ANTARCTICAN GRAMMAR (XOXOTE NAPAAKISU UU)

 

This is a comprehensive description of Antarctican grammar in English. Below will list all the different subsections of the grammar and roughly how it works. The grammar and language presented here will be from the capital city dialect of the language which is regarded as the standard language for all official purposes throughout the country.

 

I:          PHONOLOGY

 

Antarctican has a relatively simple phonology as far as world languages go. There are a total of 15 phonemes in the language. There are 10 consonants and 5 vowels. There are slightly different phonemes for each of the dialects of Antarctican but all of the dialects are mutually intelligible. The only differences between the dialects are slightly different places of articulation of the consonants and vowels, as well as differing word stress.

 

CONSONANTS

 

Voiceless bilabial plosive

/p/

can be realized as the allophones [pʰ] , [p] or [b] depending on dialect and position of the word in a sentence.

Voiceless alveolar plosive

/t/

can be realized as the allophones [tʰ], [t] or [d] depending on dialect and position of the word in a sentence

Voiceless velar plosive

/k/

can be realized as the allophones [kʰ], [k] or [g] depending on dialect and position of the word in a sentence.

Bilabial nasal

/m/

can be realized as the allophones [m] and [ɱ] depending on dialect and position of the word in a sentence.

Alveolar nasal

/n/

can be realized as the allophones [n] and [ŋ] depending on dialect and position of the word in a sentence

Voiceless labiodental fricative

/f/

can be realized as the allophones [f], [v], [ɸ] and [β] depending on dialect and position of the word in a sentence

Voiceless alveolar fricative

/s/

can be realized as the allophones [s] and [z] depending on dialect and position of the word in a sentence

Voiceless postalveolar fricative

/ʃ/

can be realized as the allophones [ʃ], [ʒ], [ʂ] and [ʐ] depending on dialect and position of the word in a sentence

Voiceless glottal fricative

/h/

can be realized as the allophones [h], [ħ] and [ʔ] depending on dialect and position of the word in a sentence

Alveolar lateral approximant

/l/

can be realized as the allophones [l] and [ɫ] depending on dialect and position of the word in a sentence.

 

 

VOWELS

 

Near-open front unrounded vowel

/æ/

can be realized as the allophones [æ] and [ɑ] depending on dialect and position of the word in a sentence.

Open-mid front unrounded vowel

/ɛ/

can be realized as the allophones [ɛ] and [e] depending on dialect and position of the word in a sentence.

Close front unrounded vowel

/i/

can be realized as the allophones [i] and [ɪ] depending on dialect and position of the word in a sentence.

Close mid-back rounded vowel

/o/

can be realized as the allophones [o] and [ɔ] depending on dialect and position of the word in a sentence.

Close back rounded vowel

/u/

can be realized as the allophones [u] and [ʊ] depending on dialect and position of the word in a sentence.

 

 

 

II:         ORTHOGRAPHY

 

The Antarctican language uses the latin alphabet for its writing system. There are 15 letters in the alphabet. They are:

 

A, E, F, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, S, T, U, X

 

The letters are generally pronounced as follows:

 

A

/æ/

E

/ɛ/

F

/f/

H

/h/

I

/i/

K

/k/

L

/l/

M

/m/

N

/n/

O

/o/

P

/p/

S

/s/

T

/t/

U

/u/

X

/ʃ/

 

Writing the vowels twice in a row lengthens the quality of the vowels: AA, EE, II, OO, UU

 

 

III:        SYNTAX

 

First it must be stated that the Antarctican language is an isolating language following the convention of - Subject, Verb, Predicate (SVO). There are virtually no prefixes, suffixes or declension of any type in the language. Word order is extremely important in conveying ideas as changing around the word order can completely change the meaning of a sentence. In this respect, the language is similar to Chinese, Vietnamese, Indonesian and to a certain extent English as far as syntax is concerned.

