Ancient Rinaki

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Rinaki is spoken by the Naruerinaki, a people living upon two Island chains in the ocean east of Namjog.

Etymology

Rinaki comes from rina 'to speak' and simply means language, speech, tongue. Naruerinaki comes from the same root and means the to speak something with the plural marker.

Phonology

• Consonants

Stops p t k /p t k/

Fricatives f v s z sh / f v s S/

Affricates pf ts ch /pf ts tS

Liquids r l /r l/

Approximants w y /w j/

Vowels

a ä e i ì o u / A @ I i Q U/

ay ey oy /aI eI oI

Lenition

p	t	ts	k	m
f	s	s	h	v

/m/ only lenits when followed by a vowel

Verbs

Rinaki is an ergative absolutive language. This is marked on nouns and not on the verb.

Ntuekasha nchuwem navi

Boy-erg fish-acc hunts

The boy hunts the fish

Word order is relatively free as cases show the relationship between words, however as a default order most speakers use SOV/EAV

The verb isn't marked for person nor tense but for perfectiveness or imperfectiveness, benefactive or antibenefactive and lauditive or pejorative. Aspect and various moods are used by placing infixed in 3 positions, the most common coming after the first syllable

There are two patterns verbs can follow;

Bisyllabic
U<infix1>n<infix2>I >uni
Ma<infix1>-ch<infix2>a >macha

Monosyllabic
T<infix1><infix2>un > tun
Ts<infix1><infix2>u >tsu

Bisyllabic verbs

Macha – teach

• Infix 1

macha teaches
mayaacha – taught perfective
mawaacha – teaching imperfective

The perfective is made with the insertion of /j/ plus doubling of root vowel after the first syllable, the imperfective replaces /j/ with /w/. Leaving the first infix gives the meaning of a simple present tense.

• Infix 2

Machana – caused/made to teach

machola – taught and performed for benefit - benefitative
machura – taught and performed for harm - antibenefitative

machonka – taught and happy about it lauditive
machämpa – taught and bored, anxious or annoyed about it pejorative

Infixes for position two appear in the order above.

Monosyllabic verbs

Monosyllable verbs work excatly the same by bisyllabic, the infixes coming after the first syllable

tun – visit

• Infix 1

Tun - visits
Tuyuun - visited
Tuwuun - is visiting

• Infix2

Tanun - made to visit
Tolun - visited (for one's benefit)
Tuyuunuru - visisted (for one's harm)

Tuonkun - visiting (and happy about it
Tunämpu - visting (and annoyed about it)

Causitives

Causatives are used to make verbs or nouns do something, i.e to die, becomes to kill; to make die/to cause to die. Adding a causative to a noun; house, to make a house. In a noun this infix will always come after the last syllable, intervining between the consonant and the vowel causing the vowel to move after -an-

Die intr – tuki > Kill tr – tukani
House – zunka > to build a house zunkana

These verbs follow normal verbal rules, however the first infix will come after any grammatical prefixes

To build a house – Zunkana
Have built a house - Zuyuunkana
Building a house - Zuwuunkana

This applies to multisyllabic words

Kuoyenrîmatasha Naseyeetenchanu

Kuoyenrìmata raised the Natetenchu Isles

Passive Voice

A passive can be created by taking away one arguement and putting it into the accussative case

The boy hunts the fish Ntuekasha nchuwem navi > The fish is hunted Nchuwem navi

also

The boy hunts Ntuekasha navi > The Boy is hunted Ntuekawem navi

Addtional moods

There are two suffixes which can come after final vowel

• Opative - want to teach > Machakwe
• Possibilitve -can teach > Machawiu

Negation is marked with the prefix pu-, this is followed by lention.

I didn't teach him what to hunt > He navi, foysha smowem puvacha

Imperative

There are two forms of the imperative, one used to make polite commands and the other informal.

The formal is made in position infix 1 with -yun- please follow/come > kayun Please eat > eyunsha

The informal is the simply stem of the verb come! Ka!

Questions

To form questions add the particle aswi to the end of the main clause.

Would you like to eat? > hnunu eshakwe aswi?

Have you eaten today? > hnunu chuzi eyeesha aswi?