Ćwarmin: Participles - an outline

The Ćwarmin verb morphology contains a system of participles, and these contribute a significant amount of mileage in the morphosyntax of the verb phrase.

Morphology

A primary division among the participles is that of transitivity: intransitive participles are merely infinitives with case suffixes. There is no reason to distinguish active from passive for an intransitive participle. However, some exceptional verbs exist - both intransitive verbs marked as transitive ones, and vice versa. [See this for more.]

The nominative is explicitly marked with -ij/-uw, but the other cases behave like any other noun case. Tense is not distinguished for intransitive participles. The perfect aspect can be marked by the suffix -em/-am, but is not mandatory. No explicit imperfect aspect marker exists.

Transitive verbs' participles, however, are formed with the marker -nem(e)-/-nam(a)- for active participles, and -yezi-/-wozu- for passive ones.

TAM is somewhat distinguished, with the active transitive verb having {perfect, imperfect} x {present, past} and the passive transitive verb having {perfect, imperfect}. 

The transitive active participle defaults to imperfect present. The reduplicated suffixes -nenem/-nanam convey perfect past. The past imperfect adds an -et/-at, but reducing the first syllable: -nmet, -nmat. Past perfect is a further reduplication- -memet/-mamat.

The passive morpheme -yezi/-wozu implies perfect aspect, but an extra morpheme -te/-ta gives the imperfect. In some eastern dialects, single -yezi/-wozu gives imperfect, -jejesd/-wowosd gives perfect. (In turn, we find dissimilated forms like -yedzest/-wolost, -źejest/-lowost, -rejest/-lowost, -jerest/-wolost, and even weird combos of them, as well as -ejdź/-owdz).

Usages

Participles in general

Participles function as adjectives and adverbs, expressing what someone is/was doing or what they were experiencing. More complex relations to the verb than subject, object or recipient generally requires rewriting as a clearly delineated subclause. However, the main verb in a subclause is often also inflected as a participle. Thus, participles could, at least partially, be considered subordinate finite verbs. (Non-relative subclauses tend to have normal finite verbs a bit more often, but this is not mandatory.)

• With verbs of perception to express subordinate actions ('see someone eating' etc)
• With some verbs of causation and other transitivity changing operations
  
• Heads of the verb phrase in relative subclauses
  

 

 The active participle

The active participles (i.e. the transitive active one, or the intransitive one) are used for these roles besides the prototypical subordinate verbal use:

• copositive present tense verbs (there is a post upcoming about what they are)
• This is restricted to the imperfect aspect form, but this does not convey an actual imperfect aspect, but rather copies the aspect of a different verb in the copositive construction)
  
• head of the verb phrase in relative subclauses, and sometimes other subclauses as well
• (were used as gerunds for a while in late middle Cwarmin)
  
• with some auxiliaries to express certain moods
• with some causative constructions and some embedded constructions (perceive someone doing something, etc)
• expressing general, impersonal things like 'it's raining', 'it's sunsetting', 'it's night', etc.
• Expressing 'while X:ing' or 'after X:ing' when used as an adverb, depending on the aspect used. The passive requires a periphrastic expression for this. 
• In place of a finite verb in expressions of surprise or adoration or appreciation.
• (transitive active only) used to express the additional verbal specifications as to how a direct object is affected by the subject's action
  
• (transitive active only) combined with the dative to express that the dative argument desires to do something
  

 The passive participle

• copositive present tense verbs (restricted to perfect aspect form, but the actual aspect is implicit)
  
• head of the verb phrase in relative subclauses, but never in other types of subclauses
• with some auxiliaries to express some voices
• can form temporal adverbs for 'before/after/while being X:ed' with adpositions.

The imperfect participle

• exhortation to continue
• in combination with the verb 'hold', signifying 'having the energy to go on doing x'

The perfect participle

This lists features that unify the passive and active perfect participles, but differ from the passive and active present participles.

• with some verbs, as an imperative of cessation. This especially in combination with the conjunction 'and'. This is mostly used with active perfect participles, but some passive participles are also used - usually ones whose argument structure is a bit unusual.
  
• with some verbs, as an imperative of immediate action.
  

Ćwarmin: To Have

Predicative possession is an important expression in languages. Naturally, Ćwarmin has expressions for it as well. As it turns out, there are two different expressions, mainly depending on the definiteness of the object, but other factors also may force the 'definite' form to be used.

For indefinite possessums, you simply juxtapose the owner in the nominative with a noun in the accusative complement case. Use of a copula is optional, and governed by the same rules as the copula in general.

For a definite possessum, the possessum is in the definite accusative, and there is a dummy pronoun in the accusative complement case. The dummy pronoun is either nitce (for singulars) or (g)initce (for plurals). Copula use is optional, but might be slightly more frequent than with indefinites.

More detailed quantification (indefinite quantifiers, numbers, etc) require the definite construction even if the possessum is not definite.

Negated possession always takes nitce, but puts the object in the negative object form.

Some family terms in Ćwarmin

The basic family terms:

julo = son
ot = oldest son
zel = daughter

father =  aru
mother = viri

brother = raŋa
older brother = cawot
sister = zuja

In older Ćwarmin, possessive suffixes existed, but are used in very restricted contexts. However, in some lexemes, they appear as derivative elements of unclear meaning. Thus

-ata | -ete, formerly 1sg possessive

has lead to these terms:

raŋata ('my brother') = uncle
zujata ('my sister') = aunt
aruta ('my father') = grandfather
virite ('my mother') = grandmother

Apparently, parents referring to their siblings and parents has become a way children refer to their uncles, aunts and grandparents, and this was lexicalized. Other synonyms do exist, however. In addition:

aruta and virite are sometimes used as formal address to parents.
julata and zelete are used by some clergymen to refer to congregants.
cawata is used by some clergymen to refer to their senior clergymen.

The plural forms never have the possessive suffixes in use, as the morphological complexities for that has been largely forgotten. 'Otata', 'my oldest son' appears in some testaments and such.

Parents- and siblings-in-law also have forms such as 

raŋaś
zujaś
aruś
viriś

In some regions, second person suffixes (-aba/-ebe) are used instead of these historical third person suffixes. Why second or third person suffixes won out in different regions is unclear.

A few Terms of Time in Ćwarmin, Ŋʒädär and cognate languages

This is a bit preliminary.

Ćwarmin and Rasm^jin^j have borrowed the system of times of day, as well as higher-order calendarical structures from Bryatesle, whereas Ətimin and Astami conserve the Ćwarmin-Ŋʒädär system intact. However, the lexemes in Ćwarmin and Rasm^jin^j are often cognate to those of the other Ćwarminoid languages, and have simply been repurposed to Bryatesle cultural standards.

Historical Background
The Ćwarmin-Ŋʒädär ur-tribes divided the day into a system somewhat familiar to us: morning, day, evening and night. The 'cycle' is considered to begin at sunrise. Every ĆŊD language has cognates to at least some of these terms. The divisions correspond to watches in camps (which, however, normally overlap.)

Subdivisions of the day
An important pair of adverbs that have surviving cognates in every branch, and also 'functional' equivalents in many languages that lack cognates, are

*birn
*voru

which signify 'in the previous quarter of the day' or 'in the next quarter of the day'. The proto-language formed words meaning "a day and a quarter from now" or "three quarters of a day from now" by reduplicating these. Sound-changes have hit these particular words in some special ways - sometimes, the morphemes have been treated as separate words until at some point in each language's history, they've become full-fledged single morpheme words.

Cw: birmir, uarjur ( b > v / r_V or #_u,  v > j /r_V,  > u #_V)
Ast: birbir, uoruor (v > u /_o and also v > u /r_)
Rs: birnə, vorbʊ (v > b /_uC, _oC, _ʊC)
Ŋʒ: vırmız, varoz ( b > v /#_V, -z is a suffix)
Dg: (m)ʊmber, (m)ʊrbel (#b > #m, randomly. rv > rb, murber > murbel due to dissimilation)

In the Ćwarmin branch, a similar time yesterday can be specified by suffixing *-zi or *-zu. This -zi suffix is probably cognate to Ŋʒ -z. in Ćwarmin and Rasm^jin^j these terms exist, but now refer to the next span of Bryatesle day subdivisions.

