominative arguments in a participial phrase, nominative-case pronouns are used. In this manner, as they are not restricted in what tenses, aspects, modalities, etc, they can appear in, participles often take the place of relative clauses. The present tense ending, which is only used in participial constructions, is -lA.

As participles, verbs govern the same cases as they would if used finitely, meaning some participles make take dative objects.


 * Öttelä öyle ayëtda seńwitek.
 * sit-PRS.PTCP man mom-1SG-COM talk-PST-PROG
 * The sitting man was talking with my mom.


 * Ośtala yör etülwithe.
 * burn-PRS.PTCP building fall-PST-PFV
 * The burning building fell.


 * Sanëtë nohhonë orrë ertäywitek yetä astuwithë üney täyä wiyü heśek.
 * meat-ACC mouth-3SG-ACC in-STT hold-PST-PROG 1SG.ACC see-PST.PFV dog 1SG.DAT behind-toward run-PROG
 * The dog that I saw holding meat in its mouth is running after me.

Converbs
Converbs are verb forms that are dependent on another verb and usually express some form of adverbial subordination although some forms express coordination with the main verb of a clause. Converbs are numerous any many forms have similar meanings whose uses are difficult for non-native speakers to differentiate. They do not express tense and instead rely on morphological information from the main verb.

-s describes a repeated action contemporaneous with the main verb.


 * Etüles yön ähü öńek.
 * fall-CONV that woman walk-PROG
 * That woman is stumbling (i.e. walking falling).

-OcE describes a single instance of or a sustained action slightly prior to or contemporaneous with the main verb. This often corresponds to the English "by doing" or "with doing."


 * Aś köŕśül üneyhene eytäyöce höya ćinćöwithetän.
 * one night-DUR dog-3SG-ACC take-CONV 3SG.DAT help-ABIL-PST-PFV-1PL
 * We were able to help him by taking his dog for a night.

Particles
Particles in Ukantel are function words that must be associated with another word or phrase to impart their meaning.

Postpositions
Ukantel has postpositions which are used to mark primarily spatial and temporal relations. A large number of these postpositions are formed synthetically from morphemes that indicate location and motion state, akin to the locative case systems of many Caucasian languages. Each postposition requires the noun to be in a specific case.

Synthetic postpositions
The synthetic postpositions are each composed of two morphemes, the primary of which (the prefix) indicates orientation and the secondary of which (the suffix) indicates motion state. The vowels in suffixes harmonize to those in the prefix accordingly. Some combinations of these morphemes are not productive. These postpositions are used with the accusative case if the suffix is -rE or -ś and with the dative for the remaining suffixes.

The following sentences exemplify the postpositions in use.


 * Äthene lasrë ötteket.
 * chair-ACC on.horiz-STT sit-PROG-1SG
 * I am sitting on the chair.


 * Yöŕä orla heświtek.
 * building-DAT inside-from run-PST-PROG
 * He was running from inside the building.

Cardinal numerals
Ukantel has a decimal numeral system. There are distinct numeral roots for each unit digit (1-10) and for powers of ten, namely kusë "hundred (100)", hentü "thousand (1,000)", and elyiŕ "ten thousand (10,000)". In forming powers of ten higher than ten thousand, compounds of these roots and elyiŕ are used, namely yene elyiŕ "hundred thousand (100,000)", kusë elyiŕ "million (1,000,000)", hentü elyiŕ "ten million (10,000,000)", and elyiŕ elyiŕ "hundred million (100,000,000)". These bases denoting powers of ten and compounds thereof are not numerals in themselves, being true nouns instead, and thus may not stand on their own numerically. The word "nothing" is used in place of zero. Other numerals are formed using decimal structural principles. The numeral 7 is irregular, appearing as satta instead of sat in compounds. Teens, twenties, thirties, etc are formed using the tens word (10, 20, 30, etc) followed by a unit digit, both separated by a space. Exceptions lie in many of the teens themselves, where the numeral yene has multiple irregular additive forms, such as in-, en-, yen-, yel- and al-, which can all be analyzed as meaning 'plus ten', and are not written separately from the unit digit. Tens, except for 10 itself, are formed from semi-regularly from unit digits using the suffix -iyOl, meaning essentially 'times ten'.

The formation of larger numerals is somewhat irregular from a semantic point of view. Up to 10,000, numerals are formed similarly to English: cf. 2,304 two thousand three hundred four and yah hentü näwä kusë le or 5,649 five thousand six hundred fourty nine and ayoć hentü tüdü kusë leyyöl lakë. However, ten-thousands (i.e. 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, etc) themselves are formed using 10,000 elyiŕ. For example, 10,000 is aś elyiŕ (lit. one ten-thousand) and 20,000 is yah elyiŕ instead of yene kusë and yayol kusë respectively. However, thousands in between are formed as in English, meaning 21,000 is yayol aś kusë. This is true for other bases denoting powers of ten as well.

A succinct amount of numeral forms are found in the table below.