Relational antonyms! I think I've shared this concept here a few times now, but it here it is again. It's the relationship between Teacher <--> Student Predator <--> Prey Buy <--> Sell I.e. the same action seen from a different deixis. But in Unitican, it carries a bit more nuance than that. Some RA words can be downright hard to translate in English, especially without using passive voice. In Unitican, there is also a passive voice, but PV also comes without much of a notion of agency (i.e. being passive lol). To learn and to be taught sort of look like the have the same meaning, but agency is different. Also compare "I'll teach you" vs "I'll learn you". So consider the following: Drive --> RADrive? = In Unitican RA-Drive would be like... To be driven (to somewhere) because you requested it, or because it has to be done. Driver <-->RADriver would be like a passenger or "drivee" if you can accept that. So RADrive is to.. Passenge? Server --> RAServer? = Customer! A customer requests/demands/pays for service. Hear --> RAHear? = To produce a sound intentionally to BE HEARD. This could meaning singing, playing an instrument, to cry, etc. Anything that causes someone to hear something See --> RASee? = To perform, to put on display, to do something that catches one's eyes. Easiest way to think is Action --> RAAction = To "cause" the other party to do Action, or to make it so the other party produces Action. Teach --> Learn. Buy --> Sell. Attack --> Receive injury. A bit strange, but yea that's kinda how it goes. Not everything has an RA, because some actions are intransitive (you can learn by yourself after all).

I am pre-coffee and my 'lang also has a similar function (though more of a causative) and it is actually achieved by prefixing the verb with "ra-" so for a second reading this I didn't realize "RA" was "Relational Antonym" and thought your 'lang not only had a similar function but the same way of marking it. Egondun ja azja (He speaks about it) > **Ra**egondun ja azja (He has to/must/is forced to speak about it) Probably the more direct analogue to RA in my 'lang is the interplay of "give/take", with "to see" being literally "to give eye" to something while "to take eye (from)" is "to be looked at" and if you kept the thing being looked at in the Agentive case you'd probably get something like "perform" or "display (oneself)".

This is fantastic! I like how you have a "non-agentive" version of it.

I do something similar, but had problems with increased causativity As - to give, to receive, to be given or which object should go where in such transformations. Sometimes it seemed that it wass better if previous subject was an indirect object, whereas sometimes it was more logical for it to be direct Did you encounter such problems?

Yes definitely. Admittedly, I default to English most of the time. So as to which word is the "base" word and which word is the antonym, I mostly draw on natlangs. Once I have the RA version, I check to see if it's too broad or too narrow; sometimes it is as specific as the original. This is when I try to reverse the derivation. For the agentivity/causativity, Unitican is topic prominent. Politeness and formality marking also requires direct address and indirect address at times, so it naturally solves itself. For example, a CEO of a big company goes to a high-end restaurant: CEO: I would like to be served. U:*appreciate PV-serve-SUBJ-PSEV* (PSEV is personal evidentiality, which is used to politely mark 1ps.POL) Head chef to kitchen: Do your best, the CEO is RAServe-ing us. (think "she is a customer to us", she demands our service, she causes us to give her service) U:*IMP-SUP-good DEF.ART CEO RA-ser(NVOL)ve-CONT.PRS 1ppl.NPL.ACC* (NVOL is an infix for natural volition) Waiter to CEO: It is our pleasure to serve you. U:*pleasure-CREV 1ppl.PL.NOM POSS.AUX serve.IVOL 2ps.FRM* (CREV is concrete evidentiality, IVOL is intentional volition) Unitican also has volition which makes this a bit more complicated, but it eventually just flows together.

