Delta Naidda
From KneeQuickie
| Naidda (Delta dialect) [naiɾə] | |
| Timeline/Universe | Akana |
| Period | c. 0-200 YP |
| Spoken in | Kasca |
| Total speakers | c. 3 million |
| Writing system | adapted Fáralo script |
| Classification | Edastean Eastern Naidda |
| Typology | |
| Basic word order | V1 |
| Morphology | fusional |
| Alignment | none |
| Credits | |
| Created by | Radius |
| Edit me | |
| The information currently found here may be outdated, and may soon be removed or reduced to a summary. Please do not add new information here. An up-to-date version of the full article can be found at the corresponding AkanaWiki page. |
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Contents |
Sketch of Delta Naidda
Herein begins a sketch of the Delta dialect of Naidda, the language of the land of Kasca.
Genealogy
Naidda is descended from the eastern dialects of Ndak Ta, forming part of the Edastean language family, which in turn belongs to the Talo-Edastean subbranch of the Macro-Edastean family. Sister languages of Naidda include Fáralo, Adāta, Ndok Aisô, and Komeyech. Of these, it is most closely related to Fáralo, with which it comprises the Eastern subbranch of Edastean.
- Proto-Macro-Edastean (c. -3500 YP)
- Proto-Talo-Edastean (c. -2500 YP)
- Edastean languages
- Antaggic languages
- Talo languages
- Xoronic languages
- Proto-Talo-Edastean (c. -2500 YP)
Phonology
Phonemes
The 22 consonants of Delta Naidda are as follows:
| Labial | Dental | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
| Voiceless Plosive | p /p/ | t /t/ | k /k/ | ' /ʔ/ | ||
| Voiced Plosive | b /b/ | d /d/ | g /g/ | |||
| Voiceless Affricate | c /ʧ/ | |||||
| Voiced Affricate | j /ʤ/ | |||||
| Voiceless Fricative | s /s/ | sh /ʃ/ | ||||
| Voiced Fricative | v /v/ | z /ʒ/ | ||||
| Nasal | m /m/ | n /n/ | ñ /ɲ/ | ng /ŋ/ | ||
| Tap | dd /ɾ/ | |||||
| Trill | r /r/ | |||||
| Approximant | w /w/ | l /l/ | y /j/ |
Delta Naidda has eight vowels:
| Front | Central | Back | |
| High | i /i/ | ï /ɪ/ | u /u/ |
| Mid High | e /e/ | o /o/ | |
| Mid Low | ë /ɛ/ | ||
| Low | a /a/ | å /ɒ/ |
Rules and Distributions
Consonants
- Naidda words never end in obstruents (plosives, fricatives, or affricates), only in vowels or sonorant consonants.
- Voiceless plosives and affricates (p t c k) occur only in initial position, or after s or sh.
- Voiced plosives and affricates (b d j g) occur only in initial position and between vowels. They contrast with their voiceless counterparts only initially.
- The velar nasal occurs only at the ends of words, in which position it contrasts with all three other nasals. The other three (m n ñ) occur with no such restriction.
- r and dd contrast only intervocalically, where they are a trill and a flap, both dental or alveolar. In all other environments, there is only a tapped r (a slightly different phone from the flap). This often weakens to an approximant in codas.
- ly is realized as [ʎ], a palatal lateral approximant. This sound is analyzed in this sketch as underlyingly being a cluster of l with y.
- z is normally postalveolar [ʒ] in most regions of the Delta, but for some speakers may occur in free variation with dental [z]. In a few areas only the dental pronunciation occurs.
- Medially within words, all fricatives and sonorants (s sh v z m n ñ l r w y) can form consonant clusters with each other, in any order. None of them but s and sh can cluster with plosives and plosives cannot cluster with each other. Clusters of more than two consecutive consonants do not occur.
- All clusters beginning with a fricative, that are legal medially, can occur in initial position as well. A few other clusters can also occur initially, such as mw, tw, or py.
- The glottal stop clusters only with nasals, and only before them. These clusters can occur both medially and finally. In final position the nasal of such a cluster is syllabic. The glottal stop also occurs between vowels, but never initially or finally.
- f does not occur in this dialect of Naidda, though it does in others (but only in loanwords even there, mostly from Faralo f and h). Delta Naidda has generally imported such loanwords with p in initial position and v medially. Thus Huyfarah is called Fuifara in the Southern dialect and Puivara in the Delta dialect.
