Rikutsaren

Rikutsaren Rikutsaren
Type
Agglutinative
Alignment
SOV
Head direction
head-final
Tonal
No
Declensions
Yes
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
Yes
Nouns decline according to...
Case	Number
Definiteness	Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice	Mood
Person	Number
Tense	Aspect

Rikutsaren (IPA: /riˈku.t͡sa.ren/) is a language spoken by the inhabitants of Rikutsar, a fictional island nation in the southeast Indian Ocean. It was created in the 430s AD by its two Empresses and a committee of 30 other people. More can be found here.

History

Rikutsaren evolved from a larger family of originally alien languages called the Lenidian languages.

Though largely derived from Low Lithon II, Rikutsaren is influenced also by the other Lenidian languages and languages of Earth.

Vocabulary

The vocabulary of Rikutsaren is constantly being developed. Currently there are 1899 words in Rikutsaren, and the full list of them can be found here.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labio-velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m			n
Plosive (Stop)	b p			t d			k g
Affricate				ts dz	tʃ dʒ
Fricative		f v		s z	ʃ ʒ		x ɣ			h
Approximant						j		w
Trill				r
Flap or tap
Lateral app.				l

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i / y	u
Mid	e / ø	o
Low	a

Phonotactics

Rikutsaren syllables form in (C)(C)V(C)(C).

• Forms consonant-vowel (CV) or consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) syllables starting at first consonant.
  • As a side note, syllables cannot end between vowels. As such, there can be as many as three vowels in a single syllable, though /i/ and /u/ tend to become semivowels in these situations. In the frequency counts shown here, diphthongs and triphthongs are consolidated into a single (v) for the sake of brevity and simplicity.
• For our purposes, Semivowels (S) are a subset of consonants (C).
• (S) only occur phonemically in syllable onset, but phonetically can appear in any prevocalic position.
• Clusters can occur anywhere in the syllable a single consonant would.
  • Clusters, unless initial or final, are always split between two syllables. For two consonants, it is divided directly in half, and for three or four consonants it is divided immediately after the second consonant (with minimal exceptions).

Clusters

Valid consonant clusters in Rikutsaren follow the rules below:

• /r/ cannot follow sibilants
• liquids cannot be initial or final
• liquids cannot precede other liquids
• affricates cannot form initial clusters
• /s/ can begin any cluster in any position unless a prior rule is violated
• clusters can only be initial when ending in a liquid or beginning in /s/, and can only be final when beginning in a liquid, nasal, or ending in /s/
• fricatives cannot precede fricatives
• affricates cannot precede affricates or fricatives
• /s/ and /z/ can end any cluster in any non-initial position unless a prior rule is violated
• /t/ can be final if preceded by a voiceless consonant

Allophones and Diphthongs

Vowels

(WIP)

Consonants

(WIP)

Stress

Penultimate syllables are always stressed, unless modified by a grammatical or derivation affix, in which case the word retains its root's stress position.

Writing System

Modern Rıkutsaren is written by its native speakers and the government of Rikutsar using the Rikutsaren Script. Transcriptions of Rikutsaren into languages that use the Latin alphabet are almost always made using the Rikutsaren Orthography

Nouns and Noun Phrases

Number

Singular nouns are unmarked. In the plural, nouns ending in vowels take the affix -c. For nouns ending in a consonant the rule is slightly more complicated. The most recent vowel in a root, the most recent strong vowel if part of a diphthong, (see Vowels) is repeated and then followed by -c in the plural; raol "monkey", raoloc "monkeys"; gwir "person", gwiric "people"

Any noun that refers to a group of multiple things will necessarily be plural, unless the noun refers to the group as a single unified whole (see [collective nouns] for details).

Definiteness

Definiteness of a noun is denoted by the the suffix -e, which is added to the noun it modifies. The plural form is -éc.

This affix was originally used as a general "catch-all" affix for words meaning "this", as well as "it", 3rd person singular pronouns, and a variety of other grammatical constructions.

Collective Nouns

Nouns that refer to a group of multiple things that are counted as a single unified whole are marked with the collective suffix -ao; rons "tree", ronsao forest; niadz "wolf", niadzao "pack of wolves"

Some nouns are collective by default, such as bituf "snow" or chugh "group". Referring to individual instances of these things is done by adding the count noun affix; bituf "snow", bitufut "snowflake"; chugh "group", chughut "element/member of a group"

Case

Nouns are inflected by 7 grammatical cases. These can be grouped into 3 categories depending on how the marked noun functions in the noun phrase: Morphosyntactic cases, Relative cases, and Spatial cases. Pronouns can also be inflected by case, but for the sake of brevity they will be included under the term "noun" for this section.

Morphosyntactic cases are used to modify a noun with any one of a specific set of thematic roles within a noun phrase. Specifically, they are used to mark whether a noun is an agent/experiencer (transitive/intransitive subject) or a patient/theme (direct object). There are 2 cases in this category: the Nominative and Accusative.

Relative cases are used to denote nouns with other types of thematic role, specifically those of instrument and recipient/beneficiary. It also denotes noun adjuncts, or nouns that modify other nouns, among other things. This category overlaps with the other two often. The four cases in this category are the Genitive, Possessive, Instrumental, and Dative.

Spatial cases are used to denote nouns that have a spatial relation within the noun phrase, such as location, direction, or origin. The only case in this category is the Locative.

Adpositions

Adpositions come after the noun, but also after any adjective that may modify it. Adpositions cannot exist in phrases that do not have nouns and are instead represented as adverbs in such environments.

Pronouns

Pronouns in Rikutsaren precede their complement.

Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns are listed in the table below. There are unique singular and plural forms, and gendered personal pronouns are created by adding -on- (masculine) or -ur- (feminine) to the end (or in the case of 3rd person singular pronouns, the beginning). As Rikutsaren has an affix-based verbal conjugation system, there are no subject pronouns, and these pronouns do not occur on their own.

	singular	plural
1st person	na	siel
2nd person	dath	le
3rd person	e	tan

Possessive Pronouns

Possession is marked by the Genitive case. Possessive pronouns are personal pronouns marked with the 2nd declension genitive case ending -i.

Correlative Pronouns

The correlative pronouns of Rikutsaren are remarkably orderly and consistent. They are constructed using two affixes for each axis of the table. Notably, some correlatives draw from more than two affixes depending on whether they act as a determiner, a pronoun, or an adverb. For example, for "where" words, the interrogatives use -gai, as do the adverbs, but the pronoun forms use -id instead.

		Where	What	Which	Who	When	How	Why
		id / gai	e / ethi	teo / elar	ir / gwir	aith	ach	ré
Interrogative	-as	gaias	eas	teoas	iras	aithas	achas	réas
Proximal	-	id	e	elar	ir	aith	ach	ré
Distal	chel-	chelid	chel*	chelelar	chelir	chelaith
None	ba-	bagai	baethi	bateo	bagwir	báith	bách	baré
Some	cy-	cygai	cyethi	cyteo	cygwir	cyaith	cyach	cyré
Every, Each, Any	feu-	feugai	feuethi	feuteo	feugwir	feuaith	feuach	feuré
Else, Other	se-	segai	séthi	seteo	segwir	seaith	seach	seré
All	ro-	rogai	rothi	roteo	rogwir	roaith	roach	roré

Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjectives are formed by adding the suffix -u to the end of a noun.Adverbs are formed by adding the suffix -ai to the end of a noun. In a noun-phrase the adjective always come after the noun they modify, but in a verb-phrase the adverb always comes before the verb (preserving the rule that verbs come last). For multiple adverbs or adjectives, the word o "and" splits them.

Degrees of Comparison

(WIP)

The Rikutsaren language uses 2 Degrees of Comparison,

	Comparative	Superlative
Positive	-veth	-sech
Equative	-cast
Negative	-baveth	-basech

"veth" and "sech" are used as Adverbs of Comparison, corresponding to "so" and "not so [much]" or "very" and "not as." When referring to an amount of something, the comparative affixes become standalone in verbal environments. (ex. "I have more." "Veth nemei.").

Verbs

Since Rikutsaren exhibits SOV alignment, verbs occur at the end of the sentence. Within a verb phrase, non-finite verbs appear last.

Verbs can be conjugated by person, tense, aspect, modality, and gender in Elder Rikutsaren. There are distinct markings for person in the singular vs. the plural, and verbs can be in the past, present, or future tense. Additionally, infinitive verb forms can be inflected for tense. Verbs typically have 438 possible forms as a result.

Person and Number

Rikutsaren has three tenses: past, present, and future. They occur consistently across all moods and aspects, and are represented by prefix immediately before the verb root.

gerund	-es
	past		present		future
	singular	plural	singular	plural	singular	plural
infinitive	ea-		é-		eo-
1st person	na-	sa-	ne-	se-	no-	so-
2nd person	da-	la-	de-	le-	do-	lo-
3rd person	ca-	ta-	ce-	te-	co-	to-

Aspect

Rikutsaren has four aspects represented by suffixes on the verb:

• The Perfective aspect (which is unmarked) represents an action that was, is, or will be complete, no matter the tense, and also a non-habitual (generic) action. Thus it is called complete and generic.
• The Frequentative aspect represents a complete action that is habitual.
  • it is marked using reduplication. specifically, it uses the most recent consonant and the stressed vowel in the word.
  • leor > leoror, arnuver > arnuverur; watke > watkeka, liwé > liwéwi
• The Imperfective aspect (marked by -wa) represents an incomplete action that is generic, analogous to the continuous aspect in English.
• The Habitual aspect (marked by -si) represents an incomplete and habitual action. In the early notes while developing this aspect system, this was code named the "pledged" aspect because it is analogous to English phrases where someone has pledged to do something, regardless of whether or not they've begun yet.
  • For example "I have been walking", "I am walking", and "I will be walking", where "walking" refers to a habitual exercise, would all fall under the habitual aspect.

Modality

Rikutsaren represents modality, as it does many grammatical concepts, with a suffix. There are 6 moods:

• The Indicative mood (which is unmarked) is the sole realis mood in Rikutsaren. It represents a verb that is a statement of fact.
• The Conditional mood (marked by -nor-) is similar to the English conditional, and represents a verb whose validity is dependent on some condition.
• The Subjunctive mood (marked by -sol-) represents a verb which the speaker is encouraging or discouraging. Can be used as a softer form of the Imperative. Can also serve to affirm or emphasize a verb ("Did you eat?" "I did eat"; "Dapas?" "Napassol")
• The Imperative mood (marked by -sur-) represents a command or request. In Ancient Rikutsar, as is the case in modern times, the Imperative was not normally used colloquially or informally and was generally seen as authoritative, harsh, and formal.
• The Permissive mood (marked by -us-) represents a verb that is allowed or permitted by the speaker.
• The Potential mood (marked by -tse-) represents a verb that is speculated to be possible or not possible, or a verb that the subject speculates they are capable or not capable of doing. Equivalent to English "could."
• The Epistemic mood (marked by -eru-) represents a verb which is definitely possible or not possible, or a verb that the subject is definitely capable or not capable of doing. Equivalent to English "can." Generally thought to imply an intended action and can be taken as a promise.