Bäladiri

General Information
Bäladiri is a Westerlander language of the central lowlands. Despite its general genetic affiliation with other Westerlander languages, it is part of the lowlands Sprachbund, having come under the influence of several dragon herder languages.

Bäladiri is, generally speaking, an agglutinative language that features prominent consonant gradation patterns triggered by stress shifts and certain types of affixes. It features marginally distinctive stress that tends to be either penultimate or antepenultimate. It has some partially opaque and obscured stem alternations deriving from earlier gradation and contraction rules.

Bäladiri is natively written in a Westerlander abugida, with a Dragon Imperial implementation used among certain communities.

Phonology
/pp p b tt t d kk k g ʔ/  /f v vv θ ð s z ʂ ʐ x γ/  /mm m ɳɳ ɳ ɲɲ ɲ ŋŋ ŋ/  /rr r ll l jj j/  /ts tts dz ddz tʂ ttʂ dʐ ddʐ/ 

/i i: y y: ɨ ɯ ɯ: u u:/  /ɛ ɛ: ø ø: ɜ ɜ:/  /ɐ ɑ ɑ:/ <ä a ā> /ɑi ɑu iɑ ɛɑ ɛi/ 

Bäladiri features marginally distinctive stress in a few loanwords and the occasional native relic or remnant. As its stress falls almost exclusively on the penultimate syllable, it isn't considered salient enough a feature to be marked in common usage; stress is indicated only in linguistic descriptions.

Consonant Gradation
Bäladiri features prominent consonant mutation that takes the form of gradation: its gradation is a lenition system that weakens consonants in certain morphological environments.

Most consonants are considered to lie somewhere on an axis, moving down it when specific types of lenition are triggered. As a result of several phonemic merges and multiple consonant shifts, many consonants have multiple lenited forms. The consonantal axes are:

Grammar
Bäladiri generally divides its words into nine classes, based on how they behave morphologically and syntactically:
 * Mutable
 * Nouns & Pronouns
 * Verbs & Proverbs
 * Adjectives
 * Adverbs
 * Metamodifiers
 * Immutable
 * Conjunctions
 * Adpositions
 * Particles
 * Interjections

The dichotomy between mutable and immutable words is based on their morphological properties: mutable words can be inflected to agree or show some morphological category, whereas immutable words overwhelmingly do not change their shape and are instead fixed in morphological and sytactic meaning.

Nouns
Bäladiri nouns generally fit into only one declension: they all take the same set of suffixes (though their nominative singulars might be unique), but are characterised by the presence of two stems; this phenomenon derives from earlier stress alternations that then caused consonant lenition and vowel reduction.

They inflect for five cases (nominative, accusative, ergative, vocative and oblique), and two numbers (singular and plural); the singular is generally characterised by an etymological nasal in the accusative and ergative, and the plural by a dental in all cases. Some Bäladiri nouns preserve a more ancient dual, which is characterised by the presence of a labial obstruent.

>>  Example nouns   << ---         SG         PL  NOM   mávës      máutis        ["friend"; *mȧva-s] ACC  máunas     máutas ERG  máuna      máuta VOC  máve       máutë OBL  mávë       mávët SG        PL  NOM   máθïl      máultis       ["olive"; *mȧθul-Ø] ACC  máulnas    máultas ERG  máulna     máulta VOC  máule/máθe máultë OBL  máθï(l)    máθï(l)t [sáppïs,  samúnas]  ["kinsman" *sȧppu-s] [úkät,    ughónas]  ["happiness" *u̇ko-t] [súngë,     sûnas]  ["brother" *su̇ŋa < *su̇ŋa-s] [básïs,    báunas]  ["stench" *bȧsus] [gháprï, ghavrínas] ["pigeon" *ḡȧpri] [móšpï,  možvúnas]  ["wealth" *mȯčpu] [káumën,  kāmánas]  ["moron" *kȧwaman] [fólpïn, folvínas]  ["cause" *folpin (loanword)] [párpï,  parvínas]  ["bottom" *pȧrpi (loanword)] [ärkádžï, ärkáunas] ["leader" *ärka-džu (loanword)] [ilúnnë, ilughánas] ["ally" *i-lu̇na]

Pronouns
Bäladiri has a set of personal pronouns that decline for case and number. As Bäladiri is a pro-drop language, the pronouns, especially the core argument ones, are used only when context is insufficient to extract argument person and number.

Adjectives
Bäladiri adjectives come in two classes: one class of nominal adjectives that stand with nouns and modify them directly, and one class of verbal adjectives that conjugate and are usually used as predicates and can govern sentences. Most verbs belong to both classes: a single root most often produces both a verbal and a nominal adjective, though some exist only in one category.

Nominal adjectives generally follow a similar inflectional pattern as nouns, save for their lack of the nasal demi-morpheme in the singular. An example nominal adjective and its inflection:

Many vowel-final nominal adjectives have a straightforward verbal adjective that corresponds to the final vowel; ägúrrë [*o:kụrra] has a respective earthy verb:

Adverbs
Bäladiri adverbs are considered a subtype, or just an inflection, of the nominal adjective: there is no morphological distinction between adjectives and adverbs, and they are distinguished only by merit of the adjective being used to describe nouns and demonstratives and the adverb used to further specify a verb — adverbs in Bäladiri aren't used to further specify other adjectives or adverbs; this is done via metamodifiers.

Morphologically speaking, adjectives in the oblique singular can be used as adverbs. Some adjectives have an irregular adverb form; this is indicated in the dictionary on a per-adjective basis.

Verbs
Bäladiri verbs have a complex conjugation: they agree in number and person to their primary argument, and further conjugate for tense and aspect. Unlike nominals, Bäladiri verbs have a dual in addition to a singular and plural. They distinguish between the present, imminent (essentially a prospective present and future) and past tenses, and the momentane and continuous aspects.

Bäladiri verbs also have an infinitive that acts as both a verbal complement to light verbs, and as general abstract verbal nouns of the verbs. The verbal infinitive features case and number inflection identical to that of regular nouns.

Conjugation
Bäladiri verbs are directly conjugated by attaching a suffix or a blend of suffixes onto a stem. The stem may often change, most frequently in predictable ways and under the influence of stress shifts.

Verbs in Bäladiri come in three productive conjugational classes based on thematic vowels in earlier stages of the language. Even as sound changes have obscured a lot of the more transparent inflections, the conjugations of such verbs still remain readily apparent throughout their paradigms. The three classes, in traditional terminology, are:
 * Lunar verbs (those with a thematic *ū in suffixes)
 * Solar verbs (those with a thematic *ī in suffixes)
 * Earthy verbs (those with a thematic *ā in suffixes)

Two more classes are recognised, even though they have since mostly fallen out of use:
 * Mortal or Weak verbs (those with a thematic short { *a *i *u }; mostly reanalysed as one of the three productive classes)
 * Muddy verbs (those with a thematic syllabic nasal { *m *n }; irregular, preserved in relics)

The assignment of verbs to conjugational classes goes back to a verb classification system once operational in proto-North-Westerlander but defunct long before Bäladiri times. Some verbs that share conjugational class might also have morphosyntactic or semantic similarities, though the system has truly been irregularised due to class reassignments and semantic shifts.

The muddy verbs have lost their nasal component in core Bäladiri (though some dialects do retain a nasal or nasal vowel) but are reanalysed as verbs of other classes based on the consonant that preceded the former nasal:
 * Verbs that used to have a thematic *n are lunar after labials, and earthy otherwise
 * Verbs that used to have a thematic *m are earthy after palatals, and lunar otherwise

Bäladiri verbs are cited in three forms, representing the three lenition grades a regular verb stem has:
 * Strongest, unlenited — second person singular, present momentane
 * Medium — first person singular, present momentane
 * Weakest, most lenited — infinitive nominative singular

Even though the stems can be predicted for most verbs from just one form, all verbs are cited in three parts because of lenition and vowel contraction irregularities or omissions extant in the system.

Example conjugation of a lunar verb:

Example conjugation of a solar verb:

Example conjugation of an earthy verb:

Verb Clitics
Aside from straightforward inflection, Bäladiri verbs may additionally be modified by attaching verbal clitics, which act similarly to affixes but differ in four vital points:


 * They do not cause stress shifts or phonological alteration of any inflected verb form
 * They often have multiple ambiguous meanings outside of context and without further pragmatic specification
 * They are frequently employed to encode both modal, directional and polar specification
 * They are somewhat flexibly ordered and are not fixed in placement or position

Furthermore, verb clitics interact with light verbs in several interesting ways:
 * Verb clitics attach to the whole light verb phrase — if the light verb has a postfixed oblique compliment, the clitic attaches to it even as it is a nominal
 * Light verbs may take on redundant verb clitics, and are more prone to taking on clitics than full verbs
 * Some light verbs have very specific interactions with clitics, sometimes requiring some and forbidding others, and at others changing the meanings of the clitics — or even their own meanings — based on the clitic attached

Only infrequently stressed, many of the clitics are subject to significant phonetic degradation, and certain prominent combinations of them have fused into a single multi-faceted morpheme (uncharacteristic of Bäladiri).

