Project Garnet
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Welcome to the Project Garnet Page. Project Garnet is the first language project created for the "Con-Cinematic Universe of Languages" mentioned on the homepage (you can read more about the world itself here, or by clicking the link labeled "YNUH" in the Navvy-G8r 3000™ above. This page will primarily be focused on Proto-Garnet and general Garnetian (/gaɹˈniʃn̩/) culture and mythology. In the future, I will have a subbar below the Navvy-G8r (currently dubbed the "Mini-G8r" and under construction) which will link to the daughters of Proto-Garnet.
The origin of the name "Project Garnet" comes from a trend on the CBB in which language projects are given a mineral name instead of an endonym. I have chosen Garnet specifically because garnets are broken up into two major groups, pyralspite and ugrandite, and similarly the Garnetian language family is broken up into 2 major branches, also called Pyralspite and Ugrandite.
On a meta note, this is a project which was meant to connect three disparate but similar (grammatically and to a lesser extent lexically) languages: Vuase, Bozeto-ei, and Uži. The first of which, Vuase, is my oldest extant conlang--I have older conlangs but they are no longer with us, or only survive in name such as Uži, which had previously been called Lelendzi, but I digress. Below is the Table of Contents, which much like a Wikipedia page will jump you to the different sections on this page. Technology is truly amazing!
Proto-Garnet was a language spoken in the Garnetian River Valley, in what is currently referred to as Pyralspitia (/pajɹl̩ˈspajʃə/). It was the origin of the Garnetian languages, and thus the mother of the Garnetian language family. It spans both of the major continents on YNUH. It is characterized by its large consonant inventory and its slightly quirky SVO word order.
Proto-Garnet had a total of 42 consonants, including an apical-laminal distinction and aspirated and glottalized fricatives. Interestingly, most daughters contain an average to moderately small consonant inventory. Below is a table showing the full inventory.
| consonants | labial | laminal | apical | velar | uvular | glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||||
| stop | plain | p b | t d | k g | q ɢ | ʔ | |
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | kʰ | qʰ | |||
| glottalic | p' b' | t' d' | k' g' | ||||
| fricative | plain | f v | s z | š ž | x ɣ | χ | h |
| aspirated | sʰ | šʰ | |||||
| glottalic | s' z' | š' ž' | |||||
| liquid | w | r l | j | ||||
There are a few important notes to make about this table and about the consonant inventory of Proto-Garnet in general. The first is that though this chart does not show aspirated or glottalic non-sibilants, there is evidence that they did exist. However, very early in Proto-Garnet's life, they merged with the respective stop consonants, and their evidence only survives in instances of coarticulatory assimilation (which will be discussed in the section on allophony). So, while they are not written on here, I do sometimes write roots (keyword "roots" and not inflected words) with their aspirated/glottalized nonsibilant fricatives so that I remember that they exist.
On top of this, a potential analysis of the non-plain fricatives is that they are actually affricates, as some daughters derive these as such (and sometimes even as full stops). However, this realization is sporadic amongst daughters, and it is perhaps more accurate to say that affrication was a common allophone of/was in free variation with the fricative form.
Finally, on the topic of the non-plain consonants, glottalized uvulars also merged with the glottal consonants (glottalized stops with /ʔ/ and glottalized fricatives wit /h/). Additionally, it is unclear whether the uvular series had a voiced fricative: it may have merged with /ɢ/, or perhaps the opposite happened. Either way, /ɢ/ is often realized as /ʁ/ or even sometimes /ʀ/.
Also, the terms "laminal" and "apical" are terms of convenience, as a more narrow description is dental and post-alveolar (though this separation of the two is something which occured later in Proto-Garnet's life, and in early stages of its development the two sibilants were very much a plain laminal/apical distinction.)
The vowel inventory, in comparison to the consonants, is a very plain five-vowel system with a length distinction. Below is the table showinf the full inventory.
| vowels | front | back |
|---|---|---|
| high | i ī | u ū |
| mid | e ē | o ō |
| low | a ā | |
There is really only one note to make, and that is that no daughters retain the original Proto-Garnet length distinction, but both branches got rid of it in different (but comparable) ways, and thus a length distinction is not necessarily the only possible interpretation one could make as to what the difference was. However, as I am the arbiter of this universe, I have declared that the difference was in fact one of length.
Now that the phonemic inventory has been outlined, it is time to discuss phonotactics and allophony in Proto-Garnet. The syllable structure is fairly simple--CVC, allowing for intervocalic consonant clusters. The only thing of note to mention in this paragraph is that glottalic consonants were not allowed in coda position.
As promised, the first topic of allophony will be on the coarticulatory assimilation. All fricatives and stops abided by this rule, which was that in consonant clusters, the initial consonant agreed in the coarticulation and voicing of the following one. An example of this occuring is with the verb *ŋiɣ "cover, lean" and the gerund *ŋixse "clothes," or between *ŋiɣ and the causitive ŋikʰtʰoš, which, on top of showing the coarticulatory assimilation, also shows the merger of non-plain fricatives and non-plain stops.
The other major alloponic rule is that of vowel sandhi. In general, when two vowels are next to each other, the second one is absorbed by the first, lengthening it in the process. However, if the first vowel is long, then the first vowel loses its length and an epenthetic liquid is placed between the two vowels (with the rule of ī ē ū ō ā > ij ej uw ow aw).
Nouns in Proto-Garnetian
I will just repost verbatim the description of the noun cases in Proto-Garnetian that I posted in my CBB thread on this language.
First is the nominative case. The nominative has the least unique uses of any case. It is just the subject of a clause. It is also the dictionary form, and is the unmarked form of a noun.
The accusative case is also fairly simple, but slightly more interesting. It has the function of marking the object of a clause, and much like several indo-european languages, it functions as an “accusative of duration of time” indicating how long an action was performed. It is also used as a vocative.
The genitive case is where things begin to get interesting as from this point on every case has myriad function. Obviously, as a genitive it is a marker of possession. Specifically it marks alienable possession: there is another system for inalienable possession which I will discuss later. It is also used for amounts, and parts of a whole. So, it is used in phrases such as “2 out of 3 cheeses,” “wheel of cheese,” and “some cheese.” It is used in conjunction with amount words like some, many, a few, etc. Note that you use it mandatorily with any amount words, unlike in English where you can omit it in some contexts. When used by itself, as in not modifying another noun, it has an ablative sense as in “from the cheese.” The ablative sense also applies to temporal motion toward the future (“I will eat the cheese in an hour from now”) Lastly, the ablative describes facing away from an object and also describes the impetus of an action (“I am sick from eating too much cheese.”)
The instrumental case also has a lot of uses. Firstly, there is no instrumental/comitative distinction in this language, so it makes no distinction between using the object to complete an action and completing an action with the company of the object. It is also used as a dative and a benefactive. You use this case, in the comitative sense, whether you and the object are doing the same action as each other. That may sound confusing as I'm not sure how I would describe this in a technical sense, but let's take 2 sentences “I ate dinner with you” and “I sang a song to you.” In the first sentence, we are both eating, but in the other I am singing while you are listening. However, I am saying that those would both use the instrumental case. I suppose that it has to do with the fact that while you are not the direct object, you are still either in direct receipt of the action or are directly participating in it. But this is getting into a level of depth that is starting to bend my brain into a pretzel so for now I will move on. But before I do, this case actually has one more sense. It is used as a semblative, and used for comparing two nouns, especially to point out their similarity (“this cheese is like a smiley face in your mouth” or “I love this cheese like my son”), and also to form “as X as Y” type constructions.
And finally, the locative case. This case is kind of a catch-all case for any spatial or temporal relationship. It describes motion towards, into, through, over, under, and around as well as proximity to, and position in, on, or near something. it also describes points in time such as well as motion forward in time (“I ate the cheese an hour ago” or as it would be translated more literally “I ate the cheese an hour to now” which is cromulent english but a little wonky, especially in that circumstance). The locative also conversely to the ablative senses of the genitive case is used to mark the ends of actions and also the deadlines for actions (“you must eat all this cheese in the next hour.”)
More to come!
se utra trys