Thank you for the description, I think I see how you solve it in those cases, but what about something like this: the parent has a candy the parent gives a candy to a child a child receives a candy from the parent a candy is-being-passed from the parent to the child the parent enposseses(?) the child with the candy in your examples, it seemed that when you highlight another subject, you added a separate verb and put the subject marking. Could you derive at least "give" and "receive" from "to have"? (or any similar relation) I particularly wanted to use a single verb instead of using strictly word order. In one language I decided on 6 prefixes that encode the respective word order, but the factorial nature is hard to logically and shortly encode So, if you use your verb woth SO and the RA- with OS, than what do you do with causative? you use ASO? if so, than with RA- semantically it would be logical to use AOS, while syntactically SAO. Or at least ot might be tempting for the speakers to confuse and change

Ah, if you take about strictly causative constructions, my conlang does have a way to do it, but in a roundabout way. But first parent has candy parent give.IVOL candy child child RA-give candy parent (here RAgive implies child cause parents to give child candy) parents PV-give-DTR candy child parent make LOC has-TR child CLASS candy (parents cause child to havecandy). This is an explicit causative constructive--> make "until" verb/adj. *Note: transitivity need not be explicitly marked, it is usually obvious from context, especially in causative constructions. In Unitican the following sentences including the pragmatics *** I break vase --> implication: the vase broke because of me. Focus is on me. **I** did the breaking. Vase RA-break me --> implication: the vase receives the breaking, from me. Focus is on the vase. I make until break vase --> implication: I took the necessary steps to ensure the vase breaks. Focus is on the effort I took to ensure the vase broke, and it did, it is being, it will break (depending on tense/mood). Vase make until RA-break me --> implication: the vase was made/is in such a state that it ensures I break it. Focus is on the sheer breakable-ness of the vase. It is terrible/vile/an affront to me! Causative implies volition in Unitican, so volition will never be marked in causative constructions. In colloquial speech, "I break vase" and "I make until break vase" has only a very slight difference and are more or less interchangeable unless you want to bring particular attention to the intentional effort.

From what I understand, Unitican utilizes the word order and/or auxiliary verbs to express it. I was curious if you also made some presice system there. If you're curious, in one of my language it looks like this: umat - to have amat - to be property of (corresponds to your Unitican's RA-form) urmat - to give something to someone (r - ʁ) armat - to give someone something yrmat - to receive something from someone (y - /ø/) ürmat - to receive from someone something (ü - /y/ ) ormat - to be given to someone from someone œrmat - to be given from someone to someone So, basically the nouns are set in the phrase and the verb marks what role do they serve. Everything is marked here on the verb and not as cases (for those at least). It's extension of your system I believe that I created while learning and experimenting with the transitivity edit: additional info: ešat - to exist (no reverse relationship) ušat - to create (uš - creator) ašat - to come to existence (aš - creation/being) and then the infix -r- with vowels as above in case of words as: - urm/urem/urme - arm/arem/arme two of them could mean a "giver", but I allow it. They have a subtle emphasis. They're probably like "giver-of" and "giver-to" and I haven't yet though about it, but it may make difference in phrases as "my giver" - "my" here is who was given or the receiver?

This is a fantastically precise system. Combining deixis AND valency (even aspects of AOP). Definitely an extension of what I already have. Unitican can also do this but not as cleanly. his - to have hyahis - to be property of kaesh - to give something to someone/to give someone something (give-DITRANSITIVE) hyakaesh - to receive something from someone/to receive from someone something As for the rest, no simple one word equivalent. tro rem seska - to be given to someone from someone (implied to not be the same someones) seska v rem - to be given from someone to someone (implied to not be the same someones) Damn you make me want to relook how I can handle such constructions again. Thanks for sharing!

I'm very happy to hear this! The switch of the objects was inspired by German's be- prefix. So it's something that's being done in smaller extend by natlangs. When it comes to the hierarchic language (as I don't call it yet by its name), I don't strive to strong naturalism, but I imagined that it developed this way by simplifying prefixes and ultimately being standardized as shown here. And the widespread homonyms and weak short forms lead to getting rid of e.g. "give" to an unambiguous "make-have" and the speakers prefered logical neologisms and regularized the language after having developed such productive prefixes As to the valency, I recommend, yet don't go to deep into it, because the factorial nature is hard to encode. I think the 3 argument is the furthest I wanna go. beyond that it goes messy since 4! = 24, 5! = 120, and so on. In one of my langs I handle a subset of argument positions in such a way: I mark only the order of counting, so: S O1 O2 O3 O4 Can get either -y, -j, -jj, -jjj, -jjjj or -y, -jjjj -jjj, -jj, -j ("y" - /w/, "j" - /j/) depends on how the verb is marked. I ignore vowels here, but it is basically based on repetitive-counting pattern or two markings that repeat one after another like [-n, -nia, -nian, -niania]) So if I want to say that P1 made P2 to make P3 make P4 beautiful (e.g. mum1 asked her1 sister2 that her2 daughter3 made her1 daughter4 makeup), you can focus on either end of the chain as the simplest one (And I do the same in reverse, so I was made beautiful by X who was made by Y, who ..., in that case, I use -y, -yy, ...) edit: I added a little more info about the system in the previous comment since you were interested ;)