In proto-Ćwarmin, a verb 'birdən' signifying 'to wait for one's turn, to be preparing for a task, to expect, to soon be busy' derives from *birn, whereas *vordan, deriving from *voru signifies participating in post-activities: tidying up, washing, etc.

In Ćwarmin and Rasm^jin^j these words rather signify the next/previous Bryatesle hour-like unit of time, of which there are sixteen per nychtemeron.
 

Morning, Day, Evening, Night

Ćw Ast Rs Ŋʒ Dg

arad arro arot äzä adʒı

jit int injtjin uk'u imii ımı/(f)ındı-)

The proto-ĆŊD word for morning was *azda, potentially either cognate to *asu (to wake up) or *anzor (sunrise), probably related through some earlier word, maybe pre-proto-CND *egnso- 'rise up, raise, open (of eyes, bottles, jars or cutting open something), burst'

Ćw:  arad (azda > azad, z > r /V_V)
Ast: orro (azda > aza > a'ra > awr:a)
Rs: arot (azad > azod > azot > arot)
Ŋʒ: äzä (azda > aza > random vowel harmony realigment)
Dg: adʒ(ı) (azda > adza,  a > ı / _#, dz > dʒ / _ı, _i) (change in meaning: 'early')

Proto-ĆŊD for 'day' was '*gnumn', giving

Ćw: now (um > om, m > w /V_n#, where V = back vowel)
Ast: navvol
Rs: naon
Ŋʒ: ŋumor ('tomorrow')
Dg: ŋö(-n-)

*gnumn may be cognate to pre-proto-CND *gunu- sky and thus be related to Dg ŋost ('cloud'), Ŋʒ ŋuzro ('arctic lights'), Ast narrob ('rain'), Cwarmin owno (sky), Ast owno

Some derived terms:

Astimin and Rasjminj also derive recent words for the sun from this:

ast: navvark, rs: naoroh

A similar word can be found in some poetic Ćwarmin: noworak

Proto-ĆŊD for evening was *tyrs, giving

Ćw: tic (y > i / _r, rs > c /_#, )Ast: ter (i > e /#(C)_r#)
Rs: tils (rs > ls, random, y > i, random (~0.3 prob) in monosyllables)
Ŋʒ: tydźy   (rs > rź, rź > dź, -y is a nominalizing suffix)
Dg: jyrem (t > j / #_Vr, V = front rounded vowel, probs by proxy of t_j_w > d_j_w > d_j > dʒ, -em = time affix)

The proto-ĆŊD word for night was *imid. In parts of the Ŋʒädär branch this has been replaced by reflexes of *uk'ot, 'dark'. Thus, cognates often mean 'night', but in some descendant languages 'this (incoming) night' or 'last night':

Ćw: jit (but jint- before suffixes that begin with vowels)
Ast: int ('inni' for 'this (incoming night', 'inits' for 'last night')
Rs: in^jt^jen
Ŋʒ: uk'u (no ending in absolutive, -s-/-t- in other cases).
"imi-" now signifies sunset instead.

Süw: imii
Dg: ımə, dat. fındın or ındın. (The case prefix has acquired some meaning differentiation in expressions of time and been generalized to all cases except the absolutive, and distinguishes "night (in general)" from any particular night.

Today, Yesterday, Tomorrow and Beyond
In all branches there are languages that preserve cognates of a variety of old words.

day before yesterday: *qaluwuna
yesterday: *qalur
today: *mest
tomorrow: *tetri
day after tomorrow: *tetrijinä

Astami: N/A, kalu-nu, mih-ni, ćeič-ni, ćeiči-ni
Dagurib: qaluwɞ, qal, mesit, tetir, tetirjin
Ŋʒädär: qoruŋa, qolur, mär* (mäsä*- for inflected forms), täryr, (täty- for inflicted forms) tärynjä
Süw: quurqur (renewed reduplication frrom qur), quur, met, teir, tädeir (through intermediate forms *terteer > *terdeer > *terdeir)

*mär, mäsä have been lost in modern Ŋʒädär, being replaced with ŋumrum, from ŋumor (to-day). Almost all speakers tend to dissimilate either the last -m to n, giving ŋumrun, or m to b, giving ŋubrum or even ŋ to g, giving gumrum. This serves to distinguish "to (a/the) day (indefinite)" from "today" - "to a day" being regularly formed and "today" having those sound changes. Which form serves which function varies strongly in dialects.

However, in early Ŋʒädär, *mär, mäsä still were present. Tärynjä no longer is specifically the day after tomorrow, but any day in the near future (including, possibly, tomorrow).

Süw's tädeir likewise does not signify 'the day after tomorrow', but is an adjective signifying 'the next [timespan]'.
 

 In Ćwarmin, 'today' is formed form the demonstrative arna- in the general ablative: arnaraś. Sometimes this is hit by some kind of dissimilation-transposition and comes out as aranaś, anaraś or even arnaś but there's also attestations of both araraś and ananaś. A period of a few days including today can be arnuroś / arunoś. Oftentimes, this signifies 'this week' (by Bryatesle standards of week). In Bryatesle-influenced areas, you also often get olbaraś (from olba, "that") for 'yesterday'. This is somewhat odd, though, as it can also signify 'that day' or even 'that time', and so is a bit sensitive to context.

Despite being marked for case, aranaś and arunoś have partially been reinterpreted as nominatives, and can take further case suffixes.

'In a few days' in Ćwarmin is generally formed by cularaś (sg) or culuroś (pl), depending on whether the thing that happens is expected to last at most a day, or longer. Similar constructions exist in the other Ćwarminoid languages.

Ćwarmin: How to distinguish a clitic postposition from a case

Ćwarmin has a rich system of cases, which to some extent form fusional forms with number and the definiteness system. Ćwarmin also has a rather rich system of postpositions which are not considered cases. What makes one set considered cases and the other set not?

The Ćwarmin cases can be found here. However, nearly all Ćwarmin postpositions also are suffixed (and the prepositions are prefixed) to words. There are, however, certain traits that distinguish them. Some suffixes are sometimes cases, sometimes not.

1. Possible carriers

Postpositions are less picky than cases. They go on the final word of a noun phrase, regardless of what that is. Cases can only go on nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numbers. However, some postpositions also have case suffixes on them, often showing their origin as nouns, adjectives or pronouns.
(Make up etymologies for "apart (from)", "together with", "between" and some others).

apart from: -źəd-ir (egəd 'roads' + plural general ablative)
"roads away (from each other)"
together with: -xədəŋ-ic
between: -xədəŋ-ijn (xədəŋ is related to the adaŋ-morpheme in numerals)

Similarly, only cases distinguish the paucal from the plural, or the specific from the definite. Postpositions tend to go on the accusative stem, but one also find examples of general ablative, the dative or the instrumental or negative, with the occasional comitative-to thrown in. Sometimes, a postposition will take a different case in the plural than in the singular. Postposition-case pairings are not entirely regular: there seems to be both a lexical component which is basically a parameter to a probabilistic parameter. In addition, many of the postpositions cause some morphological wear at the end of the suffix, sometimes making it unclear which case is involved. Factors which affect the postposition-case pairing are:

* the more individuated the noun, the more likely to be dative it is
* the more involved despite lack of volition, the more likely to be instrumental
* negations, absence, etc tend to favour the negative case
* the comitative-to sometimes is used to emphasize a noun as being central to the events or important
* the general ablative tends to be lexically determined by some nouns to appear in the plural
* the dative tends to be lexically determined by some verbs to appear with the postposition

Only in the case where a postposition goes on the accusative or general ablative stem is there any suspicion that they're actually cases.

2. Morphological position

Postpositions go after all the other suffixes of a word. Postpositions can, however, take their own suffixes. Cases go after derivational suffixes, and after case-number-definiteness*.

* Ćwarmin grammatical tradition is to consider the whole case-number-definiteness-complex a single marker, despite clear agglutination.