Vowels
- The first vowel of a root is normally stressed. However, certain derivational suffixes attract stress to themselves or to a subsequent syllable of the root. In such cases the word's resulting stress pattern is a productive and important part of the derivational operation. Alternating syllables after the first receive secondary stress.
- All back vowels are rounded (u o å) and all non-back vowels are unrounded (i ï e ë a).
- There are no phonemic diphthongs, but adjacent vowels freely diphthongize in normal speech unless separated by a glottal stop. Except where noted below, the first of the two vowels tends to be the nucleus of such a diphthong, with the other forming an offglide. In careful speech the adjacent vowels may be separated into two full syllables.
- The vowels can be classed into two groups, "strong" and "weak". The strong vowels are i e u o, which share the characteristic that they do not tend to be reduced in unstressed syllables. The weak vowels are a å ï, which share the characteristic that in fully unstressed syllables they become schwa, thus neutralizing the distinction between them. In addition, in any vowel sequence consisting of a strong and a weak vowel, the weak vowel becomes the diphthong nucleus and the strong vowel becomes an offglide or onglide.
- ë behaves sometimes as a strong vowel and sometimes as a weak vowel. Its behavior in unstressed syllables and in diphthongs varies by rate of speech and from speaker to speaker.
- The realization of ï and å vary from town to town. The former is normally either [ɪ] or [ɨ], or occasionally [ə], and the latter can be [ɒ] or [ɔ] and in a few places has merged with a. Other vowels vary less than these do.
Noun Phrases
Structure
The structure of a Naidda noun phrase is relatively rigid. The order of NP components is:
Determiner(s) - Noun - (Modifiers)
Naidda nouns are invariable in form.
Determiners
Before the noun there are two positions which can be filled by determiners. In every NP at least one of these two slots must be filled.
A first position determiner may be a proclitic which serves as an article or deictic, or it may be a possessive pronoun. These two sets do not co-occur. Quantifiers, which may be either numbers or non-numeral quantifiers, occur in the second determiner position.
NOTE: see the "pronominal prepositions" section for a fuller explanation of the possessive pronouns and how not only possessive ones can be determiners.
Articles and Deictics
| Clitic | Meaning | ||
| l- | the | ||
| u- or w- | a, some | ||
| d- | as for | ||
| g- | this | ||
| c- | that |
These clitics, if present, attach to the beginning of the next word and are written hyphenated.
l-a'a
the woman
Clitic Morphophonology
The indefinite article consists of u- before consonants and w- before vowels. The other proclitics are pronounced before vowels as if they were part of the word. Before consonants, an epenthetic schwa intervenes, unless a legal initial cluster is formed.
When the next word begins with a voiceless plosive, it typically (but not necessarily) becomes voiced after a clitic.
Possessive Pronouns
There are only three possessive pronouns, one for each person.
| Person | Pronoun | ||
| 1 | a'e | ||
| 2 | airo | ||
| 3 | a |
Non-Numeric Quantifiers
| Quantifier | Meaning | ||
| wa | a few, a minority of | ||
| nam | some, however many | ||
| ova | many, lots of | ||
| i | most | ||
| me | no, none of | ||
| or | all, each |
Numbers
| Number | Native | Faralo |
| 1 | kë | ce |
| 2 | ni | -- |
| 3 | wo | -- |
| 4 | bo | bu |
| 5 | du | -- |
| 6 | ïshï | -- |
| 7 | mëm | -- |
| 8 | son | ude |
| 9 | nïl | -- |
| 10 | ro | -- |
For the numbers 1, 4, and 8, both the native and the borrowed Faralo numbers are in common use.
Multiples of ten are formed by suffixing -ro. Ordinals are formed by prefixing ï-, or in the case of six, y-.
Examples
l-di
the tree
ova di
many trees
l-ova di
the many trees
airo di
your tree
a'e ïshï di
my six trees
l-ïboro di
the fortieth tree
Modifiers
Three main types of modifiers are discussed here: nominal modifiers, prepositional phrases, and relative clauses. These follow the head noun in that order:
Modifiers - Prepositional Phrases - Relative Clauses
Nominal Modifiers
Naidda does not have a distinct class of adjectives, per se. Instead, nouns are modified by other nouns. There remains a marginal syntactic distinction; a number of nouns are used much more often in an attributive role than as the head of an NP. These are translated in the lexicon with English adjectives. Nevertheless, any noun can be the head of a noun phrase, and any noun can be used to modify another.