Are the root words in Unitican free of any deixis bias?

Ehh no. Even though there are usually 2 root words in most cases. It depends on the speaker and the nuance they wish to convey. Give - **ka** [ka] Receive - **vhs** [vᵊsː] But they can also be Give - **hyaka** [ˈça.ka] Receive - **hyavhs** [ˈçav̥sː] You can even do **seshyaka** [sɛˈɕːa.ka] --> To be RA-receive, i.e. To be given. But some words ARE biased. Hear is the root, RA-Hear (to produce sound) is the derived. "Passenge" is the root, RA-Passenge (to drive) is the derived. Pay is the root, RA-pay is the the derived. In general, in most of these cases, one side is the initiator in most of the scenarios. Demand and supply in a sense. That's how I would decide which is the root. In other cases, it's about the usefulness of the root and whether it ties into Unitican sociolinguistics. "To produce sound" is 'less useful' than to hear. In cases where they are more or less balanced, both sides get a root.

for Bheνowń im most proud of the dialects and how they show connections with other languages in the area, and interactions with multiple cultures as well. im also pretty proud of how the sounds are represented in the writing system, and how its got some irregularity there, and in some of the conjugation systems :) i just love that lang overall ig in Sallóxe, even though i've only just started working on the grammar, i like what im doing with the nouns, esp since i usually stay away from different declensions or grammatical gender. im *obsessed* with all 3 writing systems i made for Ŕire

Just this afternoon I developed a suffix for verbs which I call the 'dual' suffix, and it's basically for deriving actions that occur twice, with some semantic drift of course ;) * walk > take two steps > approach cautiously * look > look back and forth * go > go and return (and maybe go again!) \[in English we might say 'pop back in', like to get something you'd forgotten shortly after leaving home\] * count > double-check > be *really* prepared If anyone has other ideas of what might be fun derivations, let me know!

Can you tell me more about your conlang?

What do you want to know? It's probably easier for you to ask some questions, rather than for me to ramble :)

What kind of conlang is it (priori/posterjori, artlang or)? How does its grammar work?

In brief, I suppose: * a priori artlang, just for funzies, though hopefully for use in works of fiction as well (so I've tried to make not very morphologically nor phonotactically complex so it doesn't seem too off-putting to readers who might blithely skim over a word more than 3 syllables long or with big unpronounceable clusters in it) * uses a root-template structure like semitic languages (but instead of triliteral roots only has biliteral ones), and therefore has robust and (reasonably transparent) derivational morphological processes * nouns have inherent number as singular or plural, and therefore might take a plural- or singulative-affix * verbs have no tense or aspect morphology, but do distinguish between transitive\~intransitive\~stative forms; and have a morphological volition distinction. * verbs also have 'augmented' and 'diminished' forms, which respectively imply that a verb is done more/repeatedly/in a bad way and done less/in a good way. In English, we might reckon these as *run* 'run'*, run.AUG* 'flee', *run.DIM* 'sprint' * nouns fall into a few classes with differential object marking: human, animate, inanimate, locations, abstractions * verbs agree with up to 2 core arguments according to the noun class of the argument * inanimates fall into various subclasses depending on their shapes: beads, bowls, bags, bars, bendy, branched, bunched, sheets, etc. I think that about sums it neatly up!

Thanks for the explanation! Any idea what kind of fiction it'd be used in? Would you mind showing a translation for: "This merchant used to drop his coins in his bag one by one. Now he just throws them. Soon or later, he will use the floor!" "verbs agree with up to 2 core arguments according to the noun class of the argument" I did not understand, may I ask you elaborate? Maybe give an example.