3. Behavior over gaps and ellipses

This, in particular, is the behavior where some cases in some constructions behave like cases, and in other constructions do not. Adpositions in Ćwarmin can mark a whole coordinated phrase, case can only mark one noun phrase each:

milt-əneś (ul) mar-ummona
[milti-əneś (ul) maruw-ummona]
"for liver (and) kidneys"
*milti ul mar-ummona

*wekre (ul) pokr-oku
wekr-iki (ul) pokr-oku
with garlic and onion

Two cases that have different behaviors in different contexts are the negative and the general ablative. The singular dative can also showcase both in a few particular constructions, e.g. with verbs for 'resemble x.dat', and other verbs of perception where something the stimulus is compared to is in the dative, it seems both case-like and case-unlike use is permissible for many speakers.

3.1 The negative

The negative, when communicating an abessive/caritive meaning, does not seem to be a proper case, but rather a postposition. Thus, you could get

wekre dar pokr-usta
garlic nor onion-without
without garlic and onion

but as subjects or objects,
*wekre dar pokr-usta ogm(o)-ur-ka źub-u
garlic nor onion stone-from-in grow-3sg

wekr-istə (dar) pokr-usta ogm-ur-ka źub-u
neither garlic nor onion grow from stone

4. Interactions with the reflexive accusative

Most postpositions can interact with the reflexive(ly possessed) accusative. Thus

wicxə-sin (my/your/his/her/... (own) house)
wicxə-sin-rede (behind my/your/his/her/... (own) house)
*wicxə-sin-itite (of ... (own) house)

Thus we can see that -rede, "behind" is a postposition, whereas -itite is not. The negative can combine with the reflexive possessive accusative whenever it is of a postpositional construction as well.

5. Congruence with numerals

The congruence with numerals is limited already, and is sometimes blocked by other case-marking constructions. However, the case suffixes do not participate in it at all, and only the case of the noun itself prior to case suffixing can affect case marking of numerals.

6. Fusionality

Fusionality with number and definiteness is generally not required to be a case, but if it is present, it is a case. All numbers that have such fusion have all the other hallmarks.

7. Coordination of postpositions

Postpositions can be coordinated, cases cannot:

bećəś-xədəŋ-ic ej-źəd-ir
you-together_with or_apart_from

*xarsab-ac-ak:a ej-enek:e
*the roof-on or-onto
*on or onto the roof

Ćwarmin: Sometimes Mandatorily Passive Verbs

Ćwarmin has a set of verbs which require passive forms whenever some requirements for the subject is violated. These requirements come in three main types, two of which relate to the animacy hierarchy. This requirement seems to be related to the inverse alignment of Ŋʒädär, but not an inherited cognate - rather, it may be due to convergence with Ŋʒädär.

1. Absolute Animacy Hierarchy Restrictions

The verb 'kill' only permits animate subjects, but can take non-animate agents, and thus has an absolute restriction on the hierarchy restriction - basically, there is a line drawn across the hierarchy which limits it. With inanimate agents, the passive is required, and the agent is in the general ablative case.

A typical example of this would be the verb 'kill', which cannot take a proper inanimate subject, so e.g.

*ilmis arbaŋ-utus kerb-i-ś
*winter killed the herd

arbaŋ ilm-erəś kerb-eśp
the herd was killed by the winter

*nəlve iś kerb-i-ś
an arrow killed him

i nəlv-erəś kerb-eśp
(s)he was killed by an arrow

Another would be 'utter/express/signal/...', which basically is the same verb as 'exhale', hifnəs.

*ədnist marćost-uc hifn-i-ś
silence expresses agreement

marćost ədnist-erəś hifn-e-kn-eśp
agreement is expressed through silence (note: -e-kn- is really the applicative morpheme -ken-, and the reason the applicative is used here has to do with the argument structure of hifn-, which really means something like 'breathe'; consider the -ken- similar to a prefixed preposition or adverb, only, it does not appear in the active forms of the verb all that often).

All  of these need to be rendered in the passive (or applicative) to be grammatical in Ćwarmin.

2. Relative Animacy Hierarchy Restrictions

With many verbs, a less animate noun cannot be subject with a verb whose object is more animate. These include any verb indicating fights (ampac, nenŋel, ćasćar - all signifying fighting), causing movement sideways or upwards (hegec - push, hegtəm - pull, salkum - lift, raise, kunkun - to shake to-and-fro, vabžum - pull in by rope, liŋbəl - to move a significant distance by pulling, žal - to carry),...

The main difference here from the previous class is that low-ranked nouns can be subjects, provided the object has lower or equal rank. Thus,

ćiriŋ kosdan-uc salkum-i-ś
the tripod lifts the tent fabric

onkup estnet-uc hegədm-i-ś
the weight pulls the rope

are permitted, but not

*onkup vond-uc hegədm-i-ś
the weight pulls the horse

which would require

vond onkup-araś hegt-eśp

3. Lexically Specified

This is an odd, but limited bunch.

mamnan -  to put a child to sleep

Only the mother of the child can be the proper subject, any other agent must be oblique.

ŋačćur  - to wear a piece of clothing

The restriction here is related to tense rather than to subject or object - non-present and non-imperative must be passive.

biəkin - to endure

Passive whenever the object is not indefinite.

luzǯar -  to praise

passive whenever the object is inanimate.

Ŋʒädär and Ćwarmin Phonologies and Correspondences: Vowels pt 1

This post has been under work for a very long time. Now that it is done, Ćwarmin, Ŋʒädär and even Dagurib stuff might start appearing at a steadier pace.
Ŋʒädär has a much larger vowel inventory than its relative Ćwarmin has:

Front		Back
Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
i	ü	ɯ	u
e	ö	ɤ	o
	ä*		a

/ä/ is not strictly speaking rounded, but mostly patterns with the rounded vowels as far as distribution goes.

A thoroughly consistent orthography that occurred to me, but is somewhat unwieldy and has a weirdly placed <e> would be the following:

Front		Back
Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
ï	ü	ı	u
ë	ö	e	o
	ä		a

I am not going to use this orthographical system,
but it is appealing in some way.

Halfway through typing this thing, I realized the best way of representing the vowel system would probably be this, and I will be editing old posts on Ŋʒädär to conform to this system. Changes are marked with bold typefaces: 

Front		Back
Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
i	ü	ı	u
e	ö	ə	o
	ä		a

 /ä/ is not necessarily as rounded as ü and ö, but patterns with them.

Diphthongs currently basically exist in the following forms in Ŋʒädär:

Opening: ie, üö, öä. ıə, uo,oa
Closing: äe, äü, ei, a͜u, əı, aə

Diphthongs in Ŋ originate in several different situations in PŊƷD: long vowels under some circumstances, original diphthongs, vowels in hiatus, vowels with semivowels, vowels in combination with certain consonants, stressed vowels in open syllables.

The front unrounded and back unrounded vowels in Ŋʒädär are separate phonemes, and not allophones triggered by different vowel harmony situations. Minimal tuplets exist, like

ri - day, today (from *dzij)
rı - weak (from *rig or *rix ?)
rü? - is this so? (from *rü)

dəb - sweet (from *dɛɔb)
deb - niece (from *deib)
döb - belt (from *düǧp')
dob - plate (from *dob)

Compare this system to the much reduced Ćwarmin system:

Front (-Centre)		Back
i		u
e	ə	o
		a

Diphthongs: ie, ei, əi, eə, əe, ua, au, ou, oa. Diphthongs only appear in morpheme-initial syllables.

