Kzmr language

Kzmr (tþru Kzmrk, pronunciation: [tɵ̞ðr̩ kəzamrak]) is a Proto-Ukilen dialect continuum spoken in Kzmr and some parts of western Baphia primarily by the Kkzmrcs. It is the official language of Kzmr itself, and also held official status in the former Kzmr Autonomous Country.

Collectively, the varieties of the Kzmr language form the Kzmric branch of the Proto-Ukilen family. The dialect continuum as a whole is pluricentric, with the Srn variety having prestige status in most of the country and Šžtcu being dominant in the far north. All varieties of the language are written in traditional Ukilen.

The various Kzmr lects share a consistent diaphoneme inventory noteworthy for having two separate 'null' phonemes as well as wholly lacking phonemic vowels.

History

Šzþ Kzmr

Due to the lack of phonetic writing in early Kzmr usages of traditional Ukilen, it is difficult to delineate the history of the language cluster into separate periods. Nonetheless, the variety used in the ššzþ, or traditional epic poems of the Kkzmrcs, has various distinctive syntactical features not shared with modern varieties, and is thus classified by linguists as the distinct Šzþ Kzmr form. Some bionyms in the Baphian and Jkawi languages are speculated to be loaned from this early variety.

Noun morphology

Though Kzmr preserves the original nine cases of Proto-Ukilen (albeit with the dative and locative being homophonous outside of pronouns), most other aspects of Proto-Ukilen noun morphology are either eroded or completely overhauled. Firstly, the animacy distinction is removed, with the original animate case endings having far more widespread reflexes in Kzmr. Secondly, the dual no longer exists and pluralization is instead marked, except in some irregular nouns, by reduplication of the first consonant (excluding, of course, //∅//).

Carrier nouns

In Kzmr, carrier nouns are nouns comprised of a declined carrier root prefixed to an indeclinable nominal root. There are two different carrier roots used in Kzmr, being the standard root t- and the honorific root þks-. The former, along with its case affix, is attached directly to the word and is affected by the relevant prosody, whereas the latter uses the declension patterns of pronouns and is considered to be the first half of a compound. While nouns using the honorific carrier are usually merely bikago-analogous forms of standard nouns (thought to be an areal feature influenced by Baphian), nouns using the standard carrier are almost always obligatory and the root usually only applies to proper nouns and recent loanwords, although there are sporadic unconventional uses of each.

There is also a much rarer carrier with primarily negative affect, tnn-, which patterns like t-. Though commonly translated as "damned [noun]", it can also be associated with emotional valences besides contempt, such as shock or fear.

Vocativa tantum

A vocativum tantum is a noun which appears solely in the vocative case. To be used in other syntactic roles, it must be used in conjunction with a classifier noun. Though these overlap with mass nouns, not all mass nouns are vocativa tantum and vice versa. For instance, "caribou" in the nominative is phrased as dždu xhvnmi (CLF caribou-VOC). Vocativa tantum are pluralized by pluralizing the classifier rather than the classified noun.

Defective nouns

Defective nouns are a variety of indeclinable nouns which are assigned their syntactic role by using one of two topical postpositions and replacing their intended place in the sentence with a pronominal. The two topical postpositions are bþ, used when the topic takes an agentive or patientive role, and nn used otherwise. Baphian loans, as well as abbreviated forms of Kzmr nouns, are frequently defective nouns. Take the following sentence, for instance:

'Kshkhi bþ hhnri þ' h'u.
kusyeke.kherang TOP play-PRES.IMPF 1-NOM 3.INAM-ACC
I play kusyeke kherang.

The literal meaning of this expression could be translated as "As for kusyeke kherang, I play it."

Table

Case	þ' (I)	dgšu (bird)	Srn (Srn)	þksatrrn (bat (hon.))	*xhvni (caribou)
Nominative	þ'	dgšu	Srn, tSrn	þksatrrn	dždu xhvnmi
Accusative	þ'u	dgšgu	tgSrn	þksutrrn	dždgu xhvnmi
Dative	þ'	dgšvu	tvSrn	þksatrrn	dždvu xhvnmi
Genitive	þž	dgšku	tkSrn	þksžatrrn	dždku xhvnmi
Ablative	þ'	dgšdu	tdSrn	þksatrrn	džddu xhvnmi
Vocative	þ'i	dgšmu	tmSrn	þksitrrn	xhvnmi
Locative/Instrumental		dgšvu	tvSrn		dždvu xhvnmi
Allative		dgšhnu	thnSrn		dždhnu xhvnmi
Adessive	þ'u	dgšzu	tzSrn	þksutrrn	dždzu xhvnmi

Word formation

Compounding strategies

Kzmr compounding usually undergoes a type of sandhi where multisyllabic words in which the last epenthetic vowel was originally unstressed, the following word does not begin with //H// or //∅//, and the last consonant is not already //∅//, have //∅// appended.

Many multimorphemic words in Kzmr are formed by compounding; the resultant words are classified into various types based on the nature of the compound. The vocative strategy of compounding, inherited from Proto-Ukilen, is in modern Kzmr only one of several. The types are as follows:

Verbal-nominal and pseudoverbal-nominal (*Tatpuruṣa)

One common form of compound is the the verbal-nominal, stemming from a verb participle followed by a noun taking one of the seven oblique cases in Kzmr to create an adjective:

Word	Translation	Case
mhsn'innmþþgi	killing hyenas	Accusative
kksn'axxdv'i	fighting for Sirius, fighting on behalf of Sirius	Dative
tgbn'akrtšku	forged out of steel	Genitive
'rnn'iddžbrd	having come from the mountains	Ablative
mhsbnn'izkrtmv	having been killed with a lance	Locative/Instrumental
bþrn'annrþhni	facing towards the stars	Allative
shdn'itrgzi	standing in the road	Adessive

The pseudoverbal-nominal is a similar construction in which the verb is replaced with a deverbal noun which can be given a case, such as mhscsi'bhg "patricidist" and mhscsvi'bhg "to the patricidist".

Sentence structure

Kzmr word order is primarily VSO.