Nikki Language

Nikki is the language spoken on the moon Nikki.

Phonology

There are twenty-six consonants and eight vowels. Hover over phonemes to get their orthographic representation.

There are short-long pairs for each vowel. Schwa is considered the short vowel component of the central and back long vowels. Formerly these were /a ɔ ʊ/, but they have since merged. Spelling has not updated to reflect this.

Pitch Accent

Nikki words have pitch accent. Each polysyllabic word has a specific "high" syllable, marked orthographically with an acute accent. The pitch is gradually raised coming to that high syllable, then suddenly dropped and levelled out as the word finishes. For monosyllables, most do not have a "high" syllable, but some do, causing the next word to begin low instead of mid.

Grammar

Morphology

• 2 Categories of Inflection per verb - tense and class - number collapsed for past tense.
• Two classes - inanimate singular and animate/plural
• Primarily prefixed; the only suffixes are for declension and conjugation.
• Inanimate adjectives, nouns, and pronouns decline to number, taking the -a or -n suffix depending on ending. Pluralizing animate nouns requires the use of special counter nouns.
• In genitive constructions, neither noun is marked. The head (posessed object) is placed before the dependent (possessor).
• Most pronouns and determiners also decline to case.
• Three-way distance contrast in demonstratives
• The numeral system of Nikki is hexadecimal with quaternary cycles. However, many units of measurement are based on duodecimal.

Syntax

• Marked nominative
• primarily SVO; questions, imperatives, negatives, conditionals are VSO
• Prepositional
• Most adjectives can come either before or after the noun; [PREP ART (ADJ)] NOUN [(ADJ) NUM GEN/DEM REL]. Proper Nouns containing adjectives tend to have the adjectives come before the noun. Material composition also tends to precede the noun. Emphatic adjectives will always precede the noun. Aside from those, there are no other tendencies.
• Adv - Adj
• Negation marked by a special copulative verb ee, placed at the very beginning of the sentence. The verb to be negated is then placed in the conjunctive form just after the subject.
• Questions are marked solely by word order and are distinguished only from conditional clauses in that no effect clause follows

Conjugation

Nikki has a relatively simple conjugation, even relative to English. Verbs are only conjugated for two categories: class, and tense. There are four forms total for all regular verbs. There are a few irregular verbs which all retain a class distinction in the past tense. The conjunctive conjugation is used in a way very similar to English's infinitives and participles; it is used to form compound cases.

Nikki uses full reduplication of the stem to indicate habituality or repetition. Nikki can also reduplicate the first syllable of a verb (removing any high marks) and shorten the vowel to nominalize it, eg. dúúbii "exist" → dudúúbii "existence".

When the stem ends in a consonant, (e) is present. Otherwise, it is absent. This sometimes changes the spelling of digraphs, eg. bizy → ibiziette. When the stem begins in a consonant, [i] is added to form the conjunctive form. Otherwise, [y] is added.

The high in the conjunctive form will override the high in the stem, sometimes causing homophones in this conjugation.

Ee

The highly irregular verb ee is used to negate clauses. It changes to een before a vowel. Other forms also change before a vowel, except the form wadan which is invariant.

In the distant past, the non-conjuntive forms used to actually be a simple combination of two adverbs, one negative (een) and one emphatic (war). Varying usage by case and tense caused a syntactic divide, creating the familiar verb known to Nikki today. These adverbs no longer exist outside compounds.

Declension

The nominative case is used solely for the subject of verbs. The prepositional case is, of course, used before prepositions, but it can be used without a preposition, where it carries an adverbial meaning, and is used similar to the -ly and -wise suffixes in English. The accusative is used for all other positions, including the complement of copulae.

The few remaining pronouns and determiners that do decline now do so regularly, using the following predictable template:

Indefinite Article

Unlike English, all nouns require a determiner. This doesn't need to be an article necessarily, but it usually is.

Since all forms of the indefinite article have a first-syllable high, even the monosyllables, they are unmarked.

Definite Article

Since all forms of the definite article have a first-syllable high, even the monosyllables, they are unmarked.

Counter Nouns

Pluralizing animate nouns requires the use of special counter nouns. These counter nouns, which are animate in isolation, are inanimate when used as counters. This allows a three-way distinction in number for animate nouns, with singular counter nouns being used for "some, a few", and plural counter nouns being used for "many". For the purpose of syntax, the counter noun is considered the head of the noun phrase, and the animal itself is considered a genitive.

Vocab

bizy

v.

1. complain

bóózieeng

n.

1. chicken

dúúbii

v.

1. (copula) be

When negated, ee alone is used, rather than ee ... iduubiitté ...

welcy

n.

1. bird

ye

adv.

1. [Polar question particle]

Note: comes at the very end of a sentence.

Samples

Hes flaac bóózieeng dúúbii he flaac welcy.

Chickens are birds.

Misc. Statistics

WALS