Naswiyan/Lessons/2

Week 2 wordlist

Nouns

Each noun has a gender and a class: genders are common (c) and neuter (n), classes are A, B, and C. "Gender" provides information about semantics, while the class determines how the stem changes when suffixes are added.

Class

The plural suffix -an (which always appears as such) will be used to illustrate the alternations between the base form and the suffixed form.

Class A

Class A nouns don't change at all if they end in a consonant (thun => thunan "nights"), while final vowels change into vowel + y or w according to the following rules:

• e => ay (ne => nayan "women")

• o => aw

• i => iy (Naswi => Naswiyan "Naswiyan people")

• u => uw (du => duwan "balls")

Sometimes instead there's i => uy and u => iw (nu => niwan), and these cases are always noted in the lexicon.
Final a on the other hand doesn't change, and instead contracts with the ending:

• a + a => a (cka => ckan "forelegs")

• a + e,i => e

• a + o,u => o

Class B

Class B nouns all delete their last vowel. This is simple for words ending in a consonant (lamok => lamkan "dragons"), while all words ending in a vowel gain an additional consonant, as follows (the C here means to duplicate the last consonant):

• e => y

• i => y (ktuni => ktunyan "humans")

• o => w (sutho => suthwan "fourty-eight")

• u => w (haru => harwan "days")

• a => C (kata => kattan "cats")

Sometimes instead there's i => C (aki => akkan "moons") and u => C, mirroring the development of final a, and all "geminating" words are marked in the lexicon, even those ending in a.
If a noun has y or w before the vowel being deleted, the consonant ends up contracting with the previous vowel, as follows:

• a + y => e

• a + w => o

• i,u + y => i

• i,u + w => u

Thus, hawi => hawyan => hoyan "winds". These contraction rules go together with the previous set, and are almost entirely universal across the entire language. The only exceptions are that sometimes a + e,i,y => i and a + o,u,w => u - these cases will be explicitly pointed out.

Class C

Class C nouns don't change at all, being even more consistent than class A. However, class C nouns have an overt gender ending when no other suffix is used, which are -u for common and -i for neuter (genders will be explained below). Due to the contraction rules, this means class C nouns can also end in e and o, but never a. To obtain the stem, the following changes to the final vowel are the norm:

• i,u => - (cjanu => cjanan "daughters")

• e,o => a (ne => nan "trees")

i and u can very very rarely be instead replaced by either i or u (which one depending on the word), and such cases will be indicated should they ever arise.

Gender

The "genders" in Naswiyan are common and neuter, and their primary function is to classify nouns according to their meaning. The exact rules are fairly complicated, and the matter is fairly esoteric, so it won't be explained in detail. Gender is indicated by a suffix, which is -o (common) and -e (neuter) for classes A and B, though these endings are not normally expressed, and the class C endings are -u and -i as indicated above. The A/B endings are expressed under conditions that will be explained below, and when they are expressed, they also use the suffixed form, like the plural does (so, e.g. nayo- "woman")

Noun phrases

There are three kinds of noun phrase: connective, appositional, and possessive. Each of them superficially places two or more nouns next to each other, though the details, meaning, and some other points of syntax are fairly different.

Connective phrases

Connective phrases have a meaning comparable to "and" or "or", with context determining which one it is. Connection is also only used between sets of words that are naturally conjoined in this way - e.g. niwan nayan "men and women", or wun cane "one or two".

Appositional phrases

Appositional phrases are used to refer to one thing with two or more nouns, letting you describe it in multiple ways at once. Titles are a classic example of apposition, such as "Mayor Mako" - she is at once the mayor, and also Mako. Phrases like "your father, the King" are other examples. Naswiyan takes this further, as apposition is employed to express the meaning of Common's adjectives, such as du the "metal ball". The rule here is that the first noun specifies the general type of thing being described, while the additional nouns give further detail. Thus, du the refers to a ball that is metal-like, and the du refers to metal that is ball-like.

