Kagatoni language

Kagatoni
kagaṭonye zyna
Pronunciation	[kagatʼoɲe ʑna]
Native to	Central Etzavazi Republic (Kagatonah)
Ethnicity	Kagatoni people
Native speakers	~38 million (4623)
Language family	Crinat Central Norcal Kagatoni
Early form	Old Kagatoni
Writing system	Verethian script
Official status
Official language in	Central Etzavazi Republic (Kagatonah)
Languages of the Central Etzavazi Republic (areas where Kagatoni is the majority in red)

Kagatoni (kagaṭonye zyna [kagatʼoɲe ʑna]) is a Ćrinat language spoken in the Central Etzavazi Republic. As the national language of Kagatonah, it is one of three co-official languages of the Central Etzavazi Republic, alongside Talozhi and Mesvadi. Its closest relatives are Bachỹty and Socal.

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant phonemes in Kagatoni

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɲ	(ŋ)	(ɴ)
Stop	Plain	p	t		k	q
	Ejective		tʼ		kʼ	qʼ
Affricate	Plain		t͡ɕ
	Ejective		t͡ɕʼ
Fricative		v	s	ɕ ʑ ç ʝ			h
Approximant		ʋ	l	j
Trill			r

Vowels

Vowel phonemes in Kagatoni

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	[e]	[ə]	[o]
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open	[æ]	a	[ɑ]

Kagatoni also has two diphthongs: /ɛi̯/ and /ɔu̯/.

Grammar

Typical of Ćrinat languages, Kagatoni is an agglutinative language that relies heavily on affixation. It has a split-ergative morphosyntactic alignment, where nouns can exhibit ergative-absolutive or absolutive-oblique alignment depending on the sentence.

Verbs

Aspect

Kagatoni distinguishes between three verbal aspects: imperfective (unmarked), perfective (-(i)k-, or -eik word-finally) and progressive (-l(i)-). The imperfective aspect is used for actions that are currently occurring and/or incomplete. On stative verbs, it generally has an inchoative sense:

Ḳrye

sleep.IPFV

ingeiny

PL-child-ABS

Ḳrye ingeiny

sleep.IPFV PL-child-ABS

"The children are falling asleep"

Without a tense marker, the perfective aspect is used for events that have completed in the immediate past. For stative verbs, the perfective aspect conveys a sense of something relevant to the current moment; going back to the previous example:

Ḳryek

sleep-PFV

ingeiny

PL-child-ABS

Ḳryek ingeiny

sleep-PFV PL-child-ABS

"The children are asleep"

The progressive aspect is often used to emphasize that the action is happening in the current moment, with no certain endpoint. This distinguishes it from the imperfective's sense of general truth. For example, while the phrases dala nei kagaṭonye zynaye (imperfective) and dalal nei kagaṭonye zynaye (progressive) can both be translated to "I speak Kagatoni", the imperfective phrase implies that the speaker knows how to speak Kagatoni, whereas the progressive phrase states that the speaker is speaking Kagatoni right now. Furthermore, the progressive phrase's ergativity can be unsplit into dalal nika kagaṭonye zyna to emphasize the contrast with a general fact, and perhaps imply a lack of the speaker's confidence in their ability to speak the language.

Mood

Kagatoni possesses two marked grammatical moods: conditional (-se-) and imperative (-sa-). While the conditional can be used in a general irrealis sense, it is most often used to make "if"-statements. In the imperfective aspect, the conditional expresses a condition generally situated in the future: mudokase "If it rains...". This form of the verb can be used informally as a future tense, as well as for suggestions. The equivalent to English "then" is expressed with the sequence particle nye, placed after the following clause's verb: hiq̇ase, gehy nye "If [you] eat [it], [you'll] die". When paired with the perfective aspect, the conditional expresses a condition that could have happened in the past: mudokakse "If it rained..."

Tense

Kagatoni only distinguishes between a nonpast and a past tense (-or(a)). The past tense ending is only used for events in the remote past, and can otherwise often be substituted for the perfective aspect.

Non-finite forms

The infinitive in Kagatoni is marked with the prefix k(i)-. This also serves the purpose of a nominalizer or gerund: peiny "to love" → kipeiny "love"; gota "to suffer" → kigota "suffering". This form is generally indeclinable, but can sometimes take case endings.

Copulas

There are two copular verbs in Kagatoni: the affirmative copula ṭi and the negative copula honka. Although their base meanings can be translated as "to be" and "to not be" respectively, these verbs serve a variety of purposes. As a rule, they are always-split (that is, nouns within their clause follow the absolutive-oblique alignment), although they can be unsplit to express the sense of "there is(n't)":

Ṭi

COP

igitka.

cow-ERG

Honka

COP.NEG

igit

cow.ABS

kriya.

white

Ṭi igitka. Honka igit kriya.

COP cow-ERG COP.NEG cow.ABS white

"There is a cow. The cow is not white."

The attribute of a copula can be marked with the instrumental case to express the sense of "to (not) have":

Ṭi

COP

nei

1S.ABS

imbuhqa

dog-INSTR

Ṭi nei imbuhqa

COP 1S.ABS dog-INSTR

"I have a dog"

When following a conjugated verb, the negative copula forms the negation of that verb. It is generally left unconjugated and follows the verb's subject, in that way almost being used as an adverb:

Gehyeik

die-PFV

nei

1S.ABS

honka

COP.NEG

Gehyeik nei honka

die-PFV 1S.ABS COP.NEG

"I did not die"

Copulas can also precede a verb in its infinitive form to denote ability (or inability). The infinitive verb is then placed after the subject, as though it were a noun:

Ṭi

COP

nei

1S.ABS

kiba

INF-cook

imprye

fish-OBL

Ṭi nei kiba imprye

COP 1S.ABS INF-cook fish-OBL

"I can cook the fish" lit. 'I can [do] the cooking [of] the fish'

Furthermore, if the object of the sentence is marked with the genitive case, the sentence takes on a causative meaning:

Ṭi

COP

nei

1S.ABS

buda

2S-GEN

kigike

INF-choose

Ṭi nei buda kigike

COP 1S.ABS 2S-GEN INF-choose

"I [will] make you choose" lit. 'I [will] be your choosing'

Nouns

Case

Kagatoni nouns decline five grammatical cases: absolutive, oblique, genitive, ergative and instrumental.

Examples

	Final -p, -k		Final -t		Vowel final (truncating)		Vowel final (non-truncating)
	Suffix	Example: imbuk ("dog")	Suffix	Example: quhlit ("bow")	Suffix	Example: laṭka ("green (n.)")	Suffix	Example: ṭo ("swamp")
Absolutive	-∅	imbuk	-∅	quhlit	-∅	laṭka	-∅	ṭo
Oblique	-e	imbuk-e	-ʲe	quhli-tye	=e	laṭk-e	-ye	ṭo-ye
Genitive	-da	imbun-da	-ta	quhlit-ta	-da	laṭka-da	-da	ṭo-da
Ergative	-ka	imbuk-ka	-ka	quhlit-ka	-ka	laṭka-ka	-ka	ṭo-ka
Instrumental	-qa	imbuh-qa	-qa	quhlit-qa	-q	laṭka-q	-qa	ṭo-qa

However, some nouns ending in vowels have an "inherent nasal", which reflects a former nasal vowel which was denasalized in all environments except before stops. This nasal is therefore absent from the absolutive case form, but present in all others. Hence, ha "sand" yields hanye, handa, hanka, hanqa instead of *haye, *hada, *haka, *haqa. Also as a consequence, polysyllabic nouns do not elide their final vowel; hence osa "bull" yields oblique osanye and instrumental osanqa instead of *ose and *osaq respectively.

Number

Kagatoni distinguishes between singular and plural number. The plural is marked with the prefix (i)n-.

Examples

	Vowel initial		Voiceless stop initial		Initial m-		Other consonants
	Prefix	Example: osa ("bull")	Prefix	Example: ṭan ("woman")	Prefix	Example: miqna ("month")	Prefix	Example: halga ("metal")
Plural	n-	n-osa	n-	n-ṭan	im-	im-miqna	in-	in-halga

Syntax

Word order

Word order in Kagatoni follows a Verb-Subject-Object (VSO) order. For example, the sentence "I read a book" can be expressed as follows:

Qola

read

nei

1S.ABS

ihe

book-OBL

Qola nei ihe

read 1S.ABS book-OBL

Relative clauses

Relative clauses are marked with the relativizer suffix -qa, placed on the relative clause's verb. When used on stative verbs, this can become a participle-forming suffix. When directly preceding the relativizer suffix, the perfective aspect suffix shifts from -(i)k- to -(i)q-: ṭilni biyaqqa "broken nose".