Sã

Sã Language

As mentioned before Sã is the first daughter language of Sangi. Several main features of this language are the collapse of the declension system due to sound changes, the ending of productive vocalic and consonantal plural mutations with the plural stems taking on a purely collective meaning (also leading to the disappearance of the dual form). The definiteness in nouns also drops out of use and size suffixes no longer remain productive. As a result of sound change, a human vs non-huamn distinction is found in nouns, the verbal system has collapsed meaning an increased use of postverbal particles are used to distinguish now lost meaning, etc. The phonology is incredibly simplified and many sounds have merged into single sounds while others have split. Older basic forms have increasingly been replaced by formerly poetic forms as a result of the phonological collapse with has futher led to increasing homophony.

Phonology

As said above, as a result of sound changes, the phonological system is incredibly simplified. The retroflex consonants are almost entirely gone, apart from a few rare instances of the voiced palatal nasal, the vowels are also simplified and many of the fricatives have collapsed into a single form.

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Post-Alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p [p] b [b]	t [t] d [d]		c [k] g [g]	' [ʔ]
Nasal	m [m]	n [n]		ŋ [ŋ]
Fricative		s [s] z [z]	ś [ʃ] ź [ʒ]	x [x]	h [h] ɦ [ɦ]
Lateral		l [l]
Trill		r [r]		r [ʁ]
Approximant	w [ʍ] v [w]			j [j]
Affricate		ts [ts] dz [dz]	tś [tʃ] dź [dʒ]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i [i] î [i:]		u [u] û [u:]
Mid	e [e] ê [e:]		o [o] [o:]
Open		a [a] [a:]

Each form may also have a nasal variant, which is written using a tilde over short vowels and an <m> after long vowels.

As you can see, the vowels system has collapsed considerable. Rounded front vowels and unrounded back vowels as well as the schwa have disappeared and the length distinction in [a] and [o] has fallen away.

The main diphthongs, arising as a result of sound changes are [iu], [uo], [au], [eu], [ai] and [ie]. This is considerably smaller than the ones in Sangi, but these few diphthongs arose as a result of merging older diphthongs or a diphthongisation process affecting monophthongs.

Phonological Changes

The processes of phonological change from Sangi to Sã are much less complex and much more natural (as a result of it being a now spoken language and not one that was created). Disappearance and devoicing of final sounds is a common occurence with other sound changes causing these lost final sounds to reappear. Final [i] and [e] are commonly lost, causing palatalisation of the previous consonant and the restraints on final sounds have been lifted.

Morpho-Phonology

Sã morpho-phonology is much simpler to that of Sangi. Only one form of mutation is still semantically and grammatically productive in Sã, stem gradation. Consonantal A and I-affection and initial consonant mutation were dropped altogether and plural marking in nouns has disappeared, with the older plurals becoming singular collective nouns. Essentially, the vowel of a stem will change throughout inflection, apparently at random, while the only constant is stem gradation. A-mutation and I-mutation have been caused to be re-analysed as a result of the effect of conjugational endings of verbs on the stem vowel and they only exist in verbs.

Stem Gradation

[ʔ]<>[p]/[k]/[tʃ] (depending on whether the [ʔ] was a [p] or [k] and the [tʃ] appears before [i] and [e].

[_]<>[t]/[ts] ([ts] appears before [i] and [e])

[t]<>[d]

[ts]<>[dz]

[p]<>[b]

[k]<>[g]

[tʃ]<>[dʒ]

[m]<>[mp]

[n]<>[nt]

[l]<>[lt]

[r]<>[rd]

[s]<>[t]

[st]<>[ss]

[sc]<>[ʃ]

[sp]<>[si]

As you can see, most stem gradation is either a voice distinction or the adding or deleting of a sound. Unlike in Sangi, stem gradation works both ways. If [t] appears as the final sound in the nominative, then in the genitive it will be [d], but if [d] is the nominative stem then the genitive one will be [t]. Essentially, the nominative final sound is the strong one and its opposite is the weak sound.

Vowel Mutations

Stem vowel	with -i, -i:, -iʃ -e, -e:, -eʃ	with -ie, -a, -a:, -as, -u, -uj
[a]	[e]	[a]
[a]1	[u]>_[e]	[o]>_[a]
[a]2	[u:]>_[e]	[o:]>_[a]
[e]	[e]>_[i]	[a]>_[e]
[e]	[i]>_[iu]	[i]>_[e]
[i]	[i]	[a]>_[i]
[o]	[eu]>_[o]	[eo]>_[o]
[u]	[e]>_[u]	[a]_[o]
[e:]	[o]>_[i:]	[u]>_[e:]
[i:]	[i:]	[e:]>_[i:]
[u:]	[uo]>_[u:]	[uo]>[u:]
[uo]	[e]>[uo]	[a]>_[uo]
[eu]	[i:]>[eu]	[i:]<[eu]
[iu]	[eu]>_[iu]	[eo]>_[iu]

1 - From [ʌ]
2 - From [ʌ:]

Where there are two vowels separated by ">_", the first vowel is used in the past tense while the second is used in the non-past. As you can see, verbs have a four way conjugation; past vs non-past and "velar" vs. "palatal".

Morphology

Verbs

Sangi verbs have changed quite a bit over time. The modality preixes have merged with the auxiliary verbs, with a smaller conjuagation, while the main verbs have collapsed, resulting in the need for adverbs to mark differing meanings amongst once different suffices.

Nouns

The declension of nouns in Sã through inflection is much simpler than in Sangi due to a collapse in the case marking and the disappearance of a productive plural stem formation. Due to mass amounts of sound changes in the vowels, however, many stems appear to be irregular, with [a] and [e] capable of becoming [a], [e] or [i] depending on the suffix (This process is worse in verbs).

Postpositions have also begun to be used as a result of case-collapsing. For example, the suffix -l with the weak stem now marks the genitive and the instrumental. Unmarked it is the genitive but with the instrumental postposition "sant" (originally from the verb "stand") it marks the instrumental.

Pronouns

The pronouns became simplified and just over half of the personal pronouns disappeared, merging with others to leaving only four classes of these pronouns from the original seven which existed in Sangi with two categories having no singular-plural distinction.

Numbers

The numbers can easily be seen to have derived from English as many of them have the same general sounds.

1 - [an]

2 - [ʃu]

3 - [di]

4 - [ʍo]

5 - [ʍoʍ]

6 - [dziga]

7 - [dzewen]

8 - [e:]

9 - [non]

10 - [ken]

Numbers 11 to 19 are built up on the system "10+number", e.g. ancen (11), woken (14) and so on. Numbers 20 to 99 are built on the system "number-multiplicative[n]-10-number", e.g. ʃunken (20), e:nke-non (89) and so on. Higher numbers are built up in this manner, attaching the multiplicative suffix to the number and placing the multiple of ten after it.

The words for higher multiples of ten are:

100 - [enʃes]

1000 - [tu:ʃen]

10000 - [kendzen]

100000 - [enʃessen]

1000000 - [mijen]

An example of a higher number is dikrantmijjen-suntaņțes-wontćen-su (142)