Kaxes

1. Preamble

All words will be written using Latin representation of Kaxes; for reference please see the according section in Orthography.

2. Phonology

2.1. Consonants

2.1.1. Inventory

	Bilabial	Coronal	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar
Plosive	p	t			k
Nasal	m	n
Trill		r
Fricative		s z	ʃ		x
Approximant		l		j

2.1.2. Palatalization

All plosives, nasals, /r/, /s/, /z/, /x/ and /l/ palatalize before /i/, /e/, /y/.

2.1.3. Initial voicing and assimilation

/p/, /t/, /k/, /ʃ/ turn into [b], [d], [g], [ʒ] before nasals and at the start of syllables unless surrounded by other unvoiced consonants.

2.2. Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i y		u
Mid	e	ə
Open	a		ɑ

2.2.1. Diphthongs

/ai/, /au/, /ɑu/

2.2.2. Allophones

/u/, /ə/ after velars or consonantal cluster that includes velars -> [ɨ]

2.3. Phonotactics

2.3.1. Syllable structure

Beginning of the word: ON(C), where O — Onset, N — nucleus, C — coda

Middle/end of the word: (O)N(C)

2.3.2. Onset

List of allowed onsets:
C
m[r, j]
nP
[s, z, ʃ]N
lj
ml
[t, k]F
where C — consonant; N — nasals /m, n/; P — plosives /p, t, k/; F — fricatives /s, z, ʃ, x/

2.3.3. Nucleus

Nucleus consists of a single vowel/diphthong or /l/, /r/. Generally the nucleus is not /l, r/ if those phonemes are already part of the onset.

2.3.4. Coda

Optional.
List of allowed codas:
C
FN

2.4. Pitch accent

Usually one syllable (there might be multiple in long words) in a word is stressed using a (relatively) high pitch. Monosyllabic words tend to be stressed. This will be denoted using ́◌ in IPA.

3. Orthography

3.1. Writing system

An alphabet. Also called "amějyr" (for the first 5 letters).

Pitch accent is usually unmarked but might be in educational materials.

3.2. Latin

Adaptation of kaxes into Latin.

Kaxes	Latin
/a/	a
/m/	m
/ə/	ě
/y/	y
/r/	r
/t/	t
/x/	x
/j/	j
/k/	k
/z/	z
/e/	e
/ʃ/	š
/ɑ/	o
/i/	i
/p/	p
/s/	s
/u/	u
/n/	n
/l/	l

3.3. Cyrillic

Adaptation of kaxes into Cyrillic.

Kaxes	Cyrillic
/a/	а
/m/	м
/ə/	ы
/y/	ю
/r/	р
/t/	т
/x/	х
/j/	й
/k/	к
/z/	з
/e/	е
/ʃ/	ш
/ɑ/	о
/i/	и
/p/	п
/s/	с
/u/	у
/n/	н
/l/	л

4. Morphology

4.1. Nouns

Nouns are a part of speech that describe concrete objects or abstract ideas.

4.1.1. Noun cases

Tripartite alignment

There are 11 cases in Kaxes:

Case	Description
Absolutive	Denotes the subject of an intransitive verb. \\ He walked.
Nominative	Denotes the agent of a transitive verb. \\ They opened the door.
Accusative	Denotes the object of a transitive verb. \\ They opened the door.
Genetive	Denotes ownership and composition. \\ The door was made out of wood. \\ The door's handle was golden.
Dative	Generally denotes recipient, but can also denote direction (towards). \\ He walked towards them and gave them…
Locative	Denotes location. \\ Both of them were now at the exit.
Instrumental	Denotes the instrument/method through which an action was taken, or a way of travel. \\ Using a lockpick, she cracked the chest open. \\ They travelled by foot.
Abessive	Denotes a lack of something. \\ Both of them lacked the will.
Essive	Denotes a temporary state of being. \\ As a child, he was sickly. \\ She [at this moment] works as a technician.
Partitive	Used for counting and amounts. \\ He picked up a few pieces of paper.
Comparative	Denotes comparison and equating. \\ Her voice was like a thunder.

4.1.2. Noun classes

There are 2 noun classes in Kaxes: common (used for all animate things, plants and natural events) and neuter (used for everything else). Verb-adjective-adverbs and pronouns do not agree by noun class.

4.1.3. Person and number

There are 3 grammatical persons: 1st, 2nd, 3rd. There are 2 grammatical numbers: singular and plural.

4.1.4. Paradigms

There are 4 declension paradigms in Kaxes:

No	Description
1	Neuter words ending with a consonant that is not m, n.
2	Neuter words ending with a nasal (-m, -n) or a vowel.
3	Animate words ending with a vowel or -r, -l.
4	All other words.

There are exceptions. There are also indeclinable words, which are mostly borrowings from other languages.

4.2. Verbs

4.2.1. Tense-aspect

4.2.2. Modality

4.2.3. Copula

4.2.5. Valency

4.2.6. Declension and agreement

4.2.7. Verb phrases

4.3. Adjective-adverbs

4.3.1. Declension and agreement

4.3.2. Adjective phrases

4.3.3. Order

4.3.4. Comparatives

4.3.5. Participles

4.3.6. Determiners

4.4. Pronouns

4.4.1. Politeness

All types of pronouns (except for reciprocal and reflexive) distinguish between informal and formal (polite). The polite form is not distinguished between classes or numbers.

4.4.2. Types

Personal

Table of personal pronouns in Kaxes:

	Singular	Plural
1st person common	ké	mék
neuter	tsé	méts
2nd person common	rě́r	míěr
neuter	sér	smír
polite	lé	---
3rd person common	xó	mxó
neuter	sóx	smóx
polite	lái	---

Demonstrative
Reflexive

The reflexive is tɑmláz and acts as a suffix, appended to the very end of a verb it modifies.
Reciprocal (?)

The reciprocal pronoun is [], and acts as a separate word, usually inserted after a verb.
Demonstrative
Relative
Interrogative
Indefinite