Asglian

Asglian Asglëis t‘ił
Type
Analytic
Alignment
Accusative
Head direction
left
Tonal
No
Declensions
No
Conjugations
No
Genders
No
Nouns decline according to...
Case	Number
Definiteness	Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice	Mood
Person	Number
Tense	Aspect

General Information

Asglian (Asglëis t‘ił /ʔə̤skɺɛ̤jʃ t’iɬʲ/) is a language spoken by the Cittus, insect-looking sapients from the planet Cittus-V.

Phonology

Consonants

	alveolar		dorsal		laryngeal
	simple	palatalized	simple	palatalized
tenuis	t	tʲ	k	kʲ	ʔ
aspirate	tʰ	tʲʰ	kʰ	kʲʰ
ejective	t’	t’ʲ	k’	k’ʲ
fricative	s ɬ	ʃ ɬʲ			ħ h
approximant	ɹ	ʎ	ɰ	j
flap	ɺ

unpalatalized	palatalized		unpalatalized	palatalized
t	tʲ		k	kʲ
tʰ	tʲʰ		kʰ	kʲʰ
t’	t’ʲ		k’	k’ʲ
s	ʃ		ɬ	ɬʲ
ɺ	ʎ		ɰ	j

• /ʔ/, /ħ/, /h/, and /ɹ/ are unpalatalized without any palatalized counterparts.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	ʲi (ʲɪ)		(ɯ̽) ɯ
Low	ɛ	(ə) (ʲə)	ʌ ʲʌ

• The vowels in parenthesis are reduced vowels which only appear in unstressed syllables.
• Diphthongs are /ɯj/, /ɛj/, /ɛɰ/, /ʌj/, /ʌɰ/, /ʲʌj/, /ʲʌɰ/. They are only found in stressed syllables.

Phonotactics

C(C)V(F)

• Final consonants allowed are /s/, /ʃ/, /ɬ/, /ɬʲ/, /ħ/, /ɹ/, /ʔ/, /ɺ/, and /ʎ/.
• Consonants labeled "palatalized" can only occur before the palatalizing vowels: /ʲʌ/, /ʲi/, /ʲɪ/, or /ʲə/; before another "palatalized" consonant; or on the end of a word after /ʲʌ/, /ʲi/, /ʲɪ/, /ʲə/, or /j/.
• Nonpalatalized consonants (except for the glottal stop /ʔ/) cannot occur before palatalized ones, before a palatalizing vowel, or after a word final /ʲi/, /ʲɪ/, or /j/.

Phonation

While Asglian has no phonemic tone, it does have phonemic phonation. There are three distinguished phonations: modal, breathy, and creaky. Reduced vowels obtain the phonation of their neighboring vowels.

Phonation	Example 1		Example 2
Modal	ji	"in"	kʲʰʌɰ	"bright"
Breathy	ji̤	"sky"	kʲʰʌ̤ɰ	"child"
Creaky	jḭ	"coin"	kʲʌ̰ɰ	"weapon"

Parts of Speech

• Nouns: person, place, or thing
• Pronouns: pro-forms of nouns
• Adjectives/Adverb: descriptors
• Postpositions: signify various nominal functions, ex. i "in"
• Attitudinals: marks attitude
• Aspectual particles: marks grammatical aspect
• Verbs: closed class with very basic meanings
• Coverbs: open class with very specific meanings
• Ideophones: invoke ideas in sound

Word order

Subject-Adverb-Coverb-Verb-Postpositional phrase-Object-Particles

Nouns

Plurality

Plurality formed by reduplication, not used if a quantity is provided.

• kyäu /kʲʰʌ̤ɰ/ "child" > kyakyäu /kʲʰə̤kʲʰʌ̤ɰ/ "children"

Pronouns

	sg	pl
1	łui	łułui
2	ħãu	ħaħãu
3	de	dede

Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjectives are always placed before the noun they modify, whereas adverbs are always placed before the coverb or after the object or verb, this difference in placement is the only way to distinguish the two.

• kyau ĩ t‘it‘ïs e. "The bright coin shimmered." vs. ĩ kyau t‘it‘ïs e. "The coin shimmered brightly"

Verbs and Coverbs

Verbs

There are only fifty-odd verbs in Asglian. Verbs typically have very broad meanings, for example yã’ "come, go, move".

Coverbs

There are many more coverbs in Asglian and they have much more specific meanings which can be further influenced by the verb they accompany.

Particles

Attudinals

Asglians end most spoken sentences with particles which serve emotional purposes, some of these purposes are:

• assert a point: sãu
• emphasize obviousness:
• emphasize unimportance:
• ask a question:
• ask for agreement:
• express anger:
• express disbelief:
• express pity:
• express lamentation: