Caerimoscnë

Caerimoscnë ((SCRIPT HERE), pronunciation: [t͡se̞ɾʲimo̞ɕt͡ɕɲə]) is a Brausian language native to the Brausian country of Caerimrodhë. It is also spoken in (GFHGJFGJKSJ).

(DIASPORA AND HISTORY STUFF HERE)

Caerimoscnë's phonology is governed extensively by particular groupings of and correspondences between phonemes, which dictate how phonemes behave in different morphological environments. It is a largely polysynthetic language, uniquely for a member of the Brausian family (VALIDATE: is this true in bw?), and allows for high levels of inflection on both nouns and verbs. Caerimoscnë is written in the (SCRIPT NAME) script, a phonemic writing system also used for various minority languages of the area, such as Caerimrodhë Anhic and (PLACEHOLDER).

History

Within the Brausian language family, Caerimoscnë appears to exist on a separate branch from all other extant Brausian languages.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Alveolo-Palatal	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	Voiced	m		n		ɲ	(ŋ)
	Voiceless			n̥		ɲ̊
Plosive		p		t		c	k	q
Affricate		p͡f		t͡s	t͡ɕ
Fricative		f	θ	s	ɕ	ç			h
Approximant	Voiced	w		ɾ l		j
	Voiceless	ʍ		ɾ̥ l̥

The table above provides a general overview of the phonemic consonants of Caerimoscnë. However, from the perspective of the many morphophonological processes in Caerimoscnë which occur upon affixation, certain consonant phonemes in some cases pattern differently to their phonetic pronunciation. In terms of this morphophonological patterning, the consonants may be better described as follows:

		Labial	Dental	Coronal		Palatal	Dorsal
				Plain	Palatalized
Nasal	Voiced	m		n	ɲ		(ŋ)
	Voiceless	ʍ		n̥	ɲ̊
Plosive	Non-tonal	p		t	c		k
	Tonal	b		d	ɟ		g
Affricate	Non-tonal	p͡f		t͡s	t͡ɕ		q
	Tonal			d͡z	d͡ʑ
Fricative	Non-tonal	f	θ	s	ɕ	ç	h
	Tonal	v	ð	z	ʑ	ʝ
Approximant	Voiced	w		ɾ l	ɾʲ~rj lʲ~lj	j
	Voiceless			ɾ̥ l̥	ɾ̥ʲ~ɾ̥j l̥ʲ~l̥j

Note: for the "tonal" obstruents, the use of voiced consonant letters to transcribe them is merely convention. Refer to the section on Tone.

As seen in this rearrangement of the table, the phoneme /ʍ/ in fact patterns as the voiceless counterpart to /m/, and /q/ patterns as the dorsal affricate. Another notable feature is that the consonants of Caerimoscnë's coronal series comes in pairs of alveolar versus palatalized, which plays a part in the morphological processes in the language. The palatalized equivalent for the approximants, /ɾʲ/ and /lʲ/, have merged with the clusters /ɾj/ and /lj/, though the distinction is still maintained for other consonants of the coronal series.

The phonemic status of /w/ and /j/ as consonants is arguable, as they pattern regularly with their corresponding high vowels /u/ and /i/. There is also a marginally phonemic semivowel /ɥ/, which likewise patterns regularly with the vowel /y/, but is also pronounced when /w/ and /j/ come into contact.

Vowels

	Front		Central	Back
	Unrounded	Rounded
Close	i iː	y yː	ɨ ɨː	u uː
Mid	e eː	ø øː	ə əː	o oː
Low	æ æː		a aː

Caerimoscnë has ten vowel qualities, with each distinguishing length with a long and short equivalent. The mid vowels /e/, /o/ and /ø/ are most often true mid vowels [e̞], [o̞] and [ø̞], and the phoneme /a/ can vary between central [ä] and back [ɑ] depending on speaker. Caerimoscnë does not have a specific set of phonemic diphthongs, but sequences of any vowel followed by /i/ /u/ or /y/ are pronounced with a non-syllabic second element, which may be heard as slightly centralized ([ɪ̯], [ʊ̯] and [ʏ̯]).

Caerimoscnë also permits the phonemes /m/, /n/, /ɲ/, /r/ and /l/ to act as syllable nuclei, which with the exception of /r/ may also be long.

Phonotactics

Caerimoscnë's syllable structure allows for large consonant clusters, including those which violate the sonority hierarchy, e.g. (SCRIPT HERE) wthvrué /fθfɾweː/ "to blow a dandelion", as well as hiatus between vowels. All consonants apart from /w/, /j/, /ɾ/, /h/, and the voiceless resonants are able to be geminated, though this may be better analyzed as a sequence of two of the same consonant rather than as separate phonemes. Certain sequences such as a plosive followed by /j/, or an /u/ adjacent to an /y/ are disallowed, and certain phonemes are not permitted at the ends of words, such as /θ/ and /h/. However these consonants may still appear at the ends of morphemes in their underlying forms, and therefore only surface upon suffixation.

Tone

Caerimoscnë is a tonal language, distinguishing two tones, a lower and a higher tone. The lower can be analyzed rather as a default tone, or as the absence of tone, due to being much more common, and because it can be overridden by a high tone in certain grammatical contexts.

A vowel (or syllabic resonant) directly preceding a tonal consonant phoneme receives a high tone. The tonal consonants are pronounced identically to their non-tonal equivalents in all contexts, and the use of voiced consonant symbols to represent them in phonemic transcription is merely a convention. Vowels can also carry a high tone themselves, irrespective of following consonants. This occurs less frequently than consonant induced tone, and is most commonly seen in certain grammatical markers. This innate tone also behaves differently than consonant induced tone, being that two consecutive syllables cannot both carry it; consonant induced tone has no such restriction.

Writing system

The Caerimoscnë language uses its own unique (SCRIPT NAME) script, an abugida-like writing system with letters for consonants to which vowel diacritics attach.

Grammar

Caerimoscnë is a polysynthetic language, which allows a heavy amount of inflection on both nouns and verbs. It has no grammatical gender, unlike the majority of Brausian languages. Nouns inflect for case, number and definiteness, and may be inflected for possessor. Caerimoscnë lacks individual declensions, and instead declines nouns through separate agglutinative affixes for each category they inflect for. There are five numbers and six base case forms which may take additional suffixes to form a total of eighteen actual cases. Verbs inflect for person and number, and rather than having a set number of tense forms, allow a wide range of different affixes to be added and combined in different positions throughout the verb for tense, aspect, mood and derivational purposes. Verbs in Caerimoscnë also allow for the marking of non-subject arguments, as well as for noun incorporation. Adjectives are verb-like rather than noun-like as in most Brausian languages, and may take all the same marking as verbs; functionally Caerimoscnë possesses no separate 'adjective' word class.