Zouštri – an IE/SAE-inspired language

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Davush
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Zouštri – an IE/SAE-inspired language

Post by Davush »

Introduction

Zouštri /'zuʃtɾi/ is an a-priori language which is broadly inspired by Indo-European, and more specifically, 'Standard Average European' (SAE). It is intended to look and feel as if it could be at home somewhere in Central-to-Eastern Europe, phonologically and grammatically. (Although the more I work on it, the further it seems to stray from the initial idea...).

Phonology

The phonology is, overall, quite unsurprising.

Consonants

Stops: /p t k b d g/ <p t k b d g>
Affricates: /tʃ/ <č>
Nasals: /m n n:/ <m n nn>
Fricatives: /f v s z ʃ ʒ x/ <f v s z š ž h>
Liquid: /ɾ r: l l:/ <r rr l ll>
Semivowel: /j/ <i>

Notes

Unvoiced stops are plain, unaspirated; voiced stops are fully voiced. Lenition of the voiced stops between vowels is increasingly common, perhaps even to full elision creating new long vowels.

The coronal geminates /n: r: l:/ are held for twice as long. /r:/ is distinguished from singleton /r/ in that the latter is usually a tap, while the former is a long trill. The geminates are often somewhat velarised, with /r: l:/ having [ʀ: w:] realizations in some areas, although these are considered non-standard or rural.

/tʃ ʃ ʒ/ are weakly palatalized and may approach palato-alveolar realizations when followed by a high front vowel or /j/.

/v/ is more accurately /ʋ/ in most positions, being less fricated than /f/.

/x/ has a velar realization in the standard language, but other realizations such as uvular, glottal or even null occur.

Vowels

The vowel inventory is somewhat complicated by stress and historical alternations. The maximal vowel inventory is found only in stressed syllables, while a more reduced inventory occurs in unstressed syllables.

/i ɨ u/ <i y u>
/i̯e u̯o/ <ie uo>
/ɛ ɔ/ <e o>
/a/ <a>

Dipthongs
/i̯a/ <ea>
/ɛi̯~ai̯ ɔu̯~au̯/<ei ou>

The phoneme transcribed as /ɨ/ has a somewhat complex history, likely resulting from the merger of short *i *u *a under certain circumstances. Some conservative dialects do not have the complete merger. Nowadays, it is often more accurately a somewhat centralized [ɪ̈].

/i̯e u̯o/ historically derive from vowel breaking of long *ī *ū (or *ē *ō, depending) and are treated true vowels rather than diphthongs. They occur only in stressed syllables, alternating with /i u/ when unstressed.

/u̯o/ is increasingly realized as /vo/ following /s ʃ z ʒ x/.

Palatals /tʃ ʃ ʒ/ followed by /i̯e i̯a/ are realized as geminate alveolo-palatals, e.g. /ka'ʃi̯et/ [kɐ'ɕɕet].

/ɛ ɔ/ are open-mid and are close to the indicated IPA value.

/a/ is more accurately central [ä].

The diphthongs /ɛi̯ ɔu̯/ appear only in open, stressed syllables. In closed and unstressed syllables, they become /i u/, although <ei ou> are preserved in the orthography.

Stress and Reduction
Stress is phonemic, with penultimate stress being the most common. Stress can otherwise occur on the final or pre-penultimate syllable. Stress plays a somewhat important role in the language's morphology.

Vowel reduction is prominent, and the vowels of unstressed syllables can be described as:

/i ɨ u/
/ɛ/
/ɐ/

Historically, unstressed /i i̯e ɛi̯/ have collapsed into /i/. It is increasingly common for unstressed /i ɨ/ to merge into a somewhat centralized [ɪ̈].

Unstressed /ɔ u u̯o ɔu̯/ have collapsed into a single phoneme, /u/.

Unstressed /ɛ/ remains distinct, although some dialects merge it into unstressed /i/ or /a/.

Unstressed /a/ is generally realised [ɐ]. However, historically in certain instances it has raised further to /ɨ/, particularly in unstressed closed syllables. Raising of unstressed /a/ has now largely become unproductive in the standard language outside of the fossilized cases.

