conlang

Phonology

Inventory

Consonants

Vowels

Allophony

• Syllable-coda /n/ would assimilate with the next consonant, even across word boundaries - khen yēmā sōn /xen jeːmaː soːn/ > \[xeɲ ˈjeːmaː sɤβːn\]

• Before pharyngeal consonants, close vowels were pronounced as mid, though slightly higher than regular /e/ and /o/, mid vowels were pronounced as open-mid, and /a/ was pronounced \[ɑ\] - /ʡi/ > \[ʡe̝\] - /ʡe/ > \[ʡɛ\] - /ʡu/ > \[ʡɤ̝β\] - /ʡo/ > \[ʡʌβ\] - /ʡa/ > \[ʡɑ\]

Phonotactics

Old Draconic had a (C)V(N) syllable structure, meaning that the largest possible syllable contained one onset consonant, one vowel, and one coda nasal. Despite this, adjacent vowels without a consonant separating them only occurred in compound words.

The primary stress of a word always fell on the first syllable, unless the second syllable was long. Secondary stress was placed on alternating syllables. This applied to compound words as well. Note that in compound words, two of the same vowel were not the same as a long vowel, and this was realized in the stress pattern of the word.

Grammar

Sentence structure

Word Order

The preferred word order was SOV, but word order was mostly free, with the exception that subject pronouns were always placed immediately after the verb. This is thought to be a remnant of an older VSO word order. Indirect objects and adverbial nouns (lative, separative, locative, instrumental, causative) usually went either before or after the clause. Adjectives, genetives, and adverbs preceded the words they modified. There was no lexical or morphological distinction between adjectives and adverbs.

Nouns

Pronouns

If one looks at the vocabulary, they will notice that all of the pronouns were descended from determiners. This did not cause confusion, however, as determiners were always placed before their noun, and pronouns were placed after verbs, and optionally after their noun.

Case

Old Draconic had eight grammatical cases, marked on the noun or pronoun by postpositions.

Nominative: -
Genitive: ne
Lative: la
Separative: kin
Accusative: ume *
Locative: han
Instrumental: fōlu
Causative: pīso

In some cases, whether the noun was animate or inanimate would change the meaning of the word. In order to specify this, the correct third person pronoun would be placed after the noun and before the postposition. This was mandatory in the nominative form in transitive sentences, but disallowed in intransitive sentences. The result was what was effectively a tripartite morphosyntactic alignment, with distinct markers for the accusative, intransitive, and ergative case, but in practice this was considered simply an extension of the language’s grammatical gender.

Verbs

Linking verbs

To link verbs together, a postposition was placed after the head verb, most commonly ume. So to say “I want to eat,” one would say asa ume ralūn sōn . If the pronouns for the two verbs are not the same, each pronoun goes after their respective verb and before the postposition. So to say “I want you to eat,” one would say asa khen ume ralūn sōn.

Tense

Marking for time was optional, but possible. To state that something happened in the distant past, and had since finished, one used the (ume) īke construction. To state that something happened in the near past, and had recently finished, one used the (kin) tahu construction. To state that something is ongoing, one used the (ume) seki construction. To state that something will happen, one used the (la) elān construction.

Personal agreement

The correct pronoun is placed at the end of verbs, and, if specification is required, after the noun, before postpositions. The placement of pronouns after nouns can also help separate noun phrases when there are multiple subjects in a clause. It is through this system that one determines whether a noun is animate or inanimate, since sa is used with animate nouns and tū is used with inanimate nouns. For example, the phrase māre nise rēn sa means “the fire shines,” while māre nise rēn tū means “the bronze shines.” If, for whatever reason, there multiple subjects of differing animacy, animate is the dominant state.

One could also use nouns in tandem with first or second person pronouns to clarify to whom it refers. So to say “we dragons shall bravely fight,” one could say afāqi khoma pākan la elān rōmu sōn.

Negation

Rather than modifying the verb, negation is achieved by using the adjective itu with the object of the sentence. So to say “I don’t know Draconic,” one would say itu afāqine ume sūnto sōn.

Questions

Non-polar questions are asked using the interrogative pronoun yan. Case and gender inflection convey information about what is being asked, and it can be used as a determiner modifying a noun if more specific details are necessary. Polar questions are usually formed solely through tone of voice, but in formal speech and writing where clarity is important, yan can be used sentence-finally as a question marker.

Old Draconic had no word meaning “yes”. To answer yes to polar question, one would repeat the verb and its pronoun. To answer no, one would respond itu. So to answer the question līqa ren khen? one could respond “yes” by saying ren sōn , or “no” by saying itu.

Relative Clauses

Old Draconic formed relative clauses not with relative pronouns, as in Common, but by using the nominalizing words paqhi and teli in combination with verbs. Paqhi as a noun meant “creature,” and when used with a verb meant “thing that does \_\_\_\_\_.” Teli as a noun meant “thing,” and when used with a verb meant “thing that is \_\_\_\_\_ed.” For example:

Numbers

Old Draconic had a base-8 counting system, owing to the amount of fingers of a dragon. The first seven numbers were khako , upēn , kante , lūfīn , noko , fankha , and orāse . The number for eight was qīn , the word for nine was qīn khako , the word for ten was qīn upēn , the number for sixteen was upēn qīn , etc.

Numbers could be used cardinally by using them as adjectives with nouns, as quantifiers by using them to modify adjectives, or as multiplicatives by using them with verbs. They can also be used as ordinals by using them with the adjective kurān “young” or īsima “old.”

Orthography

Old Draconic was written using a logography designed exclusively for record-keeping. It did not contain pronouns, and used postpositions only for their literal meaning, rather than to mark case. As such, the written language had a stricter word order than the spoken language, with VSO as the preferred word order. Some writers used SOV word order, reflecting the spoken language, but this was discouraged by academics. When a word did not have a single glyph dedicated to it, a word with a similar or related meaning would be written, with a word of the same initial syllable written above it. Spaces were placed in between parts of speech to reduce ambiguity caused by the loss of grammatical words. Note that these were not necessarily words, since postpositions, adjectives, and adjectives would be written in the same block as the words they modified. The postposition ne was represented by writing the genitive and the head noun in the same block, as seen in the word afāqi ne kōmu teli “Draconic language.” If the existence of the word ne would change the meaning of the sentence, it could be represented with a single dot.

The language was commonly carved into blocks of stone or cave walls, and had a preference for straight, vertical lines. Diagonal lines were common too, usually descending in whichever direction the text was being written. Text was written from either left to right, right to left, or sometimes even in an alternating pattern called boustrophedon. Lines of text were ordered from top to bottom.

Vocabulary

A

• Asa v. to eat

• Afāqi n.a. dragon

• Afāqine n.i. draconic

• Ārō adj. big, large; det. more

• Aqhu v. to create

• Aqē v. to say

E

• Elān v. to go

• Ēmpi v. to live

F

• Fankha no. six

• Fēmi v. to hold

• Fōlu post. using

H

• Han post. in, at (without motion)

• Haso adj. other

• Hūnte adj. many; no. sixty-four

I

• Ike v. to finish

• Isāme v. to know, to be aware of

• Īsima adj. old

• Itu adj. no

K

• Kante no. three

• Khako no. one

• Khen pron. second person, you; det. that (close to the listener)

• Khifū v. to carve, to scratch

• Khise v. to kill

• Khoma adj. strong, brave

• Kōmu v. to say

• Kin post. from (indicating movement)

• Kurān adj. young

L

• La post. to, towards

• Lemo v. to receive

• Līqa adj. good

• Luntō v. to think

• Lūfīn n.a. hand; no. four

M

• Mantu n.a. instance, time

• Māre n.a. fire; n.i. bronze

• Mimi n.i. flower, blossom

• Mokān v. to see

N

• Ne post. marks genitive nouns

• Nēnya v. to lead

• Nise adj. bright

• Noko no. five

O

• Onhi n.i. land, land-based resource

• Orāse no. seven

• Oteyon n.i. rock, mineral

P

• Pākan v. to fight

• Paqhi n.a. creature, any animate thing; part. nominalizing suffix

• Pīso post. under

• Pōlān v. to spread a substance

Q

• Qīn n.i. set; no. eight

• Qhāte adj. male

• Qhola n.a. flowing river, stream; n.i. water

R

• Ralūn v. to want

• Rēn v. to be

• Roqa n.i. tree

• Rōmu adj. all

S

• Sa pron. third person animate, him, her; det. that (far from speaker and listener)

• Samantu n.a. now, this instance

• Saye adj. some, a few

• Seki v. to do

• Sīqhu n.a. snowfall; n.i. snow

• Sōn pron. first person singular, me; det. this

• Sūnto v. to know, to be acquainted with

T

• Tahu v. to come

• Tāla n.a. soul; n.i. centre, middle

• Tanqē n.i. sky, region

• Teli n.i. thing; part. nominalizing suffix

• Tīsun n.a. animal

• Tikha v. to die

• Tisōn adj. small, little

• Tū pron. third person inanimate, it; det. some, any

U

• Ume post. on

• Upēn no. two

• Unsinā v. to protect, to shelter, to raise

Y

• Yan pron. interrogative; det. what

• Yēmā v. to love

• Yōle adj. female