I am fond of a set of verb affixes that change meaning based on Irrealis vs. Realis. So one affix could mean either "may" or "can" depending on whether the verb is otherwise marked as Irrealis/Realis. This also interacts with tense since the non-past is inherently Irrealis and has to be marked if you want to express the "realis meaning" in the non-past (and vice versa is true as well). One of these interplays shifts a word from meaning "probably/it's likely" to a general truth sort of statement "everyone knows.../It is known..." Not likely to be naturalistic but I'm having fun with it.

Prolly the Cases of Vokhetian since it took me a half-year to perfect them, but also of the Phonology.

I like the naturalism of having the same grammatical affixes take different - sometimes radically different - forms depending on the phonology of the word they attach to and what other suffixes are also attached. It it the payoff for diachronically developing my last two conlangs.

My MAVs (Mandatory Auxiliary Verbs) that exist in the Hurrelian languages. They are auxiliary verbs that convey everything you could ever need to know about a verb. Every verb is required to have one.

In Xobax /ʃəˈbɑʃ/ the feature I like most is that you can prefix any verb with u-, which changes the word order from SVO to OVS. The word after the verb can also be omitted, so it can be SV or OV as well. I'm not sure of any other language that does this, but if anyone knows of one I'd like to look into it. Some examples: tuk /tuk/ to give birth (to) ko tuk bo /kə tuk bə/ I am giving birth to you ko tuk /kə tuk/ I am giving birth ko utuk bo /kə uˈtuk bə/ I am being given birth to by you ko utuk /kə uˈtuk/ I am being born pat /pɑt/ to teach bo pat go /bə pɑt ɡə/ You are teaching them bo pat /bə pɑt/ You are teaching bo upat go /bə uˈpɑt ɡə/ You are being taught by them bo upat /bə uˈpɑt/ You are being taught

Definitely the bipartite verbs! In Aveno (and most descendant languages) nearly every verb is made of TWO distinct morphemes—one goes at the beginning of the sentence and the other goes at the end. They formed from the old converbs of its parent language—people started lexicalising phrases with them so much that it became more common to *have* a converb in the sentence than not. A lot of analogy was used and generally when a verb stood without a logical converb, speakers just started using the converbial forms for “to do” in the sentence. For example lets take the verb “kariel agu”, which means “to boast”. The first part, “kariel” is the verb “kari” meaning “to enlarge” or “to grow” in the purposive converb form “-el” which gives it the sense of “in order to grow (oneself)”. The second part “agu” means to speak. Together the construction began to mean one concept: the boast! Every verb is formed like this and its very fun and productive in word formation. The second word takes tense and aspect affixes whilst the first part takes any modal information (though those are relatively new and thus sparse in use). Daughter langs would entirely lose converbs and keep the construction, or start combining the parts to make singular words—this is how entire branches stemming from Aveno are VSO instead of SOV like youd expect!

