Geoff's homepage -> Artificial Languages -> Liotic -> Astarien

Last update: 18 September 2007

Astarien

Although it is spoken over a wider area of Dekavur than any other Liotic language except Machren, and has more speakers - just short of 900 thousand - than Chastuvien and Machren combined, Astarien probably has the lowest status of all the Liotic languages. It is predominantly a language of the rural peasantry, with a long history of being subordinate to the Dekavurian which had supplanted it in the towns and cities.

Phonology

The phonology of Astarien has been much influenced by the south-western dialects of Dekavurian.

Stress

The rules for stress and intonation in Astarien are the same as in Genistien and the northern dialects of Chastuvien.

Vowels

Astarien has seven simple vowels /i e a o u 2 y/, which can be either long or short, and a characteristic set of ten diphthongs /ei ai oi ui 2i yi/ and /ey 2y au ou/. The simple vowels are transcribed I E A O U Ö Ü when short and with an acute accent when long; long /2 y/, which do not occur in this document, have the Hungarian double-acute. The diphthongs are transcribed as sequences of their component vowels, except that /ey 2y/ are EU ÖU to avoid running out of umlauts. Diphthongs and long vowels count as having two moras, and are thus twice as long as the short vowels.

Astarien, in common with neighbouring dialects of Dekavurian, exhibits the phenomenon of vowel harmony, which dictates that all vowels in a simple (i.e. non-compound) word must be front /e 2 y/ or back /a o u/, with /i/ allowed to appear with either. The backness of the vowels in a word is dictated by that of the first vowel which is not /i/, thus Astarien has katha "dog" where other languages have kathe. As a result, every suffix with a vowel other than /i/ has two forms, one for use with front vowels and one for back; examples will be seen in the grammar.

Aside from the development of vowel harmony, the vowel system of Astarien underwent some unusual changes from that of Late Liotan:

/u/ fronted to /y/: lluim "toe" > /luma/ > lüme, cúinh "carrot" > /kuinZe/ > küinzhe.
/eu/ similarly became /ey/ and later /2y/, while /iu/ became /iy/ and later /ey/: and saocht "nine" > /seuxta/ > söuhte, gíom "mouth" > /dZiume/ > zheume.
But /u/ remained /u/ after /a o u/: dán "father" > dauna, deóbh "grain" > zouva, giús "ditch" > /dZu:sa/ > zhúsa.
/o/ fronted to /2/ before slender consonants: neoisdeach "dies" > /noStax/ > nöshteh.
In the most distinctively Astarien development, /ia ua/ merged in /1/, which later backed to /u/ after the fronting of original /u/: mianh "drab" > /m1nza/ > munza, fuar "cold" > vura.
Similarly, /ie/ became /1e/ and ultimately /ui/: biairr "steep" > /b1irsa/ > buisa.
/ue/, however, became /oe/ and later /2i/: guaine "daughter" > /guine/ > göine.

Consonants

Astarien has fewer consonants than any contemporary Liotic language aside from Lemyzon. The obstruents were:

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Voiceless stops	p	t			k
Voiced stops	b	d			g
Voiceless fricatives	f	T	s	S	x
Voiced fricatives			z	Z

The other consonants are the nasals /m n/ and liquids /l r/. As usual, /T S Z/ are transcribed TH SH ZH; however, /f/ is transcribed V.

/f T x/ have voiced allophones [v D G] between vowels. This allophony caused the merger of /z Z/ with /s S/ in the easternmost dialects, a merger which should be compared with similar developments in Lemyzon; however, it is very much a local feature and is not taken into account here.

The principal developments in the Astarien consonants were the following:

Initial /w j/ > /v Z/: boideach "threatens" > /w2dzex/ > vödzeh, eodhach "mends, fixes" > /jozax/ > zhozah.
/X J\/ merged with /S Z/: caighíoch "swims" > kazhih, breich "cunning" > breshe.
/G/ was lost before a consonant, lengthening the preceding vowel, and became /v/ between vowels: beagh "moss" > bava, iogh "skin" > iva.
Affricates lost their first element at the start of a word: ceirr "copper" > /tSerse/ > sherse. After a vowel, the stop element was moved to the end of the preceding syllable; thus netshe "hungry" syllabised as /net.Se/. Note the spelling here with TSH.
Unlike elsewhere in Liotic, slender unlenited /r/ became /rs/, not /rT/: bairr "narrow" > varsa.
Epenthetic stops were inserted between nasals and /l r s S z Z/: giadhail "untrustworthy" > /dZuzle/ > zhuzdla, maonhail "feeble" (i.e. "tending to fade") > /meyNLe/ > möungle.
Liquids were lost between a diphthong and a consonant: giúirr "shape, form" > /dzyirse/ > züise.
Clusters of a sibilant and a stop were voiced after a nasal, which subsequently disappeared: maonhasd "pallor" > /meynste/ > meuzde.
/v/ merged with /f/, a characteristic also of many southern dialects of Dekavurian: fois "yellow" > vöshe.

Phonotactics

The consonant clusters permitted by Astarien are much the same as those of Genistien, with the addition of stops before sibilants (former affricates) and word-final stops.

Grammar

Due to the influence of Dekavurian, Astarien is much the most agglutinative of the South Liotic languages. Many of the longer words are here transcribed with hyphens to make their structure more apparent.

Nouns

Vowel harmony affected the older identification of final vowels with gender to the extent that masculine and feminine nouns merged in a common gender which is identified by /-a -e -i/, while nouns in /-o -u -2 -y/ continue the neuter gender. The genders are often wrongly called "masculine" and "feminine" respectively by Dekavurian grammarians, according to the tradition of their own language.

Astarien nouns take suffixes in one of three inflectional slots, which in order identify number, case, and possessor.:

kava "a boat", zheishte "a house"
kava-ta "boats", zheishte-te "houses"
kavá-vo "in a boat", zheishté-vö "in a house"
kava-tá-vo "in some boats", zheishte-té-vö "in some houses"
kava-s "my boat", zheishte-s "my house"
kava-ta-s "my boats", zheishte-te-s "my houses"
kavá-vo-s "in my boat", zheishté-vö-s "in my house"
kava-tá-vo-s "in my boats", zheishte-té-vö-s "in my houses"

As can be inferred from the above list, the plural suffix is -ta- -te-, with the same origin as its cognate in Chastuvien. It is often reduced to -t if no other suffixes follow; thus kavat "boats", zheishtet "houses". The genitive case is formed with -n in the singular, which becomes -ni- when another suffix is added: kavan "of a boat", kavanis "of my boat". The genitive plural is always -nta- -nte-: zheishtente "of some houses". (If you think some of this is uncomfortably like Finnish, you're perfectly correct!)

There is no separate partitive case in Astarien, and nouns do not exhibit the consonant alternations of Chastuvien.

A great many directive cases were created in Astarien from older prepositions; one such is the inessive case marked by the endings -vo -vö above. The most important of them are shown below; all lengthened the preceding vowel: kaváva "into a boat", kavatáva "into some boats".

Name	Meaning	Forms
Allative	to, towards	-ra -re
Locative	at, by, near	-no -nö
Ablative	from, away from	-ma -me
Illative	into	-va -ve
Inessive	inside, within	-vo -vö
Elative	out of	-dza -dze
Superlative	onto	-stra -stre
Superessive	on	-tsi
Delative	off	-tsa -tse
Perlative	through, along	-bi
Terminative	up to, as far as	-sha -she
Instrumental	with, by means of	-la -le

Adjectives

Adjectives decline for case, number, and gender, with the same suffixes as nouns. Thus, in the nominative singular, "large" is nasa for the common gender and naso for the neuter, and "hungry" is netshe netshw respectively. "In my large boats" is thus nasatávos kavatávos.

Astarien, like Genistien, inflects adjectives for several degrees. The suffixes are shown below in their back-vowel forms.

nasuva "larger, largest"
nasashta "less large, least large"
nasarsa "as large as"
nasusta "very large"
nasitsa "not very large"
nasainzha "too large"
nasoinzha "not large enough"

The suffix for degree precedes all other suffixes: nasuvas kavas "my largest boat".

Adjectives are formed by suffixing -sha -she: netsheshe "hungrily", vurasha "coldly", vurashuva "more coldly".

Articles

The definite article harmonises in backness with the noun, and took the form ka ke for common nouns and ko kw for neuters. The only inflection it takes was the -t for the plural: kat kavat "the boats", ke zheishte "the house".

Demonstratives

The demonstratives are full adjectives which replace the article, and were originally compounds formed with it: shemve "this", kaha "that", and korha "yonder". Thus shemvére kavára "to this boat".

The corresponding adverbs of location and direction are formed by omitting the initial /S/ or /k/ and appending the appropriate directive suffix: emvére "hither", aháno "there", orhátsi "on yonder".

Pronouns

Various pronominal forms were lost in Astarien, namely the deferential forms of the second person (surviving only in the /f/ in the plural personal suffix) and the generic singular third person pronoun. With the further loss of the partitive case, and the replacement of the genitive case by prononinal suffixes to nouns and adjectives, the only forms of the pronouns which remain in Astarien were the nominatives, which are only used as verbal objects. They are as shown below, together with their corresponding possessive suffixes.

Person	Singular		Plural
1 exc	sü	-s	zan	-za -ze
1 inc	---	---	dran	-dra -dre
2	mo	-m	man	-mva -mve
3 masc	an	-n	---	---
3 fem	el	-l	---	---
3 neut	or	-r	in	-ni
indef	kü	-k
rel	tü	-t
refl	vür	-vu -vy

Of the third person pronouns, an is used to refer to singular common nouns unless the noun is obviously female (e.g. müte "cow"), in which case el is used; or refers to singular neuter nouns, and in refers to plural nouns regardless of gender.