We find the following cognates to the Ŋʒädär words not preserving the minimal-pair:ness on account of vowel harmony, but on account of other phonemic distinctions, here, some cognate Ćwarmin vocabulary:

zi, ziti - day, today (from *dzij)
rəŋi - loose, soft (from *rig:ə or *riǧ:ə, derived from *rig or *rix by -də suffix)
-ri/-ru - suffix that marks doubtfulness (from *rü)

dəp - honey
listep - sister-in-law (*lins-deib > linstep > listep), where lins- originally signified 'by marriage', and was restricted to use with women, the corresponding male term being 'oŋx-')
dep - a strap used for carrying certain kinds of things
(no cognate to dob)

In Ćwarmin, non-initial PĆŊ diphthongs have been monopthongized, whereas some open, initial syllables have diphthongized. The system out of which these two systems originate may have looked something like this:

Front (Neutral)	Front Round	Back Round
i	ü	u
e	(ö)	o
ɛ		ɔ
	ä	a

possible reconstructed vowel system
for Proto-Ćwarmin-Ŋʒädär

PĆŊ diphthongs come in a few types with different outcomes. The first group consisted of an onset round vowel tailing toward  neutral vowels, thus

üi, äi, öi, ui, ai, oi, aɛ, uɛ, oɛ, üɛ, äɛ

If /ɔi/ and /ɔɛ/ existed, they seem to have been merged with /oi/ and /ɔɛ/ already by the time Ŋʒädär and Ćwarmin diverged. Sound-change-wise, in Ćwarmin these sometimes leave a slight change on the next consonant:

PĆŊ: üisɛ > üśɛ > iśə (wind > breeze, Ćwarmin)
PĆŊ: uik'ɛs > uć'ɛs > ućos (louse > bug)
PĆŊ: airaw > aʒaw > aʒo (high up > tall (of animate things))
PĆŊ: noɛg > noj (narrow > close)
PĆŊ: ǧoibi > fobu (dull > clumsy)

In Ŋʒädär, these diphthongs often remain in initial syllables, but tend to become uniform as far as frontness or backness goes. /i/ in the second syllable can cause back vowels to front.

PĆŊ: üisɛ > üise (wind > cold)
PĆŊ: uik'ɛs > uık'əh (louse > itch)
PĆŊ: airaw > aırau (not attested)
PĆŊ noɛg > noək (narrow > any physical constriction)
PĆŊ ǧoibi > ǧöibi > ʒöibi (dull > inferior (of the quality of things))

The second set of diphtongs would be open ones to close ones within one harmony group:

ei, ɛi, ou, au, äy, öy

In Proto-Ŋʒädär, these first become long vowels of the first type:

e:, :, o:, a:, ä:, ö:

By the time of Ŋʒädär, this length distinction had been lost.
Proto-Ćwarmin kept these intact. Ćwarmin happens to behave almost identically to Ŋʒädär in these regards, but cognate languages on both sides diverge on this. The only difference between Ŋ and Ć is that  /au/ and /a:/ become /o/.

A final type of diphtong consists of front-to-back or back-to-front movement. In Ŋʒädär, these generally moved to the backness of the latter part, and then eliminated that latter part in Ŋʒädär. In Ćwarmin, the latter part often becomes a consonant:

dɛɔb > dəɔb > dəb (Ŋʒädär)
dɛɔb > dɛwb > dəjb (Ćwarmin, unattested)

The diphtongs in PŊĆ seem more to have consisted of "point of departure + direction", and the actual end point does not seem to have made any difference. So /ɛi/ sometimes may well have come out /ɛe/, and /au/ may well have come out /ao/ in actual pronunciation.

In the Dagurib branch, most languages do not have vowel harmony. Dagurib itself, however, retains many traces of an almost nascent vowel harmony that just about caught on. The vowel system below is from the insular Dagurib language Ěvusǐb.

Front		Back
Tense	Lax	Lax	Tense
i	ǐ	ǔ	u
e	ě	ǒ	o
			a

In Dagurib, an additional (tense) /y ö/ exist, and the cognates of ǔ and ǒ are endolabial mid vowels, giving:

Front			Back
Tense		Lax	Lax	Tense
Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Endolabial	Rounded
i	ü	ǐ	ǔ	u
e	ö	ě	ǒ	o
				a

In Ŋʒädär, some morphemes will have harmony that adheres to (almost) all features of the previous vowel. Most words are either fully front or fully back, but exceptions exist. This system probably evolved out of a system not entirely unlike that of Finnish, but with the back vowels causing retraction of the "neutral" vowels {i, e}. An opposite situation whereby neutral vowels {ı, ɤ} were fronted is unlikely on typological grounds. In Ćwarmin, the system went through quite a different set of changes, merging the neutral vowels with back vowels, so /i, e/ in words with back harmony became /u, o/. Meanwhile /ü/ merged with /i/, and {ö} with {e, ə} in ways where stress as well as surrounding consonants influenced the outcome.

Phonotactically, early Proto-Ŋʒädär seems to have had a restriction whereby the second syllable of a root either had an unrounded vowel, or the same vowel as the previous syllable. Diphthongs only occurred in the first syllable or in open final syllables. A variety of changes where consonants and partial harmony have interacted have led to this system changing, and now the only restriction that exists with regard to vowel distribution is the vowel harmony itself.

The Proto-[[ĆŊ]-Dagurib] vowel system probably was even more complicated, due to various changes that cannot be accounted for by an eight-vowel system with two sets of harmonizing vowels and two neutral vowels. It is, however, somewhat unlikely that Proto-ĆŊD had vowel harmony.

Ćwarmin Geographical Terminology

Ćwarmin covers a relatively large area of plains, with some mountain ranges at the edges of the area, and a few hills and the occasional mountain dotting the plains. Two oceans also touch the plains. Due to the distances involved, the words for the ocean differ, as do the words for 'waterfall', which for obvious reasons only really occur at the mountaineous edges of the area.

Bodies of water:

sućma - lake
ləkir - swamp
wire - the ocean (northern word)
kaśku - the ocean (southern word)
telin - the coast (northern word)
sterim - the coast (southern word)

It is to be noted that the southern and northern words for the oceans are not 'names' – the same word would be used by a northerner (or a southerner) regardless if he's seeing the southern or northern ocean, or even some other ocean altogether.

sasra - river
sasruta xamku - waterfall (river-gen fall) (southeast)
kaluta xamku - waterfall (water-gen fall) (northeast)
sasruta korsa - waterfall (river-gen jump) (west)
ontas - ditch, small river

savar - travel upriver by barge
sivir - travel downriver by barge

insə - a place fit for wading

apśuta - rapids, from the verb apśun - to splatter, splash

kalak - the left side of the river as seen while looking downriver
perək - the right side of the river as seen while looking downriver

Terrain:

kaŋud - plains

nile - a 'depleted' area of pasture
micni - an area of pasture, regardless if still abundant or depleted
məcən - move towards areas suitable for pasture in winter
mocon - move towards areas suitable for pasture in summer
eŋmər - a large grassy area
leśśe - a small area with grassy vegetation, or a part of an eŋmər
rende - an area with bushy vegetation
leśen - to graze, to cause to graze, to lead to pasture

falsuc - desert
ŋormo - an area strewn with rocks
ŋoron - to pick rocks (for building with)
ŋor - stone

miker - a low, lengthy hill
miken - to travel along the crest of such a hill
mokan - to travel across multiple such hills
śorka - woods
śoran - to bewilder, to cause to be lost, to confuse
nunto - plains of permafrost
nunun - to be frozen
ərtər - cultivated land, from Bryatesle 'ırtız', acre.
ərtən - to cultivate

rogos - moor
bənel - marsh
sildil - quagmire
sildilin - to quake
rab - valley
kup - peak
kupon - to reach
walgor - mountain
walgrona - mountain range
fośtor - volcano
fośton - to explode (with anger), to erupt, to eject fire

parsu - glacier

kuruk - salt plain
kurmu - salt lake

egəd - road, naturally easily traversable path
egdin - to create a path

Among the verbs we find three interesting pairs here, savar/sivir and məcən/mocon and also miken/mokan. These are just three among many sets of lexemes that would seem suggestive of some kind of ablaut system. Similar hints exist in other ĆŊ languages as well.

Ćwarmin, Bryatesle: Proper Nouns and Definiteness

In this post, "definite" refers, with regards to noun-phrases, to the quality of being a referent whose identity is known to the listener of an utterance. "Specific" refers to the quality of being a referent known to the speaker.

Ćwarmin and Bryatesle seem to have evolved definiteness marking in their case systems during times of contact. Ćwarmin's indefinite/specific/definite-distinction seems to go back fairly early, though, but we find dialects in contact with Bryatesle sometimes missing the specific/definite or the specific/indefinite distinction. The stage at which definiteness started becoming a thing in the Ćwarmin branch and Bryatesle-Dairwueh must be around the time of proto-BD, but later than Astami began diverging from the rest of the Ćwarmin languages.