It is never difficult to tell which of the nouns in a noun phrase is the head: the head is always first. Additionally, nouns never take determiners when used attributively, while NP heads always do.
l-di spe
the green tree
l-spe di
the tree's green (or the greenness of the tree or the shade of green on the tree)
l-wo di spe
the three green trees
Heavy Modifiers
Prepositional Phrases
PPs come in two types: full phrases, and "pronominal prepositions" (or, if you prefer, "prepositional pronouns"). Both are explained in the Prepositions section.
Both types occur in the same position in a noun phrase: after the noun and after any nominal modifiers, but before any relative clauses.
Relative Clauses
Formation of relative clauses is covered below. Relative clauses, if any, always occur at the tail end of a noun phrase.
Personal Pronouns
The personal pronouns of Naidda distinguish person, number, and within third person, animate/inanimate in the plural and masculine, feminine, and neuter in the singular.
Free Pronoun Forms
| Singular | Plural | |
| 1 | e | ove |
| 2 | liño | wiño |
| 3m | loro | wamar |
| 3f | la'a | wamar |
| 3n | lojon | wajon |
Usage
These pronouns are not required in transitive clauses, with verbal participant reference marking being sufficient. Thus, Naidda is a pro-drop language. Pronouns are used for three main purposes:
1. For contrast focus, like English I did it myself.
2. In non-sentential speech acts, such as insults and one-word answers to questions.
Liño dun!
You bastard!
3. In intransitive clauses they are required, even if a full noun or a pro-form is also used. In this case, a reduced form of the pronoun cliticizes to the end of the verb.
Enclitic Pronoun Forms
| Singular | Plural | |
| 1 | -e | -ove |
| 2 | -liñ | -wiñ |
| 3m | -lor | -war |
| 3f | -la | -war |
| 3n | -lon | -won |
Ñadawon.
They slept.
The Verb Complex
Auxiliaries
Naidda marks the time of a clause (tense and aspect) with a set of auxiliary verbs. Each AUX indicates one or more specific combinations of tense and aspect, except for ïna which makes a sentence imperative.
To use an auxiliary:
- Add the AUX to the beginning of the clause (before the verb, but after any left-dislocated information).
- Move the main verb to later in the clause, usually the end, if it isn't there already.
- Mark the AUX, but not the main verb, for participant reference.
The auxiliary verbs are:
| AUX | time | |
| 0 | preterite | |
| ste | nonfuture imperfect | |
| we | future imperfect | |
| steda | nonfuture inceptive | |
| weda | future inceptive | |
| stevë | nonfuture perfect | |
| wevë | future perfect | |
| cona | aorist | |
| ïna | imperative |
Usage
Imperfects are used for actions that are or will be incomplete (depending on whether the future or nonfuture AUX is used), or for states that are or will be ongoing.
Inceptives indicate the beginning of an action, or onset of a state.
Perfects are very comparable to "I have done it" or "I will have done it" in English.
When there is no auxiliary at all, a preterite (past-perfective, or "narrative past") time is usually assumed. However, this is highly context-dependent: when several clauses in a row have exactly the same time, i.e. they would use the same AUX, often only the first one is marked and the subsequent clauses stand without auxiliaries, inheriting their time indication from the prior clause. This inheritance can continue indefinitely until the time of a clause needs to be different than that of the previous one.
The aorist is used mostly for states, rather than actions, and indicates that the state is generally true, or is true over an indefinitely long timespan. For example, "the sky is blue" would be translated with the aorist.
Imperatives are commands or instructions to do something.
When no main verb appears in the clause, the auxiliaries become copulas.
Morphology
Participant Reference: Transitive
Naidda uses a complex system of suffixes to mark the person and number of both the agent and patient of the verb, if it is transitive. While these suffixes are patterned in ways that derive from the pronouns the suffixes originally came from, in this discussion we treat them as unanalyzable.
There are two exceptions to this, however. Reflexive suffixes occur for certain person-number combinations that either can or must indicate somebody performing the action on themselves. Reflexives are formed by suffixing -in- between the root and the rest of the transitive suffix. Italicized forms in the table are reflexive.
The other exception is that except for reflexives, suffixes denoting singular patients consist of the suffix for a plural patient, plus final -n.
