Alwas

Alwas is the language spoken by the people of Alwaein. It is unrelated to the larger languages of Daulerim or Illodzin. The reach of Alwas is limited to the island of Alwaein itself. There are however pockets of vestige languages on the opposite side of the coast. The language called Old Gurnauan and the tongue spoken by Maimin Rawa both show an affiliation to Alwas. The family has therefore been dubbed Alwa-Gurnauan.

Phonology

Vowels

Alwas makes the distinction between two kinds of monophthong vowels, strong vowels and weak vowels. There are seven strong vowels, shown below. Each one can be the nucleus of a syllable.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i e		u o
Middle	ɛ (ae)		ɔ (oa)
Low		a

Weak vowels on the other hand can be nuclei to syllables, but they can also be devoiced or be non-syllabic in nature. They are also the basis for diphthongs and thriphthong. There are only three kinds weak vowels.

	Front	Central	Back
High	ę		ǫ
Low		ą

Weak vowels are different in matters of accentuation, syllabification and assimilation. Weak vowels are always inherently deaccentuated. If they have to be accentuated by other means, they create epenthetic vowels in their stead. As for syllabification, they are often ellided and can create consonant clusters otherwise not found. As for assimilation, they often leave traces, such as voicing, palatalisation and labialisation.

Diphthongs and Thriphthongs

There are a total of six phonemic diphthongs. They are /au, ai, ei, eu, ou, oi/. These diphthongs are phonemic in nature, while thriphthongs are not. Triphthongs therefore have to be considered vocalic clusters, while diphthongs are segmental.

Consonants

Alwas differentiates obstruents from sonoroants. Within obstruents it differentiates voiceless from voiced obstruents. Voiceless obstruents are furthermore split into stops and fricatives. Voiced obstruents on the other hand aren't inherently stops are fricatives, but change depending on phonotactics.

	Labial	Coronal	Dorsal
Stop	p	t	k
Voiced Obstruent	b/v	d/ð (d/dh)	g/ɣ (g/gh)
Fricative		s, ʃ (sh)
Nasal	m	n
Trill		r
Approximant	w	j (j, y)
Lateral		l

Syntax

This section exists to showcase the basic syntax of Alwas. The basic word order is either SVO or SOV, while Alwas is increasingly shifting towards a SVO word order. At it core it remains SV and SO in nature. The reason for the shift is the increasing proclitisation of converbial forms. As general rule, verb without proclitics are usually sentence-final, while those with proclitics are moved.

Pro-Drop

Alwas allows for dropping pronouns, especially topics and subjects, but it is not a consequent pro-drop language. It does drop pronouns however regardless of whether the verb actually marks for person or not.

oaltąr sheu emok? "Where are you?"
oal=tąr sheu e-mok
INT=stand you INT-LOK
tąren shamok "I am at home."
tąr-en sham-ok
stand-INTRS house-LOK

Intransitive Clauses

Intransitive verbs recieve the suffix -na/-en to their stem, otherwise they are not marked for person. jouk tiyna "I am sleeping", jouk moren "I am cooking"

Transitive Clauses

Pronominal Arguments

Pronouns in Alwas have two cases, a nominative-subject case an an accusative-object case. For example a first person singular subject is jouk, the object is jonne, for the second person singular there are sheu and shenne. For the third person singular masculine there is ne, for the feminine there is nepą, for their subject forms. Both masculine and feminine showcase anna as their object form.

Nominal Phrases

Nominal phrases behave differently than pronominal arguments. While they feature a whole range of cases, they have no overt object nor subject cases. However they differentiate by the necessity for transitive subjects to be head-marked, while objects are dependent-marking (Adjuncts and post-verbal arguments can show different behavior).
A nominal-phrase as subject has a so called pseudo-ergative, which in its default form is the same form used for the copulaic ending.
ghęau tiyna "The man is sleeping"
ne ghęauta "He is a man"
ghęauta sęosh kepą "The man is throwing the spear"

This obligatory head-marking has an ergativic pattern, but it cannot be explained by a single ergative case. If there is another option for head-marking avaible, it is chosen. There are other head-marking cases, such as the manipulator-instrumental case.
sęosh ghęaunoav meyn dhortą "The man is killing the witch with the spear"

Name
Alwas
Spoken by
Alwaeinians (Humans)
Spoken on
Alwaein
Number of Speakers
1.5 million
Language Family
Alwa-Gurnauan
Writing System
None, Daulerim Alphabet