Different languages in these groups have, however, dealt somewhat differently with definiteness marking on proper nouns. Proper nouns are most often definite by nature. In Ətimin, proper nouns are not marked for definiteness at all, with a few toponyms as exceptions. Rasm'in' and Ćwarmin, however, tend to use definite case marking for proper nouns in cases other than the core cases nominative, accusative, genitive and dative. The genitive and dative are flip-flopping in both, though. In these languages too, some toponyms have names where even the core cases are definite. However, exceptionally, Rasm'in' has a toponym that is always specific rather than definite, viz., mworanyus ädʒiniis', '(these/some) property markers of the belly', a historical border marker between the Kəlkəj and Moduwt tribes. The 'belly' refers to this being the most 'central' of the border markers between the tribes.

In Ćwarmin, personal names sometimes may appear in the specific. This, oddly enough, tends to indicate that the person referred to is a very recent acquaintance of the speaker, and that the speaker therefore is not sure whether the listener knows the referent.

With non-nominatives in Bryatesle, the definite case is almost always used with definite proper nouns except toponyms (and even there, many toponyms are definite - e.g. Zgakintën, 'the hilltop', a very definite hilltop near the capital. Omission of the definite marker, if no other secondary case takes its place, indicates specificity in non-nominatives. For nominatives, the partitive secondary case serves to indicate specificness.

One final language to consider is Dairwueh. It too has a very limited definiteness marking in the differential object marking of transitive subjects - genitive for definite, transitive subjects. It turns out a similar pattern holds there - nominative indicates specific, genitive indicates definite.

A Bryatesle-Dairwueh-Sargaĺk Adjective Type

In the BDS family, certain particles with adjective-like distribution are present in all languages. These adjective can be used with any NP in almost any position, even though the most similar translation in English cannot: 'what about/how about ...'

In Bryatesle, the adjectives are kyne- and sudu-, in Dairwueh xən- and orə-, and in Sargaĺk you find cin- and asku-. The pairwise distinction between these differ between the languages: the Dairwueh pair differ by animacy (xən- being animate, orə- being inanimate), the Bryatesle kyne- and sudu- differ by number (sudu- being plural), and the cin- and asku- pair of Sargaĺk differ by definiteness (asku- being indefinite).

It should be clear that kyne-, xən- and cin- are cognate. One rather typical vowel correspondence pattern in monosyllabic roots can be spotted here.

Bryatesle /ɨ/ <y> : Dairwueh /ə/ <ə> : Sargaĺk /i/ <i>

The sound changes on the initial consonants are a bit more complicated though. The cin- in Sargaĺk suggests the original sound was /k/ rather than /k'/, since /k'/ is more stable against sound changes in Sargaĺk. This fits well with Dairwueh, where k > x, k' > k. The three other forms do not seem to be cognate at all.

Some examples of use would be these:

Bryatesle:

tvem kynë mindë gavari livytri

tvem kyn-ë mind-an gava-ri livyt-ri

tvem		kyn	-ë	mind	-ë	gava	-ri	livyt	-ri
you		how about	def.acc.fem	girl	acc.fem	meet	2sg.atelic	went	2sg.atelic
you		how about	the	girl		that you meeting		were

how about the girl you were meeting

Dairwueh:

xənŋa srotoŋa misandeb

xən	-ŋa	sroto	-ŋa	misand	-eb
how about	instr/loc	small boat	instr/loc	arrive	2sg.past
how about	with	the boat		arrived	you

How about (with) the boat (with which) you arrived 

We notice in both Bryatesle and Dairwueh that the case function of the noun is somewhat ambiguous - it is never quite clear in past tense expressions whether the case pertains to its relation to the past tense verb or how it relates to the inquiry. Therefore, the case forms often may get somewhat confusing.

To Be Right in my Conlangs

To express the sentiment of being right in my conlangs, a number of slightly different constructions are used. However, first a quick overview of being right in the languages I speak and a few more.

In Finnish, the usual way would be olla oikeassa, essentially 'to be in (the) right'. In Swedish, however, the expression is ha rätt, 'to have right'. This also seems to be the way of expressing it in German, recht haben. Russian has прав, 'right, true' as a complement, so e.g. ты прав, "you (are) right/true". Onto languages I don't speak: The French and Italian expressions seem to be analogous - although 'to have reason' seem to be more literal translations. Spanish is a bit like Finnish, although with 'in truth' (en cierto) rather than 'right'.  Bear in mind that I might be wrong on any of those beyond Finnish, Swedish, English and Russian. As a side note, for Finnish, English, German and Russian, there's a clear connection to right (the direction or side).

So, onto the conlangs!

Bryatesle

In Bryatesle, being right is expressed using a verb that is closely related to the verb 'carry', verg, in the perfective aspect, with a quirky case subject, viz. the ablative.

tërty virg-a
you.abl carry-perf.3sg
you're right

In isolation, virga sometimes is used to express 'you're right'.

Ćwarmin

In Ćwarmin, being right is expressed by the demonstrative adverb olba/elbə ('this') in an adverbial form, olbaru, elbəri (essentially 'like this, like so, thus') or in the nominative definite olbutu, elbiti.  The construction with olbaru/elbəri uses the reflexive possessive accusative:

bec olbarsun
you thus-refl.poss.acc
~you have thus
you are right

The olbutu/elbiti form comes with the dative of whomever is right:

un olbutu
(s)he.dat right.nom.def(s)he is right

Dairwueh

Unlike Bryatesle, Dairwueh uses the verb əduin, 'hold', but like Bryatesle, it uses a quirky case subject: the genitive. The verb is in the 3rd person II.

vedin ŋe ədu-ar
I.gen was.3sg hold-past.prtcpl
"my was held"
I was right

Ŋʒädär

Ŋʒädär has a reflexive, locative expression. 

(sint) prä-ŋä-bürs-äz ŋul-ər
(they) right-at-3pl/3pl-direct self-plur
they are right

Prän does in fact have a slight typological similarity to 'right', although it signifies a different type of direction: in fact, it signifies the east. prä-ŋä thus also signifies "in the east", but the only situation in which this appears with transitive marking is when signifying 'being right'. For those who haven't read how the reflexive works in Ŋʒädär, here's a post.

Sargaĺk

Sargaĺk uses a reduplication-like construction:

(ne-tta) tvadas tvadas yəra-si
I-peg truth truth put-1sg
I put truth (to) truth
I am right

Clearly, the pegative of the subject suggests that the two instances of "truth" are considered different constituents, however - one being a direct object and one an indirect object. Hence the (to) in the word-for-word English translation. Here, as well, the subject pronoun can be omitted.

Ćwarmin: The Phonology, pt I

The basic consonant inventory:

bilabial

alveolar

postalveolar

palatal

velar

voiceless

voiced

voiceless

voiced

voiceless

voiced

voiceless

voiced

voiceless

voiced

stops

p

b

t

d

c

k

g

affricates

č

(j)

ć

j

fricatives

f

v

s

z

š

ž

ś

ź

x

ǧ

rhotics

r

glides

w

y

laterals

l

nasals

m

n

ň

ń

ŋ

The voicing of /b/, /d/ and /g/ sometimes borders on stiff voice rather than modal voice, especially word-initially.  In previous transcriptions, I've used <h> for <ǧ>. I prefer  ǧ over ǵ due to ˇ being easier to spot. Sequences of stop + fricative even over word boundaries are rendered as affricates if possible. Otherwise, one part of the sequence is  lost. Generally, voiceless stops win over voiced fricatives, so ts → t, pf → p, but voiced fricatives win over voiceless stops, so dz → z, bv → v. A light lengthening of the resulting segment may occur in some idiolects, giving ...Vd zV.... → ...V z:V, ...Vp fV... → Vp: V...

Since this is the only position where consonant length has any significance for obstruents in Ćwarmin, and the distribution of this is rather the same as the distribution of stop+fricative, length is not considered a distinctive feature for stops.

Historically, /ts/ has also existed in the phonemic inventory, but has merged with /t/ and /s/ depending on position in the word – /s/ favoured in the end and onset, /t/ favoured elsewhere.