The following table demonstrates these suffixes in use in the verb piño, "to fear". The person and number of agent arguments are in rows, while the person and number of patient arguments are in columns. Thus, if "he" fears "all of you", the entry for 3sg-2pl is used: piñaddo.
| 1s | 1p | 2s | 2p | 3s | 3p | |
| 1 | piñoyin/piñin | piñoyi/piñini | piñeddon | piñeddo | piñoyån | piñoyå |
| 2s | piñoron | piñoro | piñinolon | piñorol | piñorån | piñorå |
| 2p | piñorwin | piñorwi | piñorilon | piñinil | piñorwan | piñorwa |
| 3s | piñin | piñi | piñaddon | piñaddo | piñån/piñinån | piñå |
| 3p | piñain | piñai | piñaiddon | piñaiddo | piñiwan | piñiwa/piñinwa |
- These suffixes are applied to the first verb in the sentence - whether it's the main verb or an auxiliary.
- There is no differentiation between 1sg and 1pl agents in these suffixes. Thus for 1-1sg and for 1-1pl, there is both a reflexive and a non-reflexive possibility.
- In the third person, specifically 3sg-3sg and 3pl-3pl, there are reflexive and non-reflexive forms. The REFL-3sg-3sg form means "he did it to himself" and the plain 3sg-3sg form means "he did it to (someone else)".
Morphophonology
The transitive suffixes which begin with vowels, normally replace unstressed final vowels of the verb. If the final vowel is stressed, however, for example if the verb root is monosyllabic, then no vowel replacement occurs - the two vowels exist in hiatus. This is shown in the table above.
When the transitive suffixes beginning with clusters follow a verb root ending in a consonant, an epenthetic a is inserted to break up the cluster.
The Irrealis
In Naidda, a verb is made irrealis with a prefix that has multiple forms.
- Before vowels: e'-
- Before fricatives: e-
- Before stops, affricates, and sonorants: s-
Voiced plosives that follow s- become voiceless.
Usage
Unlike participant suffixes, the irrealis prefix always appears on the main verb, even if an auxiliary is present. The irrealis marks that a statement is counterfactual. That is, while a realis clause makes a claim that the statement expressed in the clause is true, an irrealis clause makes no such claim at all.
The irrealis may or may not co-occur with a modal adverb. When it stands without such an adverb, a conditional meaning is usually meant; an "if"-clause must precede or follow the irrealis clause. When the irrealis appears with a modal adverb, the adverb specifies the modality of the clause.
Negation
A clause is negated by the prefix ma- before consonants) or m- (before vowels). As with other prefixes, intial voiceless stops and affricates become voiced.
Usage
Negative concord is exhibited between main verbs and auxiliaries: if both are present, the negative prefix appears either on both, or on neither.
The negative prefix and the irrealis prefix are mutually exclusive on the main verb, but if an auxiliary is present, it may still be negated if the main verb is irrealis. This occasionally necessitates re-wording so that an auxiliary may be used for carrying the negation.
Prepositional Phrases
Normal PPs
Conventional, full prepositional phrases in Naidda are straightforward and do not work significantly differently from those in English and many other languages. In short, a prepositional phrase consists of a P followed by an NP. Any noun phrase can be the object of a preposition, and the preposition is always in the third person. The one notable difference is that first and second person pronouns cannot appear after third person prepositions.
Prepositional phrases modifying nouns are placed late in the NP, normally after all one-word modifiers but before any relative clauses. Those modifying verbs can occur anywhere in the clause after the inflected verb or AUX.
Full clauses can also be the objects of prepositions; in this case, the clause is formed as a complement clause (to be described).
wo w-inzo
for.3 a-farmer
for a farmer
Pronominal Prepositions
Or, "prepositional pronouns", take your pick. Naidda prepositions are inflectable for person - first, second, or third - and these inflected prepositions are entire PPs unto themselves. The personal inflection specifies the object of the preposition. Or, if you look at it from another angle, these words are personal pronouns marked for a large number of grammatical cases.
Normal Usage
As an example, where in English we would say "to me", in Naidda we can say to.1 and this is usually sufficient. However, whenever more information is desireable (such as the number of the referent), the preposition can take a personal pronoun as an object. This description is adequate for the first and second persons.