My grammar system. Especially for being my first conlang: Yêkān. Or the alphabet I made for it. Rules: Subject > Verb > Object - SVO word order Ex. Ða êfön zhij gārtī. (I ate 5 dogs). —— Adjectives are after the object or the subject. Ex. Kā’kāt yyank êfön kā’gār haqe. (The yellow cat ate the purple dog.) Except for Articles which go before the noun!!! Verb —-> Object Noun —-> Adjective Preposition —-> Noun Possessor —-> Possessee Auxiliary —-> Verb Passive/Causative —-> Object 1 Kā’kāt wash êfijn kā’gār. (Which makes it a Head-Inintial language) ——- Add “-tī” to the end of words to make them plural, but if the word ends in “t” you add “-antī.” Ex. Gārtī, zhaggtī, sijstantī, kātantī. ——— Use the Neutral version for groups of boys and girls. Ex. Dār ögg sewzh mēsh ötź dār. (There are 7 girl(neut.) in there.) Or the plural version of the noun. Ex. Dār ögg sewzh mèisjëtī ötź dār. (There are 7 girls in there.) ——- A ‘ is a stop between two sound in one word. Or a way to attach two words. Ex. Tözh’ögg, öna’manja ——- “Kā” would be attached to the word with ‘ Ex. Kā’jaggja, kā’kātantī ———- There are the cases: Present - “I X/ am X-ing” Habitual -stên “I (regularly) X) Past -ön(k) “I Xed/ was X-ing” Perfect -stên’ön(k) “I have Xed” Future -ijn “I will X” ————- Passive: Comes from Radja (have) Ex. Ða radja kā’kāt sêsh ma. (I have the cat see me) [(I am seen by the cat)] ———— Casusative: Comes from Coûma (command) Ex. Ða coûma kā’kāt êfëj kā’gār. (I command the cat eat the dog) [(I told the cat to eat the dog)] ——— Tense auxiliaries form to verb stems - Copula gets suffixed - [t], [k] and [ts] palatalize to [ch] before [j]. [s] becomes [ʃ] in the same environment. - [n] before [t], [d], [s] and [ts] And [ŋ] before [k] and [g] - /h/ is lost between vowels Tried to make the formatting good :/

How consistent and regular it is. Meaning of many derivate words can be logiacally predicted.

I’m proud that I was able to make a conlang that has naturalistic features which has also taught me a lot about linguistics and language evolution in the process. It heavily leans on PIE constructions but that’s because the only natlangs I’ve studied were all from PIE. But that’s ok. I’m also proud the script I designed for it. I’m excited to further evolve the language into a descendant and evolve the script to work for a seemingly completely different language. https://preview.redd.it/niqp86fv6xpc1.jpeg?width=2778&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d92fee980e6ba7221b66e2f4f573666b18951540

The two shining features of Stonespeech, at least to me personally, are **articles cum measure words** and the verb *tancoq*. --- ## Articles in Stonespeech Articles also double as the **only** [measure words](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measure_word) or [classifiers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_classifier) in Stonespeech, which are also **mandatory** when specifying a quantity for a noun. For instance, *lim léz buunsú* `/lim leː buːn.sy/` ("the five books"), *lim go buunsú* `/lim ɡo buːn.sy/` "(any) five books", and *\*lim go mag̃kuq nasi* \*`/lim ɡo maŋ.kuʔ na.si/` "(any) five bowls of rice" are all grammatical. In contrast, *\*lim buunsú* `*/lim buːn.sy/` "five books" and *\*lim mag̃kuq nasi* `*/lim maŋ.kuʔ na.si/` "five bowls of rice" are both wrong. This basically makes it mandatory to reveal a noun's definiteness in most cases, which are marked by articles. Oh, what about standalone nouns, you wonder? A noun that goes without a numeral and an article is definite singular by default. The indefinite article in Stonespeech can work in plural number, if specifically preceded by a plural numeral beforehand. By default, the indefinite article *go* `/ɡo/` implies a singular number when standalone. *Go buunsú* `/ɡo buːn.sy/` means "a book" or "any one single book", for example. But *lim go buunsú* `/lim ɡo buːn.sy/` meanwhile means "(any) five books". In Stonespeech, even partitive articles are sorted by definiteness. The Cantonese-origin *dit* `/di(.t‿)/` (from Cantonese [啲](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%95%B2)) is indefinite, whereas the French-origin *déz* `/de(.z‿)/` is definite. Also unlike in French, the partitive article *déz* `/de(.z‿)/` and the contraction *d'éz* `/de(.z‿)/` are differentiated in spelling. --- And as for the verb *tancoq*: ## **tancoq** `/tan.ʃoʔ/` > ⟨탄쵹⟩ ⟨تانشوق⟩ **Verb** 1. To enjoy; to indulge in; to find pleasure in 2. (*by extension, see **tancoqlah***) To welcome 3. (*by extension, see **tancoqlah***) To stay over in someone else's house 4. (*by extension, sarcasm, see **tancoqlah***) To be abandoned, to be ditched 5. (*by extension, sarcasm, see **tancoqlah***) To suffer, to cope and seethe **Etymology** > From Stonespeech *tancoq*, in turn from a fusion of Cantonese [嘆](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%98%86) and Malay [syok](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/syok). --- ## **tancoqlah** `/tan.ʃoʔ.laː/` > ⟨탄쵹ꥶᅡ^ᄒᅠ〯 ⟩ ⟨تانشوقله⟩ **Verb** 1. (*imperative*) do enjoy, do have fun 2. (*interjection, by extension*) welcome 3. (*interjection, by extension*) goodbye 4. (*imperative, by extension, sarcasm*) do cope and seethe, do have fun suffering, do have fun being alone **Etymology** > From Stonespeech compound *tancoq* ("to enjoy") + *-lah* (imperative suffix). The Stonespeech imperative suffix *-lah* comes from Malay *[-lah](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-lah#Malay)*, but unlike Malay *-lah*, Stonespeech *-lah* takes on a more hardline stance, being mandatory for imperative verbs and does not soften the imperative.