The endings for the directive cases of the pronouns are the same as those for nouns. Final /n l r/ is dropped from the nominative, and the preceding vowel is not lengthened: süra "to me", ima (also ime) "from them", astra "onto him", estre "onto her".

The possessive pronouns in Astarien are formed with a stem kauma- (neuter kaumo), thus kaumas "mine", kaumamva "yours (plural)".

Prepositions

Most prepositions have been reduced to directive case suffixes; the most common of those which remain independent are növe "in front of", dora "behind", kasta "above", and ada "below". All of these are invariable, and the allative, locative, or ablative case of the noun is used as appropriate; for example mwve ke zheishténo "in front of the house", ada ka kaváma "from under the boat".

Verbs

The verb, like the noun, is more agglutinative in Astarien than in any other Liotic language. The formal structure of a verbal form consists of an optional past prefix, the verbal root, an optional participlar suffix, and an optional personal ending. The personal ending is the same as the possessive suffix on nouns, and is zero if the subject was a noun.

The simplest form of the verb consists of just the stem, and represents the unmarked (default) aspect of the verb with a nominal subject. Thus vüne is a colourless "eats", as in ka gaula vüne "the man eats, is eating", and with the pronominal suffix vünes "I eat, I am eating".

The past prefix, as its name suggests, indicates that the action described by the verb took place before the time of speaking. Its commonest form is an- en-, assimilating to the root in vowel backness; thus en-teipes "I took", an-tazhis "I hung". The /n/ is pronounced /N/ before a velar (an-gadzas "I chose", /aNgadzas/) and disappears before another nasal (e-netses "I fell"); before a labial it changes to am- em-, as in em-vünes "I have eaten". Note, too, the intrusive /d/ which developed before liquids, for example in an-dlostas "I waited" (lostas "I am waiting").

The participlar suffixes, which derived from the Liotan participles, express finer distinctions of aspect and voice. There are four of these:

Active imperfective: vüne-lte-s "I eat". This is a habitual, contrasting with the simple vünes; thus the past emvüne-lte-s is a near equivalent of English "I used to eat".
Active perfective: vüne-tshe-s "I have eaten", emvüne-tshe-s "I ate, I had eaten".
Passive imperfective: vüne-shte-s "I am being eaten". This is very rare and somewhat formal; the slightly less synthetic forms vünek sü or vüneltek sü, with impersonal subject, are preferred.
Passive perfective: vüne-ske-s "I have been eaten". Similarly, emvüne(lte)k sü is more usual here.

The thematic vowel may be any of the short vowels and is consistent throughout the paradigm in the majority of verbs. The exceptions are in the remnants of the Liotan mixed conjugation, in which it is /i/ in the active perfective and passive imperfective and /a e/ otherwise: bez-i-tshe-s "I have done", but bez-e-lte-s "I am doing".

Negation is expressed by prefixing tha- the- in the present and than- then- in the past.

Verbal compounds

As in Genistien, Astarien forms a great many compound verbs with the verbs "to be", "to go", and "to make/become". Most of the categories are the same as in Genistien, although their realisations are affected by vowel harmony:

Type	Formation	Front	Back
State	adjective + -do -dö	söur-dö-r "it is red"	vur-do-r "it is cold".
Transformation	adjective + -daina -deine	söur-deine-r "it is becoming red"	vur-daina-r "it is becoming cold"
Causing motion	preposition + -daina -deine	me-deine-s "I take from"	vo-daina-s "I put into"
Motion	preposition + -sonu -sönü	me-sönze-s "I leave"	vo-sonza-s "I enter"
Location	preposition + -vonu -vönü	nö-veinzhi-s "I am in front of"	vo-vainzhi-s "I am inside"
Causation	participle + -daina -deine	ara vüne-l-deine-s "I make him eat"	ara losta-l-daina-s "I make him wait"

The causatives shown in the table are contractions of vüne-lte-deine-s and losta-lta-daina-s. Their equivalent perfective forms are vüne-dzh-eine-s and losta-dzh-aina-s, contracted from vüne-tshe-deine-s and losta-tsha-daina-s.

The compounded verbs of motion are common only in western dialects, in which the construct is much like that of Genistien; further east, simple söunze deine veinzhi and the appropriate directive case are used. Thus "I put an apple into the boat" is töuke kavára vodainas in the west and töuke kaváva deines elsewhere.

"To be"

The only independent form of "to be" which survives in Astarien is do-, used in sentences of identity: göines dol "she is my daughter".