åddi
to.1
to me or to us
åddi ove
to.1 us
to us
In the third person, a preposition either has a full NP as its object (as described in the previous section), or it stands alone as an anaphor. That is, without an explicit object, it refers back to a noun phrase that has already been mentioned recently in the discourse. Similarly to the first and second persons, when in the third person more information about the preposition's referent is desireable, it can take a full pronoun as an object.
ådda
to.3
to it/him/her/them
ådda lojon
to.3 him
to him
Appositional Usage
First and second person prepositions can also take NP objects. In this case, the NP is apposed to the pronoun's referent.
we w-inzo
for.1 a-farmer
for me, a farmer (or for me as a farmer)
Determiner Usage
The "possessive pronouns", previously discussed in the Noun Phrases section, are in fact the inflected possessive prepositions. As already covered, these can be used as determiners:
a'e borma
of.1 wheat
my wheat
Naidda distinguishes the determiner use of possessives from a non-determiner use:
g-borma a'e
this-wheat of.1
this wheat of mine
The latter construction is the normal, default use of a PP in Naidda, with the possessive prepositions doubling as possessive pronouns. That is how I have presented these things thus far, for the sake of simplicity.
However, it's not the whole truth. Actually, any inflected preposition can be a determiner the way the a possessive one can:
wodo myåsko
for.2 party
the party for you (literally the-for-you party)
This is a common device in Naidda, and is why the line between "preposition" and "pronoun" is blurry at best.
List of Prepositions
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd/default | meaning |
| a'e | airo | a | possessive |
| we | wodo | wo | "for", "concerning", benefactive |
| ume | omvo | om | genitive (non-possessive association) |
| ñwe | ñudo | ño | essive, appositive; "as" |
| kwëne | kwïnzo | kwïn | comitative; "with" |
| ale | åro | ål | "without", "besides", "except for" |
| pu'e | poiro | po | "per", "for each" |
| si | sado | sa | ablative; "from" |
| ne | nido | ni | "in", "into", "inside" |
| åddi | åddado | ådda | "to", "towards" |
| wi | wado | wa | "after", "since" |
| ove | ovro | o | "at", "near", "nearby to" |
| sli | slado | sla | "before", "by" (as in "by tomorrow") |
| ñizedi | ñizedo | ñizi | "until", "as far as", "as much as" |
| råve | råvëdo | råvë | "along", "via", "during" |
| ledi | ledado | leda | "between", "among", "throughout", "surrounding" |
Clause Types
Independent Clauses
Structural Notes
The basic template for main clauses in Naidda is V1 - the verb comes first, and is followed by one or more other sentence elements, including nouns denoting agents or patients, and modifying information such as adverbial clauses, prepositional phrases, or adverbs.
The order of these post-verb elements does not depend on the grammatical roles of subject or direct object, but instead on the principle "New Information Comes First" or NICF.
NICF applies to all post-verbal constituents, not just noun phrases. For instance if the main new information in a clause is adverbial, it will precede any subjects or direct objects that are present.
Naidda can also be described as a "pronominal argument" language. The key notion of pro-arg is that the verb, including mandatory participant marking, is the core clause all by itself - everything else is oblique, including subject and object nominals.
example goes here
If an auxiliary is present in the clause, it takes the V1 position at the beginning, and the main verb is moved to later in the clause - typically but not necessarily the end.
example goes here
Role Disambiguation
As previously shown, the transitive participant markers for Naidda verbs are in some cases defective. They also do not supply as much information as personal pronouns do. In some cases, this can make it difficult to tell who is doing what to who. This is exacerbated by the tendency of speakers to avoid using full noun phrases to the extent they can get away with.
The overwhelming majority of such cases are clearly resolveable by context, by means of an agency hierarchy (or "animacy hierarchy"). The hierarchy is a set of assumptions built into Naidda grammar about which of any two entities is most likely to be the agent, or actor. In general, entities higher on the following list are assumed to be the agent than entities lower on the list:
- sentence topic (whether explicitly marked or not)
- 1st person
- 2nd person
- other people
- animals
- everything else
Note that the ability of a speaker to directly mark topics (with the proclitic d-) allows nearly any clause to be arranged such that role disambiguation via the hierarchy is possible. Nevertheless, in cases where even this fails, or simply to supply more information (such as the gender of a participant), a pronoun may be used in the clause.
Topic-Comment
While a noun marked as a sentence topic may be left in place after a verb, most often it will be left-dislocated to the beginning of the clause - before the verb. Dislocated nouns are always marked as topics.
example goes here