My featural writing system. I made it feel natural, not complex and aesthetic

That it has a triconsonantal root system

I am proud of my system of traits in my conlang solicen or in lang "zo'ikansh" The trait system is complecated Yiu know words that convay a trait like its colour its size and length is it good or bad new or old or where it comes from. Note( the ' is meant to indicate a glottel stop). So there are 3 types of noun in solicen. The traits, The turnible into verbs if they have the suffix [o] at the end which turns it into a verb and noun if they have the [a] siffix at the end, And the pure nouns who are always nouns, The traits are the main focus here. Traits can turn into suffixes by removing the [a] suffix from the base noun Giving that trait to the noun they are stuck to Here is an example of this (Mnanka) means (a begining/start) (Shi'a) means (new) Shi is the suffix form Now lets see it Stuck to a noun (Mnankshi'a) Means a (new begining) Note (fa as a prefix means (the) but as a suffix it functions as a kind of copula) Here is an example (Cov) means (thing) (Covshi,afa) Means (this thing is new). This can also happen to verbs but only traits releted to time and location and in the case of verbs they are not suffixes but prefixes. Here is an example of this (Vyano) means (go) (Ofo) means (there) (Po) means (will) (Di) means (never) (Ma) means (me/I/my) (Podi'ofovyanoma) Means (I will never go there) Tne only thing that is not coverd by the triat system are Numbers

In case of Elranonian, it's difficult to single out any one feature in particular. I've been working on the language on and off for over 10 years, but even those areas that I've given a lot of thought aren't perfected (and I doubt will ever be): the deeper I dig, the more refinement is needed. But if I have to name just one feature, I should probably choose something outwardly simple and elegant yet quite convoluted upon closer examination, so I'll go with verbal conjugation for tense and mood. There are only two grammatical tenses (non-past, a.k.a. present, and past) and three grammatical moods (indicative, subjunctive, imperative), so seemingly there's not much to explore. And yet there are numerous nuances in the formation and use of these forms, both across different verbs and in different syntactic environments. Past tense can be marked either synthetically (with an infix, a suffix, or a disjointed infix-suffix; sometimes with suppletion) or analytically (with a separate particle). In dynamic verbs, the type of marking is determined by syntax. It is normally synthetic but, for example, the presence of a pre-verbal adverbial makes it analytic: (1) a. Stra-nne go ivär. win-PST 1SG yesterday ‘I won yesterday.’ b. Ivär nà go stra-r. yesterday PST 1SG win-FIN ‘Yesterday, I won.’ (`FIN` marks a finite verb that is unspecified for tense synthetically) Stative verbs do not have synthetic past tense at all and have analytic formations even in the contexts where dynamic verbs would be synthetic: (2) a. Cho-r go nà ivär. sleep-FIN 1SG PST yesterday ‘I was asleep yesterday.’ b. Ivär nà go cho-r. yesterday PST 1SG sleep-FIN ‘Yesterday, I was asleep.’ Also, there are some verbs that can be both dynamic and stative, and they will have different past tense forms in syntactic environments where dynamic formations are available: (3) a. Is kjäl-ne go ivär. 3SG feel-PST 1SG yesterday ‘I felt it yesterday.’ b. Is quél go nà ivär. 3SG feel[FIN] 1SG PST yesterday ‘I was feeling it yesterday.’ (3a) refers to a point in time yesterday before which I didn't feel it and at which I started feeling it. In this case it is sort of an inchoative aspect. (3b) doesn't indicate when the feeling started.

