| Grammar notes |
CULTURE
Any speaker of Asha'ille is called an Asha'illen. The language was originally
spoken by the Cresaeans, a sentient feline-like species. The Cresaeans are
evolutionarily related to another sentient predator species, the Kegharn, who
historically have hunted the Cresaeans.
In most translations, humanoid characters are "translated" into Cresaean ones
wherever possible.
PERSONS
** Note ** Understanding the Asha'illen model of the personal network is
essential to understanding Asha'ille.
Asha'ille has two separate categories of pronouns and their related
conjugations. The Cresaeans use one set for empaths like themselves (and
non-empathic individuals that they want to "elevate" to their status), and a
second one for everything else.
For the non-empaths, Asha'ille uses the familiar (to Indo-Europeans)
first/second/third-person system:
PERSON SINGULAR PLURAL
1st -i -aym
2nd -et -etim
3rd -ar, -a -arim, -ahim
-aer, -ec -aerim, -ecim
In the third person singular, the conjugations listed represent male, female,
unspecified, and none, respectively. These relate directly to biological gender,
such that John the pet fish uses -ar, Jane the pet fish uses -a, that other fish
uses -aer, and that table uses -ec.
In addition to the first/second/third-person system, Asha'ille bases its
empathic-pronouns model on the idea of a network of personal contacts. Pronouns
and personal conjugations measure how far from the center of this network a
person is. Generally, the speaker is the center of the network and everyone else
is relative to him.
RING DESCRIPTION CONJUGATION
en'i center; the self -ni
ajhel beloveds -ejh
chishél* closest friends -ishe
scadhel* good friends -adhe
geithe acquaintances -eith
nimordh everyone else -ordh
* Historically, chishél and scadhel were reversed.
There is also a sixth basic ring, the aerdhil, which is used for when the
person's closeness doesn't matter or the person is unspecified or hypothetical.
Its conjugation is -aerdhi.
By deliberately using *only* the non-empath pronouns and conjugations with a
subject that would normally be expected to take the empath ones, the author (or
speaker) is signalling that there is something wrong with the subject. Mental
patients and sociopaths typically evoke such usage. Using *both* types of
pronouns on the same verb, on the other hand, is used for clarification and
implies nothing of the person's mental derangement.
For a more detailed, though slightly outdated, explanation of the Asha'illen
persons system, see:
http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0303D&L=conlang&P=R23203
PRONOUNS
All the non-empath conjugations have corresponding pronouns:
PERSON SINGULAR PLURAL
1st ai aym
2nd aet aetim
3rd ar, a arim, ahim
aer, ec aerim, ecim
For the empath rings, only the first two have normal pronouns: the self is en'i,
and a beloved is ejh. For all other rings, "temporary" pronouns are derived by
attaching numberef suffixes to the name of the ring in question. For example,
aejhelsa refers to the first person you mention from your aejhel, and aejhelda
the second, etc.
These outer-ring pronouns are considered temporary because the person they refer
to changes between conversations. The numbered suffix chosen depends on the
order in which people were introduced into the conversation.
See the "Numbered Suffixes" section.
DEIXIS
"Deixis" is defined by the SIL linguistics glossary as a "reference by means of
an expression whose interpretation is relative to the (usually) extralinguistic
context of the utterance, such as who is speaking, the time or place of
speaking, the gestures of the speaker, or the current location in the
discourse." The default deixis of Asha'ille is not unusual. The speaker is the
center, the one who uses en'i "self"; the time is the present.
However, when telling a story it is very common for the deixis to be shifted for
convenience. Typically, the main character of a story becomes the center of the
personal network and all others become relative to that character. To mark the
change in deixis, any or all of the following may be employed:
ayana changes subjects used in the story
neyane changes objects used in the story
keyanu changes time of the story
The basic pattern for usage is:
ayana ne {ring} jho {person} [, t'ne {ring} jho {person}...]
neyane ne {object} [, t'ne {object}...]
keyanu ne {time}
Ayana shifts who belongs to each ring relative to the self en'i, which can also
be redefined via ayana. Keyanu shifts the time frame of the story, to which all
others times are relative.
