Old Greedian (revamping scratchpad)

[Vilike]

Outer context
I created the first two versions of this language for a friend's SF novel, or rather, for its sequel (which is alas unlikely to come out). I based it on the names provided by the author, and as they were not much thought out (think Hor'blis, Sa'ak, Bijakhine, Cervalien, Orphane, Makor) I had a hard time coming with a coherent phonology.
V2 is described a bit here (in French) and here. I let it sleep for some years, and recently decided to make something prettier out of it, informed by my wider knowledge as a linguist (I was only interested in Chinese, Russian, & Arabic back then).
I am not sure my description of tone is at all clear. I was inspired by Otjiherero and by that paper by Aidan Aannestad.

Inner context
Old Greedian, as the name indicates, is an ancient form of the Greedian language spoken by the Greedians (red aliens with a cucumber-shaped head) in the xxɪᴠ^th century, where it plays the role of a ritual language. Its autonym is Geree thual "Greedians' speech".

Phonology

Consonants
There are 18 consonants, although the phonemic status of /w/ is doubtful: it may be that all occurrences of it are non-syllabic /u/.

• Stops: /p t k pʰ tʰ kʰ b d ɡ/ <p t k ph th kh b d g>
• Fricatives: /s z/ <s z>
• Nasals: /m n ŋ/ <m n ng>
• Approximants: /w j l r/ <w y l r>

Vowels
There are five short vowels /a e i o u/ and three long ones /aː eː oː/ <aa ee oo>.

Phonotactics
The maximum shape of the syllable is CVVC, where the only restrictions are that /ŋ/ cannot be an onset, nor /j w/ codas. Two vowels in a syllable are resolved in the following manner:

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1st\2nd		a	e	i	o	u
a		aa	aa	aa	aa	aa
e		ee	ee	ee	ee	ee
i		ia	ie	i	io	iu
o		oo	oo	oo	oo	oo
u		ua	ue	ui	uo	u

What happens there is that after low vowels everything is assimilated, and before high + low vowel, the preceding consonant (if any) is palatalised/labialized. But /ii uu/ are shortened to [i u].
Ex: kiat /kìàt/ [kʲàt] arm; hand buem /bùèm/ [bʷèm] finger; toe rǐ /rìí/ [rǐ] to eat.
High + low vowel without an initial consonant are resolved by the high vowels becoming glides: /ùó/ > [wǒ] wǒ to open.
As we can see, such an analysis of "two vowels are possible as a nucleus" is needed to explain tone. More on that below.

Some internal clusters are disallowed:

• *-lr- becomes -rr-
• Consonants + glide become Consonants + palatalisation/labialisation
• n assimilates to the place of articulation of a following labial or velar
• The second obstruent of a cluster agrees in voicing with the first: *-bt- > -bd-, *-pd- > -pt-

Prosody

Stress
Stress comes at the end of words, except for some interjections and VN compounds, where it stays on the end of the verb.
Orthographically, non-final stress is marked by an apostrophe after the stressed syllable: Saa'yak [ˈsaːjak] potential is freed (a name).

Basic tones
There are two basic tones, High and Low. They organise themselves into melody onto words, mapped onto morae; long vowels count for 2 morae, as do strings of vowel + word-final sonorant.
HH is disallowed in roots, but this isn't the case for words: ígíti swelling; tumour, with a HHL melody, is valid because it involves a reduplicative affix #CVg-.
Some morae don't have an inherent tone; it surfaces as a L.

Tones in contact
When a mora must bear two dissimilar tones, for example after vowel reduction, the rightmost tone moves, pushing following tones rightwards until one can settle on a mora with the same tone or without inherent tone (∅ in the melody). Ex:
ǐ /ìí/ [ǐ] mountain has a LH melody, and with the locative clitic na, which has no tone, it gives i ná /ìí na/ [ì ná].

If there is no free mora at the end, the clashing tones combine thus (with /a/ as an example):

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1st\2nd		H	L
H		á	â
L		ǎ	à

If by chance a prosodic morpheme must settle on final rising (LH) or falling (HL) syllables, the melody is simplified by deleting the middle tone: HLH > H, etc. Ex:
wǒ to open + ̀# "action/patient nominalisation" > wo [wò] hole.

However, syllables closed by an obstruent cannot bear contour tones and the last level tone is deleted until a ∅ affix or clitic comes next. Ex:
phiús hard; solid; clear /pʰíùs/ > [pʰʲús], a HL melody surfacing as H; then with the H∅ suffix -ékhe we get phiúsekhé to focus; to harden /pʰíùsékʰe/ [pʰʲúsèkʰé], with a HLH melody.