ń and ň are very marginal phonemes. Ń and n are only distinguished over morpheme boundaries; ...-ńć... would come out distinct from ....n-ć... This situation sometimes appears in some verbal inflections. ň and n are distinguished in a few words before and after /ž/. Minimal pairs and near minimal pairs are /kažna/ (snow drift), kažňa (accident), uňžo (friend), unžon (to sharpen), ižňət (important), ižnel (reject, leave, abandon). These are not distinguished in the orthography.

/n ń ň/ do not assimilate to ŋ before velars. /m n ŋ/ all three go back to proto-ĆŊD. The only assimilation that has occurred is n, ŋ > m / _labial obstruent.

A cluster cannot contain both palatals and postalveolars in sequence. The leftmost sound's place of articulation wins out in cases where such sounds somehow get stuck together. Postalveolars and palatals also tend to win over alveolars. Rhotics and laterals only ever appear in postalveolar or palatal versions as allophones of /r/ and /l/ in such clusters.

The maximal syllable would be CCVVCC. It is unusual for three or more consonants to occur in a row. The sonority hierarchy is rather strictly observed, except that fricatives, affricates and stops are tied. Rather peculiar clusters do occur even initially, such as xpan (rake), ǧdisən (to sieve), fkarul (badger), but these are not very common. Clusters of fricatives also occur, such as lašxur ('to peel'), "ǧzin yə ǧvin" ('this and that'), vǧum ('to yawn'), vžuk ('a tick'), vźuc ('a thread'). Word initially, labials do not cluster with each other, except mw- and a few bw-.

Stress is almost invariably on the initial syllable, after which every other syllable has secondary stress. However, if the final syllable would carry stress and there is a following word, the final syllable's stress is weakened. The language is roughly speaking syllable-timed, with stressed syllables being slightly longer. Some styles of poetic recital, however, seem to intentionally go for something more like stress-timed rhythms.

Case Prefixes: Dagurib and Solgır

Dagurib was the first branch in the ĆŊ family to diverge from the rest. Through its history, however, it has been in extensive contact with the Ŋʒädär branch, and due to its relatively small number of speakers - for most of the time, only about 5% of the ĆŊ population - it generally does not provide much data with regards to early ĆŊ or even ĆŊD linguistics. However, many Dagurib languages have conserved a feature that is also shared by Solgır (a Ŋʒädär language), and which also has left traces throughout the family. These are the case prefixes.

The case prefixes are always single segments - in Solgır a-, n-, r-, e-, ä-, o-, q-, k-, f-, in Banar (a Dagurib language) m-, l-, z-, i-, a-, -ä-, u-, k-, k'-, p-, in Dagurib m-, l-, s-, i-, a-, ä-, u-, ü-, k'-, p'-. Some words just take them in some cases, and what cases they take them with differs from noun to noun. Sometimes, a noun whose stem begins in any of these is reanalyzed, and the segment is lost in all forms but a few.

A system of this kind seems unlikely to develop by itself twice in separate branches, and would therefore rather seem likely to be a reduced retention of a previous system. This is further supported by the fact that in other Ŋʒädär, Dagurib and even Ćwarmin languages, there are words where cognates have random-looking losses of initial elements. (Or is that random additions of initial elements?) Further down, we'll see some examples of cognate-sets where potential prefixes could explain some of the alternations between forms.

The Solgır and Dagurib prefixes do not seem to mark anything – the distribution is lexically determined. Essentially, for some nouns, some cases for that noun take some prefix. An extreme example would be the Solgır noun ermi, rope.

	sing	plur
abs	ermi	ermeyi
dat	fermen	ermeyin
abl	ermelin	kermeylin
loc	kermene	kermeyine
lat	ermeli	fermeyli
gen	nermeni	nermeynit
instr	ermerik	nermeyrik

The particular prefixes do not belong to any particular case and can appear with different cases for different nouns. Mostly though, any noun with these prefixes will only showcase one particular prefix - tho' in some Dagurib languages, a certain free variation between two prefixes or between a prefix and none is well attested.

The historical origin for these prefixes is shrouded in mystery - they probably have communicated something in proto-ĆŊD, but the lack even of hints as to what that might have been prevents reconstruction of it.

Nouns that hint of the presence of such a system in proto-ĆŊ can be found. Some of these also have cognate examples even in Dagurib. Such examples will be marked with a + in the Ćwarmin cell or Ŋʒädär cell.

Here are some examples within the Ćwarmin branch:

Ćwarmin		Rasmjinj		Ətimin		Astami
+ruanas	hair	wanos	hair	ronas	a hair	uonoh	fur
arać	skin	karos	leather	karaš	skin	karaś	skin
+nitis	thing	njidjis	thing	iedəs	thing	itih	thing
səkin	tally mark	ädʒin	property mark	seəčən	personal 'flag' on tents	səki	property mark
+els	oath	felz	oath	feləs	oath	hel	oath
maruw	liver	aru	liver	-	-	maru	liver
+ənve	chin	pänne	cheek	peənyə	chin	-	-
+maso	grass	amozo	grass	mazo	grass	amoh	grass
əced	bridle	ced	bridle	ceəd	bridle	əcet	halter
deǧe	prayer	deǧe	prayer	ədeje	prayer	ado
kinim	braid	ičinjin	braid	čienən	braid	ikini	woven material

The Dagurib cognates are:

ruanas - (r)ouno
nitis - (l)iti
els - (k')eili
ənve - (m)einyi
maso - (m)eizyi (due to random vowel harmony reassignment)

Within the Ŋʒädär branch these are a few examples:

Ŋʒädär		Törǧdär		Suwdan
+soman	home	oma	home	sömä*	home
iqe(-k)	man	miqe(-q)	man	liqe	man
ragaz	bumblebee	aragaz	bumblebee	arga	wasp
+anək	animal	ranık	livestock	anə	calf
+ästil	pelt	stıl	fur	istil	fur

*Süwdän has had an unusually large share of seemingly random vowel harmony changes; in ĆŊ, the vowel-harmony conservation ratio for 1000 years is something like 98%; for Süwdän, however, it seems the percentage is closer to 90%.

The Dagurib cognates are

soman - (p')amai- (house)
anək - (m)aŋu- (reindeer)
iqe(-k) - (i)q- (member of the tribe)
ästil - (ü)t(:)i- (clothing)

The situation seems to be that the prefix has been generalized to all the forms or none of the forms in the languages that have lost the prefixes, and rather randomly at that.

More examples can be found between the branches, and the Dagurib family itself is particularly rich with these, and especially with traces in those languages that only more recently have lost the prefixes as a grammatical feature.

Ćwarmin: The Polar Question and Its Other Uses

The polar question in Ćwarmin is formed partially by syntactical means, partially by morphological ones. In addition, intonation also plays a role, with rising intonation towards the end of the phrase.

The main morphological indication is a suffix, for human nouns -k[ə|o]r, for inanimates -t[ə|o]r. This is an exceptional morpheme in that it agrees with the animacy of the relevant noun – when marking a verb, it may distinguish whether the question pertains (more) to an animate or an inanimate argument of that verb. It usually is located on the verb, but can also be moved to a fronted NP. 

Here are different questions regarding whether Kier steals apples:

Kier-kər lend-itiś mesl-i
does Kier steal apples?

Kier lend-ijiś mesl-i-kər
does Kier steal apples?

lend-ijiś Kier mesl-i-tər
Kier lend-ijiś mesl-i-tər
Apples is what Kier steals, aren't they?

lend-(ijiś)-tər Kier mesl-i
does Kier steal apples?

-tər and -kər both sometimes surpress accusative marking, with inanimates even plural marking is sometimes omitted in the core cases before -tər. This is a place where some differential object marking actually occurs in Ćwarmin, with indefinites generally omitting the accusative or plural marking before the interrogative marker.

However, the same structure with -kər/-tər appears in 'regardless of'-style meanings, and in 'whether'-style meanings. In 'regardless of', the tone is falling throughout, whereas in 'whether' the tone has a light premature rise before falling.

bec a Alas staŋn-u-tor kinl-əc
you (c) Alas answer_yes-Q ask-2sg ?
you ask whether Alas answers yes?

'a' is an optional complementizer that introduces subordinate clauses. 
Parsing -tor/-tər in this way is only permitted with verbs of knowledge and perception.

