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LotM - May 16: Tnaaq
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Holy crap allophones, conlangman!
This public article was written by [Deactivated User] on 8 May 2016, 23:07.

[comments] Menu 1. Phonology and Orthography 2. Grammar and Morphology 3. More on Tnaaq 4. A Note on LotM Holy crap allophones is right.  Tnaaq is chock full of phones, just few of them actually convey meaning! Congrats to @[Deactivated User] and Tnaaq! Also I am a terrible, terrible person due to this article's tardiness. Life got in the way. =C

[top]Phonology and Orthography

Tnaaq's phonological could be described as minimal, if you're flying at a couple miles up. There are only eight phonemic consonants, /n t k kʷ h s r ʔ/, and just four phonemic vowels, /a i ɨ u/. Simple, right? No.

Allophony is rampant, and even that term is conservative. Frankly, there are too many to sum up, however I'll make some mentions. While there are no phonemic labials, /kʷ/ appears as [p] word-finally and before syllabic consonants, and /n/ assimilates to [m] before /u/. There are tons more to cover, so I present you with this glorious article that outlines it all nicely.

Orthography is entirely phonemic (not phonetic!), and generally follows the IPA-to-letter correspondence that we all love, with a few exceptions. /kʷ/ is <q>, /ɨ/ is <y>, and /ʔ/ is <x>.

[top]Grammar and Morphology

Tnaaq is interesting for a few reasons. One, it's VSO, which I have a soft spot for. Two, it runs a few different alignment systems: active-stative for intransitive verbs, but absolutive-ergative for transitive verbs. Three, verbs have no morphological tense, but a butt-ton (it's a clinical term) of aspectual and person distinctions. It's rather fun.

Perhaps most fun are Tnaaq's auxiliary verbs that can function as main verbs, and their varying definitions. For example, ii, on its own, means "to sit". However, it runs a gamut of other functions such as locative constructions, possessives, creation of indefinite pronouns, and comparitives.

Tnaaq also features a bunch of clitics for evidentiality, person and case, noun incorporation, and other uses.

[top]More on Tnaaq

Crave more? Check out its articles, translations, phrasebook, grammar test, grammar tables, typlology, or LexiBuild sets.

[top]A Note on LotM

Got suggestions for how the next LotM should be written? See something in Tnaaq that wasn't covered and you wish it had been? Hate my guts and want to tell me? Feel free to shoot us (either argyle or phi2dao) a PM with your thoughts, suggestions, and hate mail. Also feel free to drop by the LotM clan if you have other feedback, want to join in the voting process, or nominate a language!
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