Bäladiri verb clitics are divided into four large fuzzy classes:


 * Modal clitics
 * Directional clitics and cliticised particles
 * Subordinators
 * Fossilised clitics (unproductive, lexically conditioned)

Modal Clitics
Bäladiri modal clitics make up a large, multi-segment category of verb clitics that facilitate multiple diverse functions. They do not consistently distinguish between modal information based on whether it is realis, irrealis or an evidential. The modal clitics are very sensitive to sociolinguistic context.

The most basic modals are those that encode polarity. Bäladiri has three 'plain realis' modals: an indicative negative modal, an emphatic positive and an emphatic negative modal. There is no positive indicative modal — a lack of polar specification on a verb implies a positive, indicative modality (alternatively, it can be analysed as a zero morpheme).

The indicative (or, rather, plain) modals are used for factual, declarative and gnomic statements, whereas their emphatic counterparts are used only as answers to yes/no questions and to contrast statements: questions must be answered with an emphatic polar verb, and statements of a certain polarity can be refuted with an emphatic verb of the opposite polarity.

Each of the polar modals has a short and long form — the long forms are generally avoided in daily speech, and are used only in very polite speech and in poetry.

A tabular overview of the polar modals:

The potential modal ‹inkä› marks several different things:
 * 1) In most contexts it is used as a kind of hypothetical that marks the verb as something that, while not true, easily can be or could have been; inversely, its negative form marks the verb as something that, while true, could easily not be, stop being or not have been.
 * 2) It can, based on pragmatics and context, be used as a true potential that doesn't assert the truthfulness of the verb but states that it might, or might not, happen; it subtly implies a personal opinion and may be confused with the deductive.

The potential modal can be negated both indirectly (analytically) and directly (fusionally), and may modify both a positive and negative verb. The fusional forms of the potential are:

The abilitative modal ‹ippä› normally marks for only one set of related things, but is subject to infrequent misuse:
 * 1) It normatively marks the primary argument of the verb as having the ability to participate (intransitive agents for ability to perform the action and transitive patients for the ability to have the action performed unto them)
 * 2) A more unorthodox use of the abilitative is as a potential modal, occasionally used instead where ‹inkä› should.

The abilitative modal can be negated both indirectly (analytically) and directly (fusionally), and may modify both a positive and negative verb. The fusional forms of the abilitative are:

There exists a special potential abilitative modal, ‹mókkït› that combines the functions of the abilitative and the potential, marking the verb's primary argument as possibly/uncertainly having the ability to participate in the action. It has an equivalent, a potential debilitative ‹láulä› that marks the verb's primary argument as possibly/uncertainly lacking the ability to participate in the action. Both the modals are suppletive replacements of a sequence of an abilitative and potential, though the modals may also be used individually without being replaced.

Neither the potential abilitative and debilitative has a fusional form with a polar modal: they are negated and emphasised only through analytic means.

Passivisation
Bäladiri doesn't employ verb inflection as a signal for passivisation: in Bäladiri, verbs do not inflect for voice. Instead, passivisation is marked via argument replacement. Regular Bäladiri active transitive verbs agree with the accusative argument in person and number, and due to this peculiarity, passivised transitive verbs are functionally identical to regular intransitive verbs; when a transitive verb is passivised, its accusative argument is promoted to the nominative, and verb inflection follows to agree with it. The old nominative, replaced by the promoted accusative, may be recovered by placing it in the ergative case. Thus, passivisation in Bäladiri is a function of argument rotation.

Morphosemantics
Barring syntactical and lexicomorphological oddities, Bäladiri has fairly flexible ways of assigning morphological marking and tying semantic and pragmatic information to it: each morpheme carries some sort of semantic and pragmatic meaning, aside from agreement.

Case Marking
Case marking in Bäladiri is generally straightforward. Aside from the adpositions that require a specific case nearly at random, the language assigns cases fairly logically:
 * The Nominative marks the subjects and agents of active sentences, and the patient role in a passive sentence
 * The Accusative marks the patient role of active sentences
 * The Ergative marks the agent role of a passive sentence (a former demoted nominative)
 * The Vocative marks an addressed party
 * The Oblique marks secondary arguments; almost never occurs without an adposition

Tense Assignment
While the present and past tenses carry an absolute meaning (indicating an absolute present and past, relative from the speaker's timeframe). The imminent 'tense' is more akin to a prospective: from the present timeframe, it acts as a future tense, whereas in a past frame it works as a future-in-the-past. It is quite common in both direct discourse and renarration.