Apposition likes its components to agree in gender and number, but this is only because they refer to the same thing - if, say, the thing is neuter, all nouns that refer to it should be neuter. The primary exception is that nouns that are inherently plural (such as those referring to groups), or don't really pluralise (these are called mass nouns, since they refer to a 'mass' - their plurals typically indicate "kinds of"), aren't required to become plural. Thus duwan the "metal balls" and lamkan khumes "four dragons".

A useful word that is usually found in apposition is the negative word nu, which is a regular class A noun. This is the first noun in an appositional phrase, and means various things such as "not", or "that which is not". Thus we have nu lamok "that which is not a dragon".

Possessive phrases

Possessive phrases are restricted to two nouns, and signify that the second noun possesses the first, such as cka lamok "the dragon's foreleg". This is also found with more abstract examples, such as khumes lamok "a group of four dragons". Possessive phrases are very tightly bound, and nothing can separate the two nouns - in fact, if the first noun is also the first noun of an appositional phrase, the rest of the apposition will appear after the entire possessive phrase, as in mutu lamok Naswi "the dragon's Naswiyan mother".

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns are words roughly equivalent to Common's "I", "you", "he", "she", "it", "we", and "they". In Naswiyan, there are three different types: 'suffix', 'dependent', and 'independent'. All pronouns distinguish singular and plural (unlike Common "you"), and the 3rd person singular pronouns also distinguish gender.

Suffix pronouns

The suffix pronouns are always found suffixed to another word, and when suffixed to nouns, they indicate that the pronoun is the possessor of the noun - "my", "your", and so on. The suffix pronouns also trigger the gender endings to appear on classes A and B, so kunoc "your dog", with a slight complication regarding the 2nd and 3rd plural pronouns, since they have a vowel of their own. If the noun would have only a single consonant before the gender ending, the noun instead appears back in the base form, with no ending, but if there would be two consonants, then the gender ending changes to -u (common) and -i (neuter). Thus we have kun => kunsjen "their dog", and kattusjen "their cat". Additionally, attaching the 1st person plural pronoun to a plural noun, an a is inserted to separate the two ns: ikanan "our horses". Finally, when the 1st person singular pronoun follows an -i or a -u, the -k variant of the pronoun is used, and in all other cases it's -u, contracting with a vowel according to the normal contraction rules. Therefore we have cur => curu "my son", cka => cku "my foreleg", cjanu => cjanuk "my daughter".

Dependent pronouns

Dependent pronouns are a class of word called clitics, which means that they must always follow another word, but will nonetheless come as close to the beginning of the clause they are a part of. They'll normally be the second word, the main exception being that they can't split up a possessive phrase. Their uses are almost entirely concerned with sentences, so they'll be discussed more below.

Independent pronouns

Independent pronouns almost always occur at the very beginning of the clause they're part of, but like the dependent pronouns, their uses are concerned with sentences.

Nominal sentences

Nominal sentences are sentences of the form "<noun> is <noun>", e.g. "the dragon is a man". Naswiyan doesn't have a verb "to be", so instead the two nouns are simply placed next to each other: lamok nu. This differs from noun phrases by being a complete sentence, instead of just a phrase, and indeed noun phrases can replace simple nouns in a nominal sentence: ne mutu lamok "the woman is the dragon's mother". Pronouns can also be used, though there are some complications.
With two nouns, the first is the subject and the second is the object, and if the subject is a pronoun then it must be a dependent pronoun, while if the object is a pronoun then it must be an independent pronoun. But because of the restrictions on where these pronouns can appear, the word order is actually reversed, with the object coming first and the subject coming second: lamok ku "I am a dragon", not "the dragon is me", and 'iccu tisuk "my father is you", not "you are my father".
Finally, this type of sentence is negated by placing inona at the beginning: inona lamok nu "the dragon is not a man". inona also comes before an independent pronoun, and lets the dependent pronoun move forwards: inona ku lamok "I am not a dragon", inona 'ikku lamok "the dragon is not me".