Numbers

The Astarien number system is very similar to that of Genistien. The principal cardinal numbers, with their ordinals and tens, are:

Number	Cardinal	Ordinal	Stem	Ten
1	mal	shula	mal-	---
2	san	soba	san-	sanka
3	sheth	shethe	shel-	shelke
4	zin	zina	zin-	zinke
5	dar	dara	dar-	darka
6	nav	naba	nau-	nauka
7	nuh	núva	nú-	núka
8	por	póra	pór-	pórka
9	söh	söuhte	söuh-	söuke
10	kesh	keidze	keish-	shime

As in Genistien, "eleven" to "nineteen" are compounds of the "stem" column for the appropriate unit and kesh: maldikesh "l1", naudikesh "16". Note that the identification of kesh with "ten" is strong enough to prevent vowel harmony from operating here. Similarly, "twenty-one" is maldisanka, and "69" is naudisöuke.

Conjunctions

The principal Liotan conjunctions survive in Astarien as as "and", ösh and lash "or", son "but", and dan and oh "if".

Derivation

Derivative suffixes, except those with no vowels other than /i/, have two variants because of vowel harmony.

Suffix	to	gave	meaning	examples
-asto -estö	adj	noun	abstracts	vura "cold" > vurasto "coldness", netshe "hungry" > netshestö "hunger"
-utho -üthö	adj	noun	abstracts	konza "pure" > konzutho "purity", netshe "hungry" > netshüthö "hunger"
-auva -euve	noun	adj	resembling, like	katha "dog" > kathauva "doglike", göine "girl" > göineuve "girlish"
-aula -eule	noun	adj	lacking	iva "skin" > ivaula "skinless", zheishte "house" > zheishteule "homeless"
-ína -íne	noun	adj	having, full of	söule "cloud" > söulíne "cloudy", marsa "gem, jewel" > marsína "jewelled"
-oza -öze	verb	adj	-able	donah "guides" > donoza "guidable, steerable", meuteh "reaches" > meutöze "reachable"
-axta -exte	noun, verb	noun	place	zouva "grain" > zouvahta "granary", vüneh "eats" > vünehte "eating house"

The abstract suffix -utho -üthö is a loan from Dekavurian.

The commonest diminutive suffixes, in decreasing order of affection, are -ish- -itsh- -il- -ilk-; thus zheishtishe "nice little house", but zheishtilke "hovel".

The main augmentative suffixes are -ad- -ed-, which merely expressed size, and -av- -ev-, which have connotations of bulkiness and awkwardness: zheishtede "mansion, palace", zheishteve "rambling large house in which it is easy to get lost".

Personal nouns, as in Genistien and Chastuvien, are common in Astarien; for example gainzhan "soldier" (from gainzhah "fights"). An /i/ is added before case suffixes in the singular and nominative plural: gainzhanin (genitive singular), gainzhanit (nominative plural), gainzhaníra (allative singular). But note the allative plural gainzhantára, in which the plural /t/ is added directly to the singular.

Syntax

Word order and emphasis

The default word-order in Astarien is SOV, and any part of a clause may be emphasised by moving it to the end. Compare the following: töuke kaváva deines "I put an apple into the boat", töuke deines kaváva "I put an apple into the boat", kaváva deines töuke "I put an apple into the boat".

Modal verbs and dependent clauses

The combinations of participles and possessive suffixes mean that the syntax of dependant clauses is very concise in Astarien. For example, "I am waiting for him to enter" is merely vosonzaltan lostar, parsed as vo-sonza-lta-n losta-r "in-movement-PresPart-he wait-I".

Astarien, unlike other Liotic languages, retains the modal verbs of Liotan; "I am able" and "I ought to" are thus pasar and püner.

Relative clauses

The relative pronoun combines with the third person pronouns, as in Genistien and Chastuvien: ka katha ke töuke vünen án ka kava vovainzhit "the dog is eating the apple which is in the boat", or equivalently "the dog which is in the boat is eating the apple". Here án derives from a + an.

Interrogatives

For the sake of expediency, the same examples are used as for Castivien.

gresh a vünet ket töuket "Who is eating the apples?"
gras a vünes tü "What am I eating?"
zhürse töuke a emvünetshes tu "How many apples have I eaten?"
zhdröh töuke a do shemve "What sort of apple is this?"
gös a vünedre tüvö "When are we eating?"
zhdrav a vünedre tüme "Why are we eating?"
gash a vünes shemve töuke tüle "How do I eat this apple?"
zhout a veinzhi zheishtem tünö "Where is your house?"

Indefinites

Astarien resembles both Genistien and Chastuvien in its use of the indefinite pronouns. Southern dialects retain the older compounds, as in Chastuvien; thus peidreishe "everyone", shinraza "anything", theinköte "nowhere" (with vowel harmony). Northern dialects, however, use Genistien-like personal nouns where appropriate: peidzhin "everyone", theinére "to nowhere".