Non-penultimate stress is indicated by a grave accent, except for /i̯e u̯o ɨ/ which take an acute <ié uó ý>.

Syllable Types

The language allows fairly complex syllables:

CV, CCV, CCCV + coda C, CC.

Onset CCC is limited to: /s ʃ z ʒ/ + C + /ɾ l/

Coda CC is mostly limited to Ct and Cs.

Voiced stops do not occur word-finally.

VV occasionally occurs across morpheme boundaries.

An example of how the language looks:

Bi čuonaf a balat osoèi dorra a eni vokrarasu šta bakylloš dàžide u nakladi ravač.

/bi 'tʃu̯onɐf ɐ 'balɐt usu'ɛi 'dɔr:ɐ ɐ 'ɛni vukrɐ'rasu ʃta ba'kɨlluʃ 'daʒidɛ u nɐ'kladi 'ravɐtʃ/
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Re: Zouštri – an IE/SAE-inspired language

Post by Davush »

Nouns
Nominal (and adjectival) morphology in Zouštri is similar to that of many other European languages—nouns inflect for gender, case, and number. There are three genders: masculine, feminine, neuter. Six cases: nominative, accusative, vocative, genitive, dative, instrumental; and two numbers: singular and plural (with some possible relics of a dual number in certain nouns).

Not every case has a fully distinct form in every noun as some syncretism occurs, particularly in some neuter declensions where the case system is effectively reduced to: nom-acc, gen-dat, voc, inst.

The gender of human nouns generally corresponds to their 'natural' gender, with some exceptions. E.g. bala 'man' is masculine, and šanea 'woman' is feminine. Inanimate and non-human nouns are distributed among the three genders. In many cases, the gender of a noun is predictable.

I'm working slowly on this one, so I won't present a huge list of declension paradigms at once. (I'm also ignoring the vocative for now.)

Masculine a-Declension Nouns

The majority of masculine nouns end in -a and show all case/number distinctions, with one main caveat: animate masculine nouns also distinguish definite/indefinite forms in the nom. pl. with the indefinite form being the same as the accusative pl. (More on definiteness and definite articles in another post).

An example of the declension paradigm, using bala as a noun without any stem alternations or the like.

Nom: bala balin/bal
Acc: balat bal
Gen: bale balèi
Dat: balàs bàlaše
Inst: balou baleive

As can be the seen, the accusative plural (and indefinite nominative plural) is the least marked. It has been hypothesized that the nominative endings are thus a later addition, perhaps resulting from the fusing of articles or determiners.

Nouns which contain vowels subject to reduction, or contain clusters in the final syllable show some stem alterations. Using diekra father-in-law as an example.

Nom: diekra diekrin/diegar
Acc: diekrat diegar
Gen: diekre dikrèi
Dat: dikràs diékraše
Inst: diekrou dikreive

As can be seen, <ie> reduces to <i> when the stress moves to another syllable.

Additionally, the acc. pl. has broken up what would have been a final -kr cluster, *diekr, with voicing of the k. Impermissible final clusters are always broken up in the acc. pl., although the epenthetic vowel and other changes (such as voicing) are not always predictable.

Of course, according to the above hypothesis, it makes more sense if you assume the acc. pl. as the bare form, with the nominative ending being an addition (e.g. diegar > diegar+a > diekra).

Neuter a-Declension Nouns

Many neuter nouns also end in -a, with -da, -lla, -rra and -nna being particularly common. This declensions shows a high degree of syncretism.

Luda 'object, thing'

Nom: luda lude
Acc: luda lude
Gen: ludoš lùdeše
Dat: ludoš lùdeše
Inst: ludu ludve

Bakylla 'temple, church'

Nom: bakylla bakylle
Acc: bakylla bakylle
Gen: bakylloš bakýlleše
Dat: bakylloš bakýlleše
Inst: bakyllu *bakyldve

*Many instances of <ll rr nn> likely derive from earlier *lt rt nt clusters (or similar), hence the reappearance of the stop in some cases.

I'm not quite sure how/why the neuter a-declension is so different from the masculine forms (particular the genitive/dative singular). This isn't a strictly diachronically derived language, so any suggestions/ideas as to how that might have arisen would be welcome!