The 'regardless of'-meaning usually goes after the verb, but can go elsewhere - clause-initial position or even just before the verb.

wərs-ic sewk-ər kurćap(-utćo) au-tor.
walrus-meat eat-1sg salty(-obj.compl.) is-Q
I eat walrus-meat regardless if it's salty

Autor sometimes is rendered as 'ator', aukor as 'akor'.

Ćwarmin Voice Markers beyond the Passive

Ćwarmin has some more voices beyond the passive and active, but unlike the active voice, all of them use the passive -aśp morpheme for the third person, and lack person marking for first and second person subjects. The main voices beyond passive and dative-passive are the causative (of intransitives), and the causative (of transitives). There is also a detransitive-habitual aspect-voice combination.

Morphologically, there is some overlap between the two causatives. Almost all causatives of intransitives are entirely unmarked in the present tense, as are a handful of causatives of transitives. A few entirely regular such verbs are:

taun - sit, seat
wecəm - smile, make someone smile
gaxar - laugh, make someone laugh
miler - rise, raise
colan - sink, submerge

Some intransitives that are marked in the present causative include

pəlnəm - jump
polnom - jump
kəjn - run

The few transitives that are not marked in the present causative are

taslon - leave, make someone leave
kolkor - carry, load
kolćojn - carry, send

In all other TAMs but the present indicative tense, the intransitive causative has the marker -ka(n)-/-ke(n)-, and takes either no person suffix (for 1st and 2nd person) or the passive suffix -aśp/-eśp for the third person. A more "neutral" way of describing -aśp/-eśp would be as a non-canonic voice marker, which in the absense of other markers is parsed as a passive.

The causative, further, has the causee in either the accusative or the nominative, often depending on the amount of coercion or force involved (nominative indicating less such).

The use of the causative voice is clearly and easily related to the structure of a fact: someone made someone be or do something, and that is what is being expressed. Asking someone to do something, telling them to do something, suggesting they do something, placing them in a situation where they are forced to or even prone to do something is all considered forms of causation.

A further voice marker is a sort of passive causative, which is formed by -kar(u)-/-kər(i)-. This passive causative signifies a few different meanings:

(being made to do something (subject in nominative))
doing something with little volition involved (subject in genitive)
resigning to doing something (subject in dative)
accidentally doing something (subject in genitive, aspect being punctual)

No matter the case of the subject with these forms, the congruence works similarly to the passive: -aśp/-eśp for third person, no marker for first and second person.

Usage of the passive causative is more pragmatically marked, mainly indicating that something is accidental, non-volitional or even somewhat undesirable. Sometimes there is no causer stated, and this basically communicates that there is no causer but that the whole state described by the verb is very untowards according to the speaker or the subject.

There is a further voice, the applicative. It turns a locative of any type or an instrument into a direct object. For transitive verbs, it also permits turning the object into an instrumental, although we also find speakers that permit retaining the direct object as an accusative direct object (thus having two direct objects). The applicatives morpheme is -tak-/-tək-.

With locatives the kind of locative (that is, direction or location) correlates with the aspect of the verb.

i	releś	-imməś	forxo	-rga	-tak-	-aśp
3sg.def	door	paucal definite accusative	carry by wagon	perfective non-past indicative	applicative	non-active 3sg
he	the doors	(a few)	deliver (by wagon)

he delivers all the way to the doors(paucal)

This serves to emphasize a non-patient argument or to make it available for certain syntactical operations.

Ćwarmin Names

Ćwarmin names come in several patterns, depending on regional and family traditions.

One common tradition is using suffixes on 'name stems' to express the significance of a child:

-ot | -ət
'oldest son'. Whether it goes by mother or father differs by region, but most regions go by father. In some families, it is replaced by
-sako | -səke
upon the death of the father.

-otkom | -ətkəm
A younger twin of an oldest son

-olkom|-elkem
A female twin of an oldest son

Outside of the core cases (nom, gen, acc, dat), -ot/-ət is omitted, but the case marking follows the definite paradigm as far as possible.

-otol | -ətəl
'oldest living son'. Changes upon the death of a previously oldest living son; in some regions, goes to oldest living daughter once if no sons remain). In regions with the -sako/-səke morpheme, this is also replaced by -sakol/-səkəl upon the passing of the father.

-oxan | -esən
'daughter born after the death of her father'

-anko | -ənke (son)
-asko | -əśke (son)
-olku | -elki (daughters)
'a son or daughter born significantly later than other children of the same mother'

Patronymics likewise have some doublings of the same information present.

The usual patronym for male offspring is name-stem+julor, from julo, son. The patronym for female offspring is [name-stem]+-ćəŋer, from ćəŋel. However, oldest sons get -julot, as do oldest living sons. Female twins of an oldest son gets -ćəŋet. -ćəŋsən is applied to daughters born after the death of their father.

Toponyms often appear in the general ablative in full names.

Ćwarmin naming is not very solidly set in stone, and differs by what is needed; several small, distant communities basically never use the patronymics, because no confusion appears anyway. Communities involved in trade routes, military raids, or even urban living use increasingly complex names:

toponym patronym [optional descriptive term] name

The optional descriptive term can be basically any adjective or profession. Some other nouns appear at times, but are unusual.

The Face and its Parts in Ćwarmin

A thing Ćwarmin has with regards to body parts is separate words for left and right instance of them; this even extends to things that are not "bodyparts" per se, but rather features of bodyparts - such as the corners of the mouth.

togol face, *t'ougo head

sala the right eye, *salak, pupil of the eye, from **slehk, "spot"
ciŋi the left eye, *kjenxi eye

sala in its plural form can either signify 'eyes' or 'right eyes' depending on context; ciŋi is almost never used in the plural.

mogo nose, *muogɔl

rolca nostril, *rɔr hole (exceptionally lacks left and right words)

tərvi right corner of the mouth, *tɛzbü, corner of the mouth
londu left corner of the mouth, *lɔlduk, fold

tuka right cheek, *tuwkas cheek
kolna left cheek, *k'ɔlma chin

senti forehead
envə chin, *önüɛ jaw

ruxan right ear, *ruskan
cəvəl left ear, *kɛvl

ćimbi any tooth of the upper row of teeth, from *ksümbü, fang
lom any tooth of the lower row of teeth, from *lmɔ, tooth

ruanas hair, *ruhɔnaz
gotoka bald spot, *gotom leather

samǧa beard, *sawgas beard

Another pair of words with a similar pairing are the words for hands:

vilke right hand *xvülk'ö, hand
talto left hand *t'artwa, branch

The left-right symmetry of the human body is a very central concept in early Ćwarmin liturgies, rituals, myths and gestures.

The Terms of the Sargaĺk Tribute to the Bryatesle Empire

During the Ćwarmin expansion, the tribal warlords (sarku-tal, order-chieftain) often made agreements with conquered tribes with regards to the tribute they were expected to pay. As soon as literacy became a thing, most sarkutluwu (pl.indef) saw fit to have scribes record these agreements.

The Sargaĺk 'treaty' was originally agreed to by the village Marərki, one of the previously mainland Sargaĺk settlements. Instead of renegotiating the terms for each village, most other village's elders' councils agreed to having all of the Sargaĺk area enter into a similar deal, but simply changing the numbers.

The treaty was originally given in both Sargaĺk and Ćwarmin and preserved in oral form, with a large image carved into a rock, with three large images, separated by empty areas: the largest image depicting horse-carried soldiers, and villagers handing them sheep, fish and slaves, and a large depiction of Sarkutal Molčur, who led the expedition. The second 'image' consists of stylized pictures of different types of arctic livestock, boats, skin pelts, tents, all with very basic numbers underneath (unary notation, basically), and finally, a third similar image with a smaller number of fish types, a boat, a few types of livestock, a woman, a soldier, and a slave; each of these have numbers by them, but by the woman, the soldier and by the slave is also a second number crossed by a line, like so: II IIIII. Some numbers are circled - this signifies a number multiplied by 20. One circle contains the string IIII, signifying seventy, i.e. 3.5 * 20. (For those with screen-readers, the fourth I in the string is half as tall as the rest.)