 

 

NOUNS

 

Nouns are not inflected for number, case, gender, definiteness or anything else for that matter. Usually plurals are indicated by context or when context is unavailable, a numerical quantifier is placed in front of the noun (i.e. five banana, a few apple). Case is indicated by word positioning in the sentence and by the use of various prepositional particles that precede the noun. Using the particle “faso” after the thing being possessed indicates possession. For example to say John's car, you would say "Nexune faso John" which means "Car of John". Posessive pronouns are formed by using the particle "faso" before the pronoun in question (I, me = ei) and (my = faso ei) and are usually placed after the noun they modify (i.e. Nexune faso ei = My car). Definiteness (a, the) of the noun is specified by the context as there is no other way to ascertain it syntactically.

 

 

PRONOUNS

 

The pronomial system in Antarctican is slightly different than those in most European languages. There are actually 4 persons and 2 plurals as Antarctican distinguishes between animate and inanimate third person. The pronouns are as follows:

 

Ei

(1st person singular)

Oa

(2nd person singular)

Oi

(3rd person singular animate)

Io

(3rd person singular inanimate)

Eu

(1st person plural)

Ea

(2nd person plural)

Ia

(3rd person plural animate)

Ie

(3rd person plural inanimate)

 

 

 

VERBS

 

Verbs also are not normally inflected for tense or aspect and are usually understood from context or through adverbials. However, if clarification is required, then there are a system of grammatical particles which can make clear the context of when the action of the verb took place as well as whether or not it was completed (aspect of the verb). It should be noted in every day conversation that these particles are not often used and are normally only used when clarification is needed or in writing. It should also be noted that there are 3 moods of the verb: Indicative, Conditional and Imperative. However, the mood is also not often morphologically realized in the vernacular. The subjunctive mood does not exist in Antarctican.

 

Here are the different optional grammatical particles that can be used to indicate tense and aspect. I will use the example of the verb to go to illustrate how these particles are used.

 

I go / I am going

Ei nitati / Ei nitati oo

I will/shall go

Ei nitati ua

I have gone

Ei nitati ui

I went

Ei nitati ui

I had gone

Ei nitati ui

I will have gone

Ei nitati ua ui

I will be going

Ei nitati ua oo / Ei nitati ua

I was going

Ei nitati ui oo

I would go

Ei nitati ue

I would have gone

Ei nitati ue ui

Go!

(Oa) nitati!

 

The specific meaning of the particles is as follows:

 

ui

past tense

ua

future tense

oo

action is not completed (aspect)

ue

conditional mood

 

NOTE: The grammatical particles above don’t exactly correspond to their English equivalents in some cases.

 

 

COPULA

 

The verb ‘to be’ in Antarctican is ‘hehupa’. However, this is only used where both the agent and the patient of the sentence (i.e. subject and object) are both nouns. If the object is an adjective, then the verb to be is omitted in which case you have what is called ‘zero copula’. However, if you have a situation where the copula is in the past or future tense, then you can the verb ‘to be’ with the corresponding tense or aspect marker (this is still optional though if the context is understood) For example:

 

Paris is a city = Paliise hehupa tuxo

Paris is big = Paliise nonaxi

Paris was big = Paliise hehupa ui nonaxi.

 

Note in the 1st and 3rd examples, the verb to be is used either because the object is a noun or not in the present tense.

 

 

PASSIVE VOICE

 

There is a passive voice in Antarctican in addition to the active voice. To change a sentence to the passive voice, just reverse the subject and

object of the sentence and add the passive voice marker ‘kusose’ before the subject. If the subject is unknown or is unimportant, then you don’t

add the subject after the ‘kusose’. For example:

 

This book is written by John = Hohupi semesu kekesu kusose John

My arm is broken = Hapuha faso ei papi kusose

 

Note in the second example, the subject is unimportant, and so nothing is written after ‘kusose’.