Some accent-related notes:

Case endings which do not add an extra syllable are either unaccented (i.e. accent remains on the noun stem somewhere), or accented (i.e. case ending is always accented, e.g. -às -èi).

In cases where the ending adds an additional syllable and is not inherently accented (-aše, -eše), the accent shifts to the ending in nouns which have a pre-penultimate accent on the stem: niésalga - nisalgàše.
Penultimate-accented nouns retain the stress on the stem in these cases: šustraka - šustràkaše.
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Re: Zouštri – an IE/SAE-inspired language

Post by Creyeditor »

For some reason, this conlang does not strike me as very SAE, aesthatically at least. Might be the vowel inventory or the word structure, I can't quite pin it down.
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Re: Zouštri – an IE/SAE-inspired language

Post by Davush »

Creyeditor wrote: 06 Mar 2021 14:46 For some reason, this conlang does not strike me as very SAE, aesthatically at least. Might be the vowel inventory or the word structure, I can't quite pin it down.
It has moved away from the aesthetic somewhat, but SAE is still the main inspiration! I am deliberately not using familiar morphemes, which could also contribute to the overall feel. Does it remind you of any language/family in particular?
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Re: Zouštri – an IE/SAE-inspired language

Post by Creyeditor »

<bakýlleše> gives me Akkadian vibes, maybe because of long words, gemminates, relatively simple syllables and <š>, whereas <bakylloš> also has some strong Ancient Greek feel, due to <y> and words ending in a variation of <-os>. Ancient Greek is at least IE, so maybe that's closer to the title.
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Re: Zouštri – an IE/SAE-inspired language

Post by Davush »

Creyeditor wrote: 06 Mar 2021 17:33 <bakýlleše> gives me Akkadian vibes, maybe because of long words, gemminates, relatively simple syllables and <š>, whereas <bakylloš> also has some strong Ancient Greek feel, due to <y> and words ending in a variation of <-os>. Ancient Greek is at least IE, so maybe that's closer to the title.
Interesting! I'm not being too strict with remaining close to the SAE aesthetic, so I'll just see how it goes.

Some more noun declensions

Feminine i-Declension
The nominative of feminine nouns actually ends in -ea /i̯ɐ/, but all other cases have the stem in -i.

The genitive is probably the most troublesome case. The singular basic form is -de suffixed to the -i stem, but in many common nouns there is syncope of the -i- often with vowel raising. The plural form, -i-dèi also often shows the same.

As with masculine nouns, there is a separate definite/indefinite form in the nominative, where the indef. form corresponds to the acc pl.

Using šani woman as an example.

Nom: šanea šanién/šani
Acc: šanit šani
Gen: šynde šyndèi
Dat: šanìs šàniši
Inst: šanva šanievi

And anvatea metal:

Nom: anvatea anvati
Acc: anvatit anvati
Gen: anvàtide anvatdèi
Dat: anvatìs anvatiši
Inst: anvatva anvatievi

Definite Articles
The article also inflects for gender, case, and number, although ehichbmuch syncretism.

Gender: [sg] nom acc gen dat inst // [pl] ditto.
Masculine: a a e s' af // e a in se ve
Feminine: i i te is if // i ea tin sin vin
Neuter: ta ta te tas taf // te te tin tiš tave

Genitive Phrases
Genitive phrases are most commonly in the order possessed–possessor , i.e. head-initial. When the possessed is plural, it always takes the 'short' or 'indefinite' plural form, even if it is actually definite. Additionally, definiteness is usually only marked on the possessed.

A bal bakýlleše 'The men of (the) churches' (not *e balin)
Taf zùgmidu diekre 'With/ by the father-in-law's statue'
Se skàmaše šyndèi 'To/in the women's fields'
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Re: Zouštri – an IE/SAE-inspired language

Post by Omzinesý »

I think it, the declensions at least, resemble old Germanic languages.
Maybe there are a bit less consonant clusters than in SAE on average, but there are still quite few words.
Where did you get the idea of lowering diphthongs? They are common on the east coat of Baltic sea, but not in the prototypical SAE.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: Zouštri – an IE/SAE-inspired language

Post by Davush »

Omzinesý wrote: 09 Mar 2021 12:27 I think it, the declensions at least, resemble old Germanic languages.
Maybe there are a bit less consonant clusters than in SAE on average, but there are still quite few words.
Where did you get the idea of lowering diphthongs? They are common on the east coat of Baltic sea, but not in the prototypical SAE.
I know almost nothing about old Germanic languages, but it is interesting to know there are parallels! I've only really presented a few words overall, so they are probably not representative of the language as a whole...

