Introduction
Makwa Igal (/mɛ'kwa i'gal/ mek-WA ee-GOL), often shortened to "Makway" (/mɛ'kwai̯/), emerged during the summer of 2017 and experiments with a trivalent verb structure and a biconsonantal root system.
Phonology
Overview and Intonation
The phonemic inventory of Makway totals 20 consonants, 4 monophthong vowels, and 2 diphthongs. Phonemic stress most commonly occurs on the final syllable within a word, unless the syllable nucleus is /ə/, which is never stressed. Whether this "stress" is by way of vowel length, pitch, or volume is unattested.
Consonants
| Labial | Coronal | Dorsal | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ||
| Plosive | p b | t d | k g | (ʔ) |
| Affricate | t͡ʃ | |||
| Fricative | f v | s (θ) z (ð) | ʃ ʒ | h |
| Approximant | w | ɹ~ɾ | j | |
| Rhotic | ||||
| Lateral | l |
- /n/ assimilates to the same place of articulation, within the same word, as the consonant sound that follows.
- Two of the same nasal sounds next to each other, either */mm/ and */nn/, are instead realised respectively as either [bm] and [dn].
- /t/ and /d/ lenite to fricatives [θ, ð] intervocalically or word-finally.
- /l/ is pronounced as [ɹ] word-finally when the following word begins with /r/.
- /ɹ~ɾ/ is a tap [ɾ] intervocalically, and an approximant elsewhere.
- [ʔ] only occurs when inserted between consecutive vowels (unless those vowels form the diphthongs /aj/ or /aw/).
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | ə (ɚ) | ||
| Open | (ɛ) | a | |
| Diphthong | aj | aw |
- /a/ is pronounced as [ɛ] in unstressed syllables.
- /ə/ is deleted word-finally after /m/, /n/, /l/, /t͡ʃ/, or any voiceless fricative except /h/.
- /ə/ is also dropped after /w/ and /j/ when altogether occurring after /a/. The consonat vowel sequence is realised as a diphthong /aj/ or /aw/.
- When /ə/ occurs after /ɹ~ɾ/, it is realised as /ɚ/.
Phonotactics
Zero, one, or two consonants may occur as the syllable onset. The consonant clusters permitted are /kr/, /kw/ and /ky/. Whereas the syllable nucleus can be any vowel/diphthong, the coda is limited being one of /m/, /n/, /l/, /t͡ʃ/, /f/, /s/, /ʃ/, or /t/.
Orthography
Makway can be written using the latin alphabet, romanizing /t͡ʃ/ as <ch>, /ʃ/ as <c>, /ʒ/ as <j>, and /j/ as <y>. The voiceless consonants /f/, /s/, and /ʃ/ are respectively romanized as <v>, <z>, and <j> to maintain synchronicity with the Makway alphasyllabary:
The Makway orthography totals 25 letters. 4 represent vowels: e a i u. The other 21 letters represent an onset-nucleus pair. These letters (excluding the unique letter yu that always maintains its pronunciation) contain an inherent vowel of /a/, but a following vowel-reprenting letter replaces this inherent vowel, for example: le la li lu "le la li lu". Consonants not followed by a vowel are spelled with a sort-of grave accent: kral "kral".
a, when occurring word-initally, does indeed represent the sound /a/. Most frequently it appears within the digraphs fa sa and ca, respectively representing "fa", "sa," and "ca", whose inherent vowels can be modified in the same way: fe fa fi fu "fe fa fi fu". Since voiced fricatives are prohibited from ocurring in coda-position, /f/ /s/ and /ʃ/ can be written as v z and j when occurring word-finally.
| cha | ba | kya | kwa | kra | e | |
| cha | ba | kya | kwa | kra | e | |
| ha | ya | la | ga | ta | ka | |
| ha | ya | la | ga | ta | ka | |
| yu | da | na | ra | a | wa | |
| yu | da | na | ra | a/** | wa | |
| i | za | u | ja | ma | pa | va |
| i | za | u | ja | ma | pa | va |
Morphology
Every root in Makway is described by 2 consonantal sounds, either of which can be a single consonant or consonant cluster, and the first may instead be a "null" consonant (meaning a vowel-initial root). Every root categorically treated as either a noun or a verb.
Nouns
Nouns decline for 3 cases and 2 numbers.
| daja (tree/woods) | Collective | Singulative |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | dajal | dijal |
| Oblique | daje | diji |
| Genitive | daju | diju |
-yu- within nouns
Noun negation is done with the infix -yu-. By itself the root kraza means power or strength. The infix -yu- can be inserted into any noun paradigm like so:
| krayuza (weakness) | Collective | Singulative |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | krayuzal | kriyuzal |
| Oblique | krayuze | kriyuzi |
| Genitive | krayuzu | kriyuzu |
Compound Nouns
Compound nouns exist in Makwa Igal. The declension pattern for a compound noun only affects the final root:
| Compound: cagazakra (donut) | Collective | Singulative |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | cagazakral | cagazikral |
| Oblique | cagazakre | cagazikri |
| Genitive | cagazakru | cagazikru |
Personal Pronouns
| 1st Person | 2nd Person | 3rd Person | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| collective | singulative | collective | singulative | collective | singulative | |
| Nominative | kal | ikal | lal | ilal | fal | ifal |
| Oblique | ke | iki | le | ili | fe | ifi |
| Genitive | ku | iku | lu | ilu | fu | ifu |
Additionally kulu, with no attested singulative counterpart, is an informal, irregular, first-person inclusive pronoun.
Adjectives and Adverbs
Typically adjectives will precede the nouns they modify. This is unless the adjective describes a colour or number, in which case they go after the noun. Adjectives are identical to stem form of a noun (gaya "joke" but also "funny").