Orthography remark: low tone is normally not written (à > a) outside discussion of the melody of affixes. Neither is tone on word-final sonorants, being written on the previous vowel: thus thílîm king not thílím̀.

Grammatical tone
There is an extra-low tone (noted ạ) that is only used in the negation of verbs.

The predicative copula is an upstep on the predicate, indicated by an em-dash after it:
Or — dua <small 1sg> I'm small /ꜛòr ꜜdùà/, distinct from or dua small me.

[Vilike]

Nouns
Nouns in Old Greedian know almost no inflection, only derivation; but in order to expand this post a bit I shall also say a word about the nominal clitics.

Why almost
Some nouns, mainly of body parts, get a prefix bu- or bi- before the root that disappears in compounds. So we have birip joint, but nígrip knee (níg leg; foot).

Derivation from other nouns and adjectives

• -bà: collective
• -kù: singulative
• -lang: object, person characterised by
• -il: descendant of
• -ri: tool
• -dìyáà: place
• -pód: abstraction; domain of application
• gù(y) ́- (floating H tone): user of
• lé-: resembling
• #CVs- (initial reduplication): diminutive
• #CVg- (initial reduplication): augmentative; intensive

Derivation from verbs

• thí- ̀# (floating final L tone): "good" agent nominalisation
• èp- ̀# (floating final L tone): "bad" agent nominalisation
• kh(a)- ̀# (floating final L tone): tool, body part
• -ri: tool, instrument
• - ̀# (floating final L tone): action/patient nominalisation

Compounds
Nouns (and adjectives) can be joined freely in head-final compounds:

• buóp string+ ta music instrument > ópta harp (remember the deal with the bu- prefix)
• pér neck + lí back; behind > pérlí nape
• phiús hard + naáp water > phiúsnaáp ice

Of note are the VN compounds, where the N is a Patient or an Experiencer. The stress is on the verb root.

Syntactic clitics
There are only two clitics in Old Greedian to express all syntactical relations save Agent, Patient and Possessor (which have no markers at all).
These are na locative/directive & li instrumental/comitative.

Time clitics
The subject of the verb may be followed by a clitic clarifying the time at which the sentence takes place.
There are three of them: na present, raa past & diu future.

[Vilike]

Verbal inflection
There is a little more inflection on the Old Greedian verb than on the nouns, though most things are expressed by verbal particles, auxiliaries (mood and aspect) and nominal particles (time).

Agreement
When a subject (noun or pronoun) has already been mentioned or is going to be next clause, there is anaphoric/cataphoric marking on the verb with the suffix -ìt (- ̀t after a vowel). Is the technical term 'switch-reference'?

Gazéem tob dua raa ló khaádit.
man hit 1ꜱ ᴘꜱᴛ therefore leave-ꜱꜱ
A man hit me so I left.

Sák rit es radékhe korósîm.
2ꜱ eat-ꜱꜱ and crumble bread
You eat it and the bread crumbles.

Negation
Verbal negation involves an extra-low tone noted here with an underdot, as well as a vowel change known as polarisation, where each short vowel changes into its "opposite", that is:

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|Simple		|a	|e	|i	|o	|u|
|Polarised	|u	|u	|o	|i	|e|

Polysyllabic verbs are negated with their last vowel being polarised and getting an extra-low tone:
boró to teach > borị
If the last mora bears no phonological tone, as is often the case with the ingressive suffix -ékhe, the penultimate gets to change instead:
ayékhe to lift > ayụkhe

Monosyllabic verbs suffix their polarised, extra-lowered vowel (with a -w- between if there's no coda):
phar to throw > pharụ

Long vowels do not polarise and if the verb ends with one the negation is then always carried by a suffixed -(w)ạ:
ráa to bite > ráawa
This encompasses short high vowels coming from contractions:
rǐ /rìí/ to eat > rǐwạ

The copula (which is an upstep) has a special negative form siụ /sìȕ/[sʲȕ].

Derivation
(This may not be an exhaustive list)

On verbs:

• zèé-/zèw ́-: factitive, "to help to"
• nò(y)-: "to secretly do"
• mà(y)-: "to do proudly"
• CVl- (partial reduplication): iterative, intensive
• -sià: "to do before"
• -gù: "to do after""

On nouns and adjectives:

• zèé-/zèw ́-: factitive, "to help to"
• -ékhe: ingressive