Neyane defines special, "temporary" pronouns that are much like outer-ring
empath pronouns. For each object listed after neyane, the pronoun no, "it," plus
a numbered suffix is defined to refer to that object. So, for example, if a
story began with
Neyane ne chi'san, t'ne fo feilán.
then nosa would refer to chi'san, "girl," and noda would refer to fo feilán,
"red house." These temporary pronouns can be used anywhere one would use the
full phrases the pronouns describe, excepting verbal conjugations. To be the
subject of a verb, these pronouns fill the subject slot as normal, and no person
conjugation is marked on the verb itself.
Deixis shift is "cancelled" by yanú, which means "end of story" or "the end."
WORD ORDER
Asha'ille is a VSO language. Adjectives of exactly one word come before the word
they modify, otherwise they come after the core VSO and are marked for which
word they modify. Note that the "adjective" category includes adverbs -- an
adverbizer is simply prefixed to the adjective.
Subject and object(s) are separated by ne. The ne is required before all
objects, even if the subject is only implicitly given.
Asha'ille doesn't often distinguish between direct and indirect objects. If only
one or the other is used in a sentence, context determines its relation to the
verb. Otherwise, both are listed as "ne {direct object} ne {indirect object}".
If the direct object is a thing and the indirect is a person, the latter is
often expressed on the verb.
For those who understand regular expressions from computer programming, here is
the structure of an Asha'illen sentence:
adverb? verb (adjective? subject)? (ne adjective? object){0,2} (phrases)*
As shown above, any number of modifiying phrases may be included after the core
sentence structure. They must be marked for which word they modify.
VSO-MODIFYING PHRASES
Additional modifying phrases that describe the verb are headed by eg. Phrases
that describe the subject are headed by ik. Phrases that describe the object are
headed by ath. When there is both a direct and indirect object, the latter's
modifying phrase is headed by un.
WORD MODIFIES...
eg the verb
ik the subject
ath the object
ung the indirect object
If any of the above particles are used in a sentence, *all* of the particle
above that word in the table must also me include. This does not mean, however,
that you must include extra phrases. Instead, the unused preceding particles
join with the one you do want to use. For example:
VSO eg <verb phrase> ik <subject phrase> ath <object phrase> un <IO
phrase>
VSO egik <subject phrase>
VSO egikath <object phrase>
VSO egikathun <indirect object phrase>
E'kath is the contraction of egikath, and e'thun is the contraction of
egikathun. The contracted version are almost always used in place of the full
versions of the words, even in very formal documents.
OTHER MODIFYING PHRASES
To modify any other word in a sentence (that is, something other than the verb,
subject, direct object, or indirect object), the head's distance from the phrase
is used as the marker.
WORD MODIFIES...
alun# the word # words before
alunyu the phrase before, but within the same sentence
alunun the entire sentence before
For example (see the "Numbered Suffixes" section if you don't already know about
them):
PSEUDO-SENTENCE ALUN* MODIFIES...
A B C alunsa D D modifies C
A B C alunda D D modifies B
A B C alunga D D modifies A
It does not matter what part of speech A, B, or C are, nor what words precede or
follow the phrase.
NUMBERED SUFFIXES
Several groups of words in Asha'ille can be "numbered" to reduce ambiguity. The
first three numbered suffixes (and the most common ones) are:
1 -sa
2 -da
3 -ga
For example, alunsa marks the beginning of a phrase modifying the word before
it; alunda modifies the word that is two words before, etc. Members of personal
rings are also marked by numbered suffixes. aejhelsa refers to the first person
you mention from your aejhel, and aejhelda the second.
VERBS
Asha'illen verbs can be marked for tense, aspect, person (including empathic
ability, number, and gender), and negation. If any of this information is not
explicitly marked on the verb, its value is assumed to be the same as the last
verb that did explicitly give such information.
Information tends to be repeated even when to strictly necessary in two cases:
when the speaker thinks that the listener may have forgotten, because it was a
while ago; or when the speaker wishes to emphasize the information.
