Classical Taot language

Classical Taot (Lawa, meaning "[the] language") is a classical language that belongs to the Taot language family spoken in East and Central Noco. It originated at the base of the Koolpallal. It is the common ancestor of the Neo-Taot languages. The standard form of Classical Taot was established around the 77th century.

Etymology


The name Taot derived from the Ninkerk substrate word *taut-, meaning "fish". Before the migration westwards and the adoption of the name, the Taot peoples lacked a word for their people. Instead, they simply called themselves "the people" (seez za) and their language "the language" (lawa). The name spread among the western Hagt and Sōt-speaking dialects, but did not reach the eastern dialects, where the people still call their language "Lawa" or "Laa".

Consonants

 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! colspan=2| ! Labial ! Dental/ Alveolar ! Dorsal ! Glottal ! colspan=2 | Nasal ! rowspan=2 | Plosive ! plain ! aspirated ! colspan=2 |Affricate ! colspan=2 | Fricative ! colspan=2 | Approximant ! colspan=2 | Tap
 * + Consonant phonemes of Classical Taot
 * || n || ||
 * p || t || k ||
 * pʰ ⟨ph⟩ || tʰ ⟨th⟩ || kʰ ⟨kh⟩ ||
 * || t͡s ⟨z⟩ || ||
 * || s || || h
 * w || l || j ⟨y⟩ ||
 * || ɾ ⟨r⟩ || ||
 * }


 * [m, n̪, ŋ] are allophones of /n/ before the respective stops.
 * /t, tʰ, t͡s, l, ɾ/ are dental [t̪, t̪ʰ, t̪͡s̪, l̪, ɾ̪].
 * /s/ is retracted alveolar [s̠].

Vowels
Classical Taot has six vowel phonemes forming three pairs of corresponding short and long vowels. A given word can only have stricly one long vowel, every other vowel will be short.


 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! rowspan="2" | ! colspan="2" | Short ! colspan="2" | Long ! Front ! Back ! Front ! Back ! Close ! Open
 * + Vowel phonemes of Classical Taot
 * e
 * o
 * iː ⟨ee⟩
 * uː ⟨oo⟩
 * colspan=2 | a
 * colspan=2 | aː ⟨aa⟩
 * }
 * }

Phonotactics
Syllables in Classical Taot have the maximal structure of (C)V(C).


 * Any consonant may start a syllable, but only /t, k, s, t͡s, n, l, ɾ, j, w/ can end it.
 * /t͡s/ can only appear before the consonants /p, k, n, l, j, w/.
 * /n, l, ɾ/ may geminate to /nː, lː, r/ between vowels.

Stress
A long vowel or a diphthong is always stressed. If there is none, the penultimate syllable will carry the stress. If there are both a long vowel and a diphthong, the long vowel is stressed. If there are two or more diphthongs, the last one is stressed.

Writing systems
Classical Taot has been written with many different scripts. It is written primarily in the Koolpallalian hieroglyphs, a set of hieroglyphs developed by an unknown culture of Central Koolpallal, further expanted by various peoples in the region, and the Taot abjad, consisting of 12 characters used to represent consonants and long vowels.

Grammar
Classical Taot has an extremely isolating grammar. The language almost entirely lacks inflection. Categories such as number and tense are expressed with particles. Compound words are rather uncommon.

Morphology
Classical Taot extensively employs zero derivation. For example:


 * yot — eye, to see, sight, seen
 * nakhot — loom, to weave, woven
 * aastas — vulva, vagina, birth, to give birth, born, to be born

Nouns
Classical Taot lacks grammatical case, instead case is expressed by means of various postpositions. For example, noa ('to') expresses allative, dative and benefactive; ool ('of, because of, from') expresses genitive, causative, ablative; and sak ('in') expresses locative and inessive. Number generally is not marked, though the plural may be expressed with the particle za ('many').

Adjectives
Adjectives follow nouns and are all invariable. There are three comparison degrees: comparative, superlative and excessive. The comparative is expressed with the particle za; the superlative, by reduplicating the adjective; and the excessive, by reduplicating it and adding the particle za. For example:


 * han — big
 * han za — bigger
 * han han — the biggest
 * han han za — too big

Verbs
Classical Taot verbs are marked with various particles to express tense, aspect and mood.

Voice
Classical Taot has three main voices: active, passive and causative.

The active and the passive voices are indistinguishable in form, so rala can mean both 'to kill' and 'to be killed'. The difference lies in the fact that the passive voice always has an agent complement, marked by the postposition lon. For example:


 * Pho rala atweet. — I kill the bird.
 * Atweet rala pho lon. — The bird is killed by me.

If one wishes not to include the agent (as in 'the bird was killed. (it is unknown who did it)'), one may use the third person pronoun anna. For example:


 * Atweet rala anna lon. — The bird is killed (by them).

The causative voice is expressed with the auxiliary verb okzay (lit. 'hand, to do, to make'). For example:


 * Pho yot allaal. — I see the mountains.
 * Pho okzay yot allaal ne noa. — I show you the mountains.

In a few cases, the auxiliary verb in Proto-Taot has been entirely incorporated to the verb as the prefix oz- or os-. For example:


 * erree 'to lie' ← *irrii
 * osree 'to lay' ← *ukVssaj irrii


 * zookna 'to know' ← *assu-ukVna
 * ozna 'to teach' ← *ukVssaj ukVna


 * pewpo 'to walk, to go' ← *piw-pu
 * ozpew 'to lead' ← *ukVssaj piw

Syntax
The word order is strictly subject–verb–object (SVO). Classical Taot is a mostly head-initial language. Nouns and pronouns are followed by adjectives, then determiners, then numerals and then postpositions. Adverbs precede verbs or stand between two of them in periphrases. Relative pronouns are placed after relative clauses if they are nominal or adjectival, but before if they are adverbial.

Vocabulary
The vast majority of Classical Taot words are of Proto-Taot origin, either directly inherited or borrowed from another Taot language. Nonetheless, a few words have been borrowed from neighbouring languages (mainly Proto-Läptälm, Ancient Fãngra and Xhí') and a substrate common to various Koolpallalian languages.

A few examples include tapho ('silver'), cognate with Proto-Läptälm *tkup- and Ancient Fãngra takop; zozo ('venomous plant'), related to Ancient Fãngra sonso ('poison') and son ('illness'); and kanak (kanak, a kind of tree), cognate with Proto-Läptälm *kmak-.

Numbers
Classical Taot has a base-5 (quinary) counting system.


 * 1) hok
 * 2) eeske
 * 3) eeza
 * 4) waat
 * 5) kezka

Numbers 6–9 are formed by combining the above with the particle to ('and', used only with numbers):
 * 1) kezka to hok
 * 2) kezka to/t' eeske
 * 3) kezka to/t' eeza
 * 4) kezka to waat

Bigger numbers are formed by counting smaller numbers and combining these counts:
 * 1) kezk(a/') eeske (lit. two fives)
 * 2) kezk(a/') eeske to hok (lit. two fives and one)


 * 1) kezk(a/') eeza (lit. three fives)
 * 2) kezka waat (lit. four fives)
 * 3) kezka kezka 25 (lit. five fives)
 * 4)  kezka kezka to hok (lit. five fives and one)


 * 1) kezka kezka to kezka kezka to kezka kezka to kezka kezka

Reaching numbers this big is rather uncommon. People tend to stick to smaller numbers and simply use za when counting becomes too tedious. To count a noun, a numeral is simply placed after it, for example naphe kezka t' eeza 'eight cows'.