By lowering diphthongs, are you referring to /ɛi ɔu/ or /ie uo/? The idea was mostly just because I think they look nice in this language and I wanted an interesting addition to the standard 5-vowel system. /ie uo/ were actually inspired by Croatian, Czech and some other Slavic languages. Not everything is intended to be perfectly SAE, just loosely "inspired" by it...
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Re: Zouštri – an IE/SAE-inspired language

Post by Omzinesý »

Lowering diphthong is a diphthong where the second element is lower than the first one /ie/ and /uo/.

Just meant that there are some - but not very many - noun cases in messy declensions, like in Gothic, Old Norse ...
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: Zouštri – an IE/SAE-inspired language

Post by eldin raigmore »

Omzinesý wrote: 09 Mar 2021 19:24 Lowering diphthong is a diphthong where the second element is lower than the first one /ie/ and /uo/.

Just meant that there are some - but not very many - noun cases in messy declensions, like in Gothic, Old Norse ...
It’s kinda confusing.
Some diphthongs are distinguished by some phonologists’ terminology as rising or falling or even thusly:
In a falling diphthong, the first vowel (or vowel-quality) is the mora-bearing or stress-bearing or tone-bearing element, and the second is not;
In a rising diphthong, the second vowel (or vowel-quality) is the mora-bearing or stress-bearing or tone-bearing element, and the first is not;
In an even diphthong, both parts of the diphthong are about equally mora-bearing or stress-bearing or tone-bearing.

....

The IPA vowel-terminology refers to close vowels instead of high vowels, and to open vowels instead of low vowels.
It might be smarter to refer to opening diphthongs than to lowering diphthongs.
If you say “lowering diphthong” many people might and some people will get confused whether you mean a “falling” diphthong or an “opening” diphthong.
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Re: Zouštri – an IE/SAE-inspired language

Post by elemtilas »

Do you have enough for a little (wellish known) text example?
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Re: Zouštri – an IE/SAE-inspired language

Post by Omzinesý »

eldin raigmore wrote: 10 Mar 2021 00:37
Omzinesý wrote: 09 Mar 2021 19:24 Lowering diphthong is a diphthong where the second element is lower than the first one /ie/ and /uo/.

Just meant that there are some - but not very many - noun cases in messy declensions, like in Gothic, Old Norse ...
It’s kinda confusing.
Some diphthongs are distinguished by some phonologists’ terminology as rising or falling or even thusly:
In a falling diphthong, the first vowel (or vowel-quality) is the mora-bearing or stress-bearing or tone-bearing element, and the second is not;
In a rising diphthong, the second vowel (or vowel-quality) is the mora-bearing or stress-bearing or tone-bearing element, and the first is not;
In an even diphthong, both parts of the diphthong are about equally mora-bearing or stress-bearing or tone-bearing.

....

The IPA vowel-terminology refers to close vowels instead of high vowels, and to open vowels instead of low vowels.
It might be smarter to refer to opening diphthongs than to lowering diphthongs.
If you say “lowering diphthong” many people might and some people will get confused whether you mean a “falling” diphthong or an “opening” diphthong.
OK, i may have bad terminology.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: Zouštri – an IE/SAE-inspired language

Post by eldin raigmore »

O K, i may have bad terminology.
If so you’re not the only one.

And anyway what your language actually does is more important than using the best terminology to describe it.

Any terminology that’s unambiguous and widely-agreed-upon just saves (sometimes a lot of) mental time and effort.
If describer and addressee wind up agreeing on what the actual language actually does, communication has been accomplished.
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Re: Zouštri – an IE/SAE-inspired language

Post by Davush »

elemtilas wrote: 10 Mar 2021 05:13 Do you have enough for a little (wellish known) text example?
Just a little paragraph which gives more of an idea how the language looks overall...