Verbs are not required to be marked for anything but "incomplete suffixes" (see
section below); all other information can be given with free morphemes. Thus,
the following sentences are completely equilavent, except in nuances of style:
Pas shav en'i ne chishélsa.
Pas shavni ne chishélsa.
Pas shavlishe en'i.
Pas shavnilishe.
Shavpeni ne chishélsa.
Shavpenilishe.
Each sentences means "I spoke to my friend."
TENSE AND ASPECT
Unmarked verbs are assumed to have the same tense as the most recent tensed
verb. If no tensing information is given, present tense is assumed.
Future tense is shown by either di'ay before the verb or the "incomplete suffix"
-d- between the verb and any conjugations. Past tense uses pas or -p-.
Progressive aspect uses -s- or the auxilary verb esv, which is the only
Asha'illen verb that drops its final v when taking a conjugation. esv is also
unique in its requirement of a conjugational suffix (which can only be the
subject). It comes directly before the main verb, which cannot take the
subject's conjugation because it is already marked on esv.
Inchoative, or incipient, aspect has no word or particle of its own. Instead,
the phrase vik'esv expresses an action just beginning, where vik' means "now".
CAUSATIVES
Causatives are shown via -t-, where the conjugation bound to the verb refers to
the causee, while the optional subject refers to the causer. The caused action
is generally understood to be against the causee's will. However, context
dictates whether the causee is really being forced to do something, or whether
the causer is more of a catalyst for the action.
The subject (the causer) is carried on to the next verb as the implicit subject.
Even if the same -t--plus-causee information belongs on the following verb, it
must be explicitly repeated.
INCOMPLETE SUFFIXES
Asha'ille has a set of bound suffix morphemes -- termed "incomplete suffixes" by
Asha'illen grammarians -- that cannot end a word but instead must be followed by
at least one other suffix to form a grammatical word. The tense suffixes are two
such examples. Others include: -j- and -k-, "able" and "unable", respectively;
-t- "forced to happen against subject's will"; and -l- preceeding the object of
the verb.
NOUNS
Nouns are only marked for number: singular or plural. A plain noun is singular,
while one with -im suffixed is plural. Adjectives do not agree with nouns in
number. Asha'illen nouns have no grammatical gender, though pronouns reflect
biological sex.
ADVERBIAL PHRASES
Adverbial phrases always start with an adverb. If the phrase is more than one
word long (not including the adverb itself), then a "closing adverb" is also
required at the end of the phrase. (Don't be distracted by the fact that the
English translation of these sentences uses a prepositional phrase for what is
an adverbial phrase in Asha'ille.) For example,
Vel'ejh shav en'i.
"I speak to myself."
Shav en'i vel'illem seni kel.
"I speak to my friends."
Most adverbs beging with v. Their closing counterpart is usually the adverb with
its initial v replaced by k, as above.
Note that in the first example above, the adverbial phrase "to myself" precedes
the verb, whereas in the second it follows the verb. This is because, according
to Asha'ille word order rules, only one-word modifiers may precede their heads.
Free tense morphemes fill this one-word slot, so even one-word adverbial phrases
must follow the verb when other words take the pre-verb modifier position:
Pas shav en'i vel'ejh.
"I spoke to myself."
QUESTION-FORMING
Yes/no questions are formed with the tag particle ojo at the beginning of the
sentence. If the speaker expects the answer to be yes, he can add alunun jhi to
the end of the sentences; if he expects no, then he adds alunun kre. The speaker
need not say whether he expects either answer.
For more complex questions, the question-words remain in situ, rather than being
placed at the front of the sentence. When asking for new information, the
generic pronoun no or the pro-verb vo is dropped into the word order position
where it would belong in normal, indicative sentences. When asking for
clarification or validation of one part of a sentence, word order is identical
to indicative sentences. In both types of content questions, the question-word's
stressed vowel lowers via the following rules:
/i/ > /I/
/I/ > /E/
/e/ > /E/
/E/ > /A/
/A/ > /i/ * vowel raises, not lowers
/u/ > /o/
/o/ > /O/
/O/ > /A/
/ai/ > /O/
For a more detailed explanation of forming questions in Asha'ille, see:
http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0304A&L=conlang&P=R28326 |