 

 

CLAUSES

 

In Antarctican, there are different words used to denote relative pronouns versus interrogative pronouns. In English for example, the words ‘who’ ‘that’ and ‘where’ can be either. It’s also important to note that unlike languages like English, all verbs in Antarctican must have a subject attached to the beginning of a dependent clause. There is also no distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive clauses. For example:

 

I know who did this = Ei hexupa malofu oi xuxina ui fukako semesu [literally – I know who (conj.) he do (past) thing this]

 

 

 

ADJECTIVES AND DEMONSTRATIVES

 

Adjectives and demonstratives usually come after the noun they modify. In the case of adjectives, greetings are an exception to this rule (eg. Puxuna xohupa = good day (greeting), Xohupa puxuna = It’s a good day (this specific day is good). Adjectives and demonstratives don’t take any declension at all unlike in some European languages. If there is more than one adjective describing the noun, then you place the more prominent one directly after the noun followed by the least prominent one. If it is unclear which one is more prominent or all the adjectives seem to be of equal prominence, then the word order among the adjectives is fairly free.

 

The Blue Car - Nexune pexinu

The Red and White Flag - Hatona fufuku kafemu   

 

Hatona - Flag

Fufuku - Red

Kafemu - White.

 

To show comparison between adjectives (i.e. big, bigger, biggest), you add adverbials

 

Big - nonaxi

bigger - nonaxi lusola (more big)

biggest - nonaxi kilulo (most big)

 

 

This house – Toxihu semesu

These houses – Toxihu semesu (can only distinguish from context or with an adverb or numerical quantifier)

 

Demonstratives can’t stand on their own like in other languages where they are often used as pronouns. In this case, you need to add something before it for it to be grammatical. For example:

 

This is a truck = Fukako semesu hehupa mesisi.

 

This translates literally as ‘Thing this is truck’. You can’t just say ‘Semesu hehupa mesisi’ as it wouldn’t make sense grammatically in Antarctican as demonstratives can only modify other words like adjectives and can’t stand on their own.

 

 

 

 

ADVERBS

 

Adverbs are fairly free to be placed anywhere in the sentence as long as their context is clear. If it is unclear as to which part of speech the adverb is modifying, then the adverb should be placed after the part of speech it is modifying.

 

I am really happy. - Ei fefake aa hetexe.

 

Or you can say - Ei hetexe fefake aa.

 

Either way is correct as the adverb (fefake aa) is free to move around in the sentence.

 

 

WORD CLASSES

 

Each word in Antarctican comes with its own default word class - whether it be Noun, Verb, Adjective or Adverb. In order to change each word from its default word class into another word class, you simply add a grammatical particle. Here are the grammatical particles:

 

ai

change word into a noun from original word class

ii

change word into a verb from original word class

aa

change word into an adverb from original word class

uu

change word into an adjective from original word class

uo

change word into a person/thing that does the word in question (i.e. carpentry - carpenter)

au

only used to change cardinal numbers into adjectival ordinal numbers (i.e. one - first), and does not apply to any other word class except numbers.

 

For other word classes such as: demonstratives, pronouns, modifiers and conjunctions; these words can not be transformed and simply remain in their original word classes. To add a word class change particle with these words would make the utterance ungrammatical for all intents and purposes.

 

 

NOTE: I would say that 70-80% of the vocabulary are verbs by their default word class, so if in doubt, unless it’s obvious otherwise, assume that most words are verbs.

 



MAKING A QUESTION OUT OF A STATEMENT

 

If you want to make question out of a statement, then you just add the word ‘kiaa’ after the end of the statement and it automatically makes it into a question. This does not apply if there is already a question word at the beginning of the sentence such as ‘what’, ‘where’ ‘how’ etc.

Example:

 

This is a book. = Fukako semesu hehupa hohupi.

This is a book? = Fukako semesu hehupa hohupi kiaa?

 

 

 

 

IV:        CONCLUSION

 

This is a quick explanation of Antarctican grammar. This sheet is not meant to be a full explanation of all the different ins and outs of the language as there is some variation among the dialects as to which features of the optional grammar are used or not. I have mainly outlined a sketch of the grammar of the standard language of the capital city. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to e-mail me at: [email protected] for more information.

 

Damien Ponech

2008

 

 

 

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