A kàlaštar vemà zo i žalmea taksèrasu-s gal ifa vosnà me a durgambra, kanč pirastar k'afla dýmkuta blafnavou hariedu.

Čién advagu-s me a n'ifa eargiža dravo šylmakal a pirastrat kout blafnavat agà lis atavgena a durgambra.


Accented à Declension

The accented à declension is unusual in that the singular forms are inflected as similar to the masculine and neuter a declension, while the plural inflects and agrees as a feminine singular in the nom and acc, but as a feminine plural in the other cases, with the addition of -n- before the case endings.

Arrà 'island' (neuter accented declension)

Nom: arrà arranea
Acc: arrà arranit
Gen: arràs arryndèi
Dat: arràs arranidi
Inst: arranu arranidi

Chyzmà 'elder' (masculine accented declension)

chyzmà, chyzmanea
chyzmàt chyzmanit
chyzmane chyzmyndèi
chyzmàs chyzmanidi
chyzmanu chyzmanidi


As can be seen, the masculine forms do not merge Nom-Acc and Gen-Dat.

(I'm unsure how plausible this system is – I have a feeling that it would more likely for all -à nouns to just merge into a single declension paradigm, but I quite like the neuter-masc split, so any thoughts are welcome!)

Pronouns
(Work in progress — so far only 3p pronouns)

Pronouns, like nouns, inflect for all the same cases. The third person also has a dual form. The genitive of pronouns is not used as a possessive adjective — these have their own forms. Additionally, the genitive of pronouns displays an "older" form characterized by a final -n.

The 3p masculine and feminine nouns have two nominative forms: the "short" forms are identical to the article, the "long" forms are used for greater emphasis.
The accusative and dative forms are identical to the article.

3sg. Masculine: Agà
Nom: a / agà
Acc: at
Gen: anijan
Dat: as
Inst: agou

3sg. Feminine: Ažì
Nom: i / ažì
Acc: it
Gen: idijan
Dat: is
Inst: ižva

The neuter 3p pronoun is ta, and is identica to the article.

Verbs
Verbs have several conjugation classes. The following just briefly shows how two conjugations are formed in the present tense. I will make a more detailed post soon.

Many common verbs have stems of the type CC– or VCC–:

kr– 'to go'
ičt– 'to come'
zl– 'to eat'
usp– 'to drink'

–ou verbs:

1sg: krou, uspòu
2sg: kral, uspal
3sg: kra, uspa
1pl: kruoša, uspuoša
2pl: (undecided)
3pl: krasu, ùspasu

When –ou is followed by a clitic which begins with a vowel, it breaks into –av:

Uspòu 'I drink'
Uspòu-ta 'I drink it'
Uspav-at/it 'I drink it'

–ei verbs:

1sg: ičtèi, zlei
2sg: ičtil, zlil
3sg: ičti, zli
1pl: ičtieše, zlieše
2pl: (undecided)
3pl: ìčtisu, zlisu

I chyzmanea krasu tas bakylloš arrane.
/i xɨz'mani̯ɐ 'kɾasu tɐs bɐ'kɨlluʃ ɐ'r:anɛ/
The elders go to the temple of the island.

E diegar balèi ùspasu ta sufta chyzmyndèi b'as arràs.
/ɛ 'di̯eɡɐɾ bɐ'lɛi 'uspɐsu tɐ 'suftɐ xɨzmɨn'dɛi bɐs ɐ'r:as/
The fathers-in-law of the man drink the water of the elders on the island.
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Re: Zouštri – an IE/SAE-inspired language

Post by Iyionaku »

I just want to chime in and say that I really like the declension system with its syncretism! I'm also a fan of the orthography which reminds me of the Baltic language.

I am not sure on how much you want to stick to SAE, but may I propose the following 2nd plural patterns?

2pl: kruota, uspuota
2pl: ičtiete, zliete
Wipe the glass. This is the usual way to start, even in the days, day and night, only a happy one.
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