These are basically pictures meant to help the communities remember what their obligations are. The first picture thus describes their submission to the Ćwarmin leader Molčur. The second picture describes the tribute Molčur exacted as an initial payment. The third picture depicts later, regular tributes. Most of the ones are paid yearly - the ones with only one number, that is. However, numbers like IIIII signifies every n:th year. This notation carried over to the written forms of the treaty. Only the yearly payments are part of the written treaty. 

Here are some samples of the text:

sargəsa mil cəwarta pehite Molčur u simiar u simižar  t'ošni-k-sud
sarg-plur we cəwar-peg chieftain Molčur and oldest sons and oldest living sons confirm-1pl-reflexive
'we, the sarg, confirm our allegiance to the chieftain Molčur and his oldest living male descendants'

mil-ta cəwar kŕder ops-ək-rus-olar
we-peg ćwar tax give-1pl-fut-hab

kŕder k'iva
tax is-3sg.fem ≃ (tax is (as follows):)

IIIII karaŋ
(5 boat)

(III) IIIII iknur
(65 seal skin jacket)

(IIIII) ĺpa
100 musk ox

(IIII) jajra garəc
70 measure whale_oil

II III mirluk asi IIIII III kosdo
two three soldier or five three slave
(two soldiers every third year or five slaves every third year)



I IIIIII miv-tat pehite-ta tame k'ilp tamu minu-m-əl-u-an
1 / 6 village-plur.peg.fem chieftain-peg(gen) son full daughter wife-caus.passive.ptcpl-caus_II-III.sg-pegative
the villages give a son of the chieftain an (adult) woman for a wife once in six years

Neither the Sargaĺk nor the Ćwarmin care particularly much about virginity. As the same arrangement was passed on to the Bryatesle empire, the recipient of the deal was the Bryatesle governor. Bryatesle culture, however, is very concerned with the virginity of brides. Since the deal was granted a rather solemn status, however, the Bryatesle governor cannot do anything to add a condition regarding the virginity of the brides. Some Sarg women see the bride-tribute as an opportunity to climb socially and get away from a relatively poor and harsh environment, other Sarg see it as an opportunity to cause considerable embarassment to the son of a governor. Some governors, or their sons, have in fact refused to abide by that term of the contract for this particular reason, which is something that does not particularly bother the Sarg. The Sarg sometimes point to such violations on the part of the Bryatesle as a justification for not paying some other part of the tribute. Thus, sometimes, only people found to be criminals in the eyes of the Sargaĺk are sent as soldiers or slaves, depending on their crime.

A Ćwarmin and a Bryatesle version of these text snippets will appear later.

Awareness of Vowel Harmony in the Ćwarmin-Ŋʒädär World

Although, much like in our world, vowel harmony comes in many different forms in the Bryatesle-Dairwueh-Sargaĺk-Ćwarmin-Ŋʒädär world, speakers of vowel harmony languages seem to be aware of it as a typological trait that is missing from some languages but present in some. In fact, all the tribes that speak vowel-harmony languages share a certain addendum to the just-so stories of why there are many languages.

The usual narratives throughout the continent do not per se attribute any subjective qualities to the languages themselves – the attributes generally refer to each language's suitability for being spoken in its environment, often using pretty bad reasoning about it. 

Often in these stories, the gods find that the world is less than it could be – mankind is organized, but badly. They find that the language that all mankind speaks is not good enough for the different needs the tribes have. Sometimes, a trickster god enters into the picture here, making the different languages be unintelligible - when this bit is present in the narrative, the gods usually planned for everyone to understand every language, but also for everyone to speak only the one relevant to their environment.

Now, speakers of languages with vowel harmony often add a little side plot to these narratives: the theme then being that some tribes were granted an aesthetical advantage over others: vowel harmony. Usually, the other groups are described as incapable of controlling some of their urges, and they thereby fail to live up to agreements they've done with the gods (or God) in exchange for getting their linguistic situation improved. 

As a punishment, "the beautiful sound of words", vowel harmony, was taken from them.

Fun With Numerals in Ćwarmin

Unlike the western languages Sargaĺk, Bryatesle and Dairwueh, the Ćwarmin-Ŋʒädär languages have generally had rather complicated morphology for their numerals. Ćwarmin, for instance, forms

1. cardinals
2. ordinals
3. denominators
4. every n:th
5. number of repetitions (twice, thrice)
6. quantified comparison (twice, thrice)
7. quantified comparison denominators (half as, a third as)
8. n-by-n, 'by n:s', 'alone, pairwise, triplet-wise, etc'
9. groups of people (duo, trio, quartet, ...)
10. a compound form for non-cardinals
11. existential quantifier predicate

The cardinals basically are the unmarked, basic numerals. One, two and three have special roots for other forms, with 'one' having three different roots in total.

one: er(si) (1, 10, (5, alternative form)), nir (2, 3, 4, 5), nus (6,  7, 8, 9, 11)
two: mer (1, 10, (5, alternative form)), kom- (all the others)
three: siker (1, 10, (5, alternative form)), umu- (all the others)

Ordinals are formed using the morpheme -itkə-/-utko-, which is closely related to the definite marker. Denominators ('a fifth of') are expressed by the morpheme -ertə-/-orto-, which originates with the ablative marker. Expressing ratios like 'two fifths' use the compound form of two in combination with the denominator form of five:

foŋ-ur miŋv-ertə
two-COMP five-DENOM

The 'every n:th' form seems to be a merger of the ordinal and the rational: -ertitk(ə)-/-ortutk(o)-.

əntertitkə
əntel-ertitkə
seven-"every:nth"
every seventh

Number of repetitions are marked in two different ways: either by having a marker derived from the instrumental marker -ep- (the reduced form is -iv- or -uv- (on the ordinal root, or by having the morpheme used to form habitual verbs, -alra-/-elrə- on the cardinal root. For most numerals, these are identical.

Quantified comparison is also formed in two different ways: -itiv-/-utuv- (from the definiteness marker and the instrumental marker), or -aŋźav-/-əŋźəv-, where -aŋ-/-əŋ- is related to the verbal marker -aŋźu-, signifying out-doing someone. 

Quantifying denominators are formed using -riv- or -ruv-, partially from the ablative, partially from the instrumental markers.

The n-by-n / 'social number' / etc is formed using the suffix -adaŋ/-ədəŋ. This is related to an adverbial marker -daŋ/-dəŋ. The use of this form is slightly more wide than 'n by n'. It is mainly used for expressing that some group of people do or did something in such and such number, e.g. 'they built the house, three guys, in a week'. Can also express social situations, 'we were there, just the two of us'. 'Alone' is also formed using this construction.

It can also express distributions and arrangements - things that are arranged in pairs, in triplets, etc. It is used as an adverbial, complement or sometimes attributally as an adjective.

nusadaŋ: alone, singly
komadaŋ: pairwise, 'together (re: two people)'
umadaŋ: triplet-wise, 'together (re three people)'

Duos, trios, etc - in any context - are formed using the suffix -arn/-ern. This suffix can also be used with adjectives to signify '[adj] ones'. This differs from the previous form in not being used adverbially or adjectivally.

nusarn: a person, a unit of personhood

sometimes, a joking form 'ersiərn' is used; this denotes someone who by themselves does the work of several people; he or she by themself is sufficient to be counted as some kind of 'group'

komarn: duo
umarn: trio

The compound form is used to express things like 'five thirds' or 'three halves' or whenever else one needs to count the number of some type of numeral (usually with the rational numbers; with 'every n:th' it signifies 'pick x, once every y', with the social number, it gives number of n-sized groups), number of duos, trios, etc. It is marked by -ur/-ir.

amb-ur əner-ədəŋ
eight-COMP nine-tuplet
(arranged as) eight sets of nine

The existential quantifier is basically used as a predicate expressing 'there were N of subj'. It is formed using -kece/-kaca, which might be somewhat related to the -amca complement case. The use of the existential quantifier is somewhat wider than 'there is/was/were N of subj' would imply: you also get it in constructions like 'five people know how to do that' - with 'know' in a participal form:

iś kəl-ejn miŋ-kece
it-acc know-theirs five-PRED
there are five people who know this