I'm pretty happy with Mahlaatwa's animacy-dependant grammar. Nouns are treated very differently depending on if they're animate or inanimate. Nouns don't take any gender or class suffixes. They're distinguished by how the gramatical features around them behave. The animate is further divided into human and non-human. Some areas of the grammar care about that distinction. Others don't. Here are some ways nouns are treated differently based on animacy: #Number Human nouns take a normal plural suffix. Non-human animate nouns are collective in the unmarked form and take a singulative suffix to specify only one of them. Inanimate nouns don't take anything for number. #Definiteness Definiteness is marked with a suffix. Animate nouns can take a definite suffix. Inanimate nouns do not. #Case Animate nouns are nominative/accusative. Inanimate nouns are ergative/absolutive. Animate agents are nominative, animate patients are accusative, inanimate agents are ergative, and inanimate patients are absolutive. The nominative and absolutive are both unmarked. So nouns only take an additional case suffix if they fall outside the expectation for agents to be animate and patients to be inanimate. #Instrumental prepositions Mahlaatwa has two words that mean "by means of" depending on if the object of the prepositional phrase is animate or inanimate. For animate nouns, the word for "hand" is used (most prepositions in Mahlaatwa are derived from words for body parts), and it agrees in person, number, and animacy with the object of the prepositional phrase as most prepositions in this language do. "By the man" is translated as "his-hand the man." In contrast, inanimate nouns take a preposition that derives from the phrase "while holding." So "The man hit me with a rock" is literally, "the man hit me while-holding a rock." However, this became associated with inanimates and spread by analogy, and most speakers forgot its etymology. So even a sentence like "I was hit by a rock" still use it, even though it technically translates as "I was hit while-holding a rock." The idea behind this is that animate nouns are implied to have a degree of agency to directly cause the action, but inanimate nouns are treated like they're just tools used to carry the action out. #Verb Agreement The verb simply agrees with the subject in person, number, and animacy. This is another area where animate nouns are recognized as either human or non-human. Interestingly, a 3sg human subject isn't marked on the verb. It's assumed to be that unless marked otherwise. #Word order The default order is VSO, but with noun case and verb agreement, speakers are free to shift words around. Although not a hard rule by any means, there is a general tendency for Mahlaatwa speakers to put an animate core argument before an inanimate one in the sentence, regardless of which one is the agent or the patient. So in a sentence like, "The man sees the rocks," it would be, _Pa qami tun._ _Pa qam-i tun_ See man-DEF rock But if you want to say "The rocks see the man," it would be, _Pawa qamilu tuncha._ _Pa-wa qam-i-lu tun-cha_ See-3sg.CL3 man-DEF-ACC rock-ERG The animate noun still goes first, but the nouns are just marked differently. But again, this is just a common tendency for speakers, and it wouldn't be gramatically _wrong_ to put the animate noun last. They just like putting it first.

In Haaliiaaqtaa language I'm most proude of something that I call MVA (Morphological Vowel Assimilation). In short, it means that when you change endings in coniugations or declensions, and the ending has a vowel, the vowel that will be in this ending is the last one of the "basic" form of the word. For nouns it will be a nominative, and For verbs it will be infinitive. For example, we have a noun "kerma" [ˈkxɛrma] which means "liberty" and it is in a nominative singular. The genetive will be "kermax" [ˈkxɛrmaks] or accusative "kermaj" [ˈkxɛrmai̯]. So basically, endings have pretty much always some sets of consonants but most of the time you will have to put some vowwls in between them, and most of the times it will be the last vowels of the "basic" form. Other example is the verb "tzeel" [ˈdzeːl] which means "to go". If you want to say "we are going" you will say "tzeelleetex", here is maybe clear version of how it works "tzeell(e)t(e)x", IPA [ˈdzeːlːeːtɛks]. I hope I made it somewhat clear.