Adverbs are formed by adding a m to the end of an adjective (gayam "funnily"). Adverbs go before the verb they modify.
Verbs
Verbs come in two conjugation patterns: "i-verb" and "u-verb". Whether a verb is an i-verb or a u-verb is inherent to its root and must be memorized. Verbs conjugate for 2 aspects and grammatical person of the subject. The infix -yu-, similar to negating nouns, is used to negate the meaning of verbs (whether in the sense of antithesis or non-occurence is unattested). Here is an example of the conjugation paradigm for the u-verb muchez
| macha (to kiss) | Affirmative | Negative | Affirmative | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infinitive | muchez | muyuchez | muchez | muyuchez |
| Continuous | Complete | |||
| 1st Person | machu | mayuchu | michusa | miyuchusa |
| 2nd Person | menchu | menyuchu | menchuz | menyuchuz |
| 3rd Person | much | muyuch | muchuz | muyuchuz |
Forming Verbs from Nouns
There is a third, pseudo-class of verb called an "a-verb". An a-verb is simply a verb that is derived from a noun-like root. Bearing in mind that word-final e is often dropped (phonotactics permitting), the conjugation paradigm for all i-verbs, u-verbs, and a-verbs is as follows:
| i-verbs | u-verbs | a-verbs | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Affirmative | Negative | Affirmative | Negative | Affirmative | Negative | |
| Infinitive | _i_ez | _iyu_ez | _u_ez | _uyu_ez | _ _ez | _ayu_ez |
| Continuous | ||||||
| 1st Person | _ _i | _ayu_i | _ _u | _ayu_u | _e_ | _eyu_ |
| 2nd Person | _en_i | _enyu_i | _en_u | _enyu_u | _en__ | _enyu__ |
| 3rd Person | _i_e | _iyu_e | _u_e | _uyu_e | _e_e | _eyu_e |
| Complete | ||||||
| 1st Person | _i_isa | _iyu_isa | _i_usa | _iyu_usa | _e_asa | _eyu_asa |
| 2nd Person | _en_iz | _enyu_iz | _en_uz | _enyu_uz | _en__az | _enyu__az |
| 3rd Person | _i_iz | _iyu_iz | _u_uz | _uyu_uz | _e_ez | _eyu_ez |
Every verb is trivalent/ditransitive: permitting one subject noun phrase and two possible direct object noun phrases. For example, the root kraha, is an u-verb root. The word kruhez means "to trade x for y" (whrein x stands in for the first direct object argument and y the second). Verb phrases go in Subject-Verb-Object-Object order, so a sentence like "kal krihisa rach kyan." means "I traded a flower for money".
Forming Nouns from Verbs
Noun stems can be formed from verb-like roots by adding a regularly declining "a" at the end of the verb's infinitive form. The noun formed denotes an instance of the verbs occurence: zufez = "to kill"; zufesa = "a kill". There are also three separate derivational prefixes that are applied to verbs that turn them into nouns: "van-", "man-", and "san-". The first one (van) turns the verb into a typical subject argument of that verb (nukyez = "to help"; vannukyesa = "helper"). "man-" and "san-" turn the verb into a typical first and typical second object respectively. All three affixes can have their middle vowel replaced with "i" to indicate a singulative noun (vin-, min-, and sin-).
Interrogative ra
The word ra roughly translates to "which" and can be used as both a noun and an adjective. It is used (and declined normally) as a noun when you are asking for clarity/specifity pertaining to the associated noun phrase. If used as an adjective, ra always goes after what it's clarifying/specifying.
- ral nuve? "who did?"
- lal entiz rach ra? "which flower did you touch?"
- ram nihe...? "how do you say...?"
Conjunctions
bi and di
The conjunctions "bi" and "di" are used between two noun phrases the same as the English words "or" and "and" respectively.
gi
When you don't wish to specify what the first-position direct object of a verb is, "gi" can act as a stand-in: "lal yembi gi hape" = you go by foot.
lala, van lala, man lala, and san lala
In two-verb constructions such as "I want to eat", the second verb is used right in place of the first object of the first verb and is left in its infinitive form: "kal bafu culez" = I want to eat. More than one infinitive-form verb can not be used consecutively; instead in such cases, an entire verb phrase can be embedded as the subject or object argument of a matrix clause if preceded by "lala": "lala hentu zuv ke" = you laughing kills me. "lala" may be omitted only if the embedded clause contains a subject noun, unless the embedded clause itself is being used as the subject argument of the matrix clause.
The compound conjunctions "van lala", "man lala", and "san lala" respectively embed the preceeding clause as either the subject, first object, or second object of the matrix clause that follows: "lal wengi baze san lala fuje ke" = I am attracted to you being a fish.
Numerals
1-9 are "na ni nu pa pi pu sa si su". To count higher numbers, simply list each consecutive digit in base-10.
For numbers greater than 9 that contain any digit 0's, Makway has words for the number of consecutive 0's up to 000000000: "cha chi chu fa fi fu ka ki ku".
Prosody
A falling intonation [↘] indicates a yes-no question, whereas regular statements are said with a rising intonation [↗].
Semantics and Requests
Formality in commands can be conveyed on three different levels: The most informal/casual way of stating a command is just by saying it as a yes-no question (with a falling intonation). A semi-formal way to express commands is to preface the command with "lacu le lala...", with the most formal way to say a command being by starting it with "lacu gi lala...".
| Examples | |
|---|---|
| Informal | lenkwi lade ke? |
| Semi-Formal | lacu le lala lenkwi lade ke. |
| Formal | lacu gi lala lenkwi lade ke. |