Taðýric

Taðýric is my ongoing effort - one that's been scrapped and reworked a good number of times - to create the most beautiful language possible to my sensibilities. I have developed a keyboard layout for typing the characters used in the written language.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Alveopalatal	Palatal	Velar	Uvular
Plosive	p ‹p›			t̪ ‹t›1			k ‹c›2
Nasal	m ‹m›			n ‹n›
Fricative		f ‹f›	θ ‹ð›	s̪ ‹s›	ɕ ‹š›
Lateral				l̪‹l›
Approximant		ʋ ‹v›				j ‹j›		ʁ ‹r›3

1. /t/ is realized as [ts] before high vowels.
2. /k/ is lenited to a fricative [x] in coda position.
3. /r/ has many possible realizations, including a trill (in a complex onset), rhoticization of the previous vowel (in coda position), or a uvular approximant (in onset position).

Vowels

	Front		Back
	Unround	Round
High	i	y	u
Mid	e	ø	ɔ
Low	a

• All vowels can be lax and tense (RTR and non-RTR) apart from /ɔ/ (written ‹o›). Long vowels are realized as the vowel with a schwa offglide (ie /iː/ > [iə]). Short vowels are lax versions of long vowels (RTR).
• Length and tenseness is represented by an acute accent over the vowel.

Diphthongs

Diphthongs are frequently formed in agglutination. The language has a large and relatively unrestricted vowel inventory for a highly agglutinating language, and diphthong formation is complex:

	Second Vowel
First Vowel	i	y	u	e	ø	o	a
i	í	í	ju	je	jø	jo	ja
y	ý	ý	ju	je	jø	jo	ja
u	vi	vy	ú	ve	vø	vo	va
e	é	é	eu*	é	é	eo*	ea*
ø	ǿ	ǿ	ǿ	ǿ	ǿ	ǿ	ǿ
o	oi	ó	ó	ǿ	ǿ	ó	oa*
a	ai	ai	au	á	á	au	á

• Marked combinations are disyllabic and not true diphthongs.

Phonotactics

Possible syllable structures (where C is a consonant, V is a vowel, A is an approximant, F is a fricative, and N is a nasal) include:

• V
• CV
• CVF
• CVN
• CVr
• CAV
• CAVF
• CAVN
• CAVr

(Where /r/ is realized as a rhoticization of the previous vowel.)

• ð or š before l are written and realized as [s].
• Nasals in contact regressively assimilate.

Morphology

Nouns

Possessor

STEM

Plural Possessor

Case/Number

Nouns are declined according to two numbers (singular and plural), two genders (animate and inanimate), six or seven cases (a total of eight), and four possessive persons (as well as singular and plural for each possessor).

Many adjectives may also be attached to nouns in a clitic form, as a prefix closest to the root.

Animate Paradigm

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	e	eð
Accusative	i	is
Dative	tar	tolar
Associative	jer	jafer
Comparative	pi	paji
Vocative*	rý	rý

• The vocative is a postposed particle.

Inanimate Paradigm

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	a	að
Accusative	u	us
Dative	ðar	ðolar
Instrumental	myr	majyr
Locative	šu	šul
Ablative	si	saji
Comparative	ci	caji

Person

Singular possessive markers are prefixes. Plural markers are suffixes paired with the appropriate singular marker.

	Singular	Plural
1	tsi	i
2	ci	i
21	a	i
3.an	ðis	u
3>3.an	ðin	u

Inanimate nouns cannot take direct possession. Instead, root compounding is used (ie "the tree's branches" = ___)

Verbs

Person

Negative

Intensifier

STEM

Tense

Aspect

Mood

Plural Subject

Object

Transitive verbs take different roots depending on the animacy of their object. Crucially, this means that verbs must be used appropriately for their paradigm: for instance, the root for throwing an inanimate noun such as a ball is cílo, while throwing an animate object (whether actually alive or not) is arowé.

Verbs are obligatorily inflected for person and number (in a single prefix). Transitive verbs are obligatorily inflected for the person and number of the object (in a single suffix). They may also be inflected for tense, aspect, and voice as individual agglutinations.

The verb to be does not exist; a noun may be derived as a verb with the suffix tsy immediately following the stem.  In a similar fashion, to possess takes the form of the suffix lǿ.

Person

Subject prefix is always furthest from the root. The plural suffix is paired with the singular prefix, before the object suffix.

	Singular	Plural
1	tsi	i
2	ci	i
21	a	i
3.an	ðis	u
3.in	sin	u

Object

Object suffixes are always furthest from the root.

	Singular	Plural
1	it	itsir
2	ic	iccir
21		mér
3.an	oð	oðer
3.in	os	oser

The object suffix placement is also that of the passive suffix -oc.

Tense

Gloss	Mésylþo
Past	is
Nonpast+singular subject	ac

Aspect

Gloss	Mésylþo
Inchoative	ro
Cessative	py
Habitual	ia

Mood

Gloss	Mésylþo
Desiderative	vól

Other Affixes

Gloss	Mésylþo
Intensifier	ǿc
Negative	mal

Example:

"We did not really want to stop loving them."
tsimalǿcelsarínspyvóljoðer
tsi-mal-ǿc-elsarín-is-py-vól-i-oðer
1-neg-int-LOVE-pst-ces-des-1p-3p.an