Later Ansang

Spoken by the Ansang people is one of the languages spoken in Ansang Islands.

It's an agglutinative language and polysyntatic, most of it's grammatical constructions and morpheme can be agglutinated forming long words that encompass several phrases.

Phonotactics
Ansang syllable structure is observed to be simple plain (C)V(V)(C).

Nominal morphology
Ansang present a series of cases that do not mark any other particular construction. It does not mark number, person neither TAM.

Pronouns
In Ansang pronouns are particles that can be attached to the verb or noun that can come after or before the root word.

Transitive verbs
Transitive verbs in Ansang language are the ones that take the most morphology of all.

TAM
Verbs in Ansang are not conjugated by person, they exhibit a system of TAM (Tense Aspect and Mood) with, Past and Non-Past Tense,  Imperative and Infinitive. Bellow we can see a example of a sentence with use of Negative particle. mbu-ndixi-ŋgɨ-le-lu

1SG.NOM-kiss-PST-NEG-2PL.ACC

'i didn’t kiss you'

rut-xap ndekot-eye-nde

1SG.LOC-temple pray-NPST-2.SG.ACC

'I am at the temple praying to you'

mbu-ayondɨ-ŋgɨ-le-mbai’ uriŋ

1SG.NOM-eat-NEG-PST-3SG.ACC meat

'I didn't eat meat'

Derivation
Derivation in Ansang is a common act, and it is used in normal speech, mainly to form neologism the language does not has a root for it, or to simply to standardize the morphology.

Causatives
Causatives in Ansang come from the word voŋɨ "to give", it is also used as a benefactive and dative preposition."I'll do the work for you"

Reduplication
Reduplication is not core feature of Ansang, it is frequent to see happening in noun words for example “bo∼bong” that commonly means ‘made of rocks’, reduplication carries this characteristic of ‘made out of X’ X is the word which you reduplicate, the first mora of the word is always chosen to reduplicate.

Commonly done in name conventions, one of the most common names is mbomboŋ "made out of rocks/strong as rocks"



Syntax
Ansang is mostly SVO, with nominative-accusative alignment.

Relative clauses
Demonstratives are used in relative clauses se "this" became a common relativizer. "The man I saw yesterday has left."

"I live in the house that you saw yesterday."se is also used as an participle marker coming before the verb which also can be described as adverb.

Converb
Converbs are an innovation in Later Ansang from the end of 1000AGS. Here you can see them. They are formed from the productive word ɨtɨ "thing" being grammaticalized as nominalizer.vel-mborot ndayɨtɨ, ndaʼ-ahako ndorok-ka

2.NOM-sew TERM.CVB 1.NOM-sing song-PL

"While you are sewing, we sing songs"

Rukɨtɨ
For an imperfective, conditional and locative converb:mbaimbai xap-lu tɨr-ɨmbo rukɨtɨ tɨr-otiʼ ɨp njire

man temple-3.ACC 3.NOM-go CVB 3.NOM-see ART bird

"The man, while going to the temple, saw a bird"

Voŋɨtɨ
From the meaning to give, here its grammaticalized given a purposive and causal converb:mbu-toret se toʼor kake voŋɨtɨ

1.NOM-scale DEM fish cook CVB

"I scale this fish in order to cook it"

Ndayɨtɨ
From the verb to leave, here it is grammaticalized given a terminative converb:mbu-lonjor ndayɨtɨ mbu-res-eye-le tu-tere

1.NOM-die TERM.CVB 1.NOM-forget-NPST.NEG 2.GEN-kindness

"Until I die, I'll not forget your kindness"

Complementizer: alerukɨt and alendayɨ
From the two words Ale "to say" and Rukɨtɨ Converb (analyzed as the most common converb derived from the imperfective converb), the word it is grammaticalized as a complementizer. Another word rarely seen but also used in literature is Alendayɨ, from Ale "to say" and Ndayɨtɨ "terminative converb".tata umanji-re alerukɨt tɨr-emerek

father come-NPST say.CVB 3.NOM-know

"He knows that father will come tomorrow"

yo/ŋal - coordination for nominals and adjectives
Yo is the main coordination of Ansang, The numbers or nouns or noun phrases that can be conjoined to yo is unlimited unlike ŋal which is solely for adjectives and adjectival phrases. Verbs take the converbs show above.

other subordination strategies (e.g. for manner, means, purpose, cause)

valence-changing strategies (e.g. causatives, anticausatives, applicatives, etc.)

Questions (polar, content)
Question intonation is often used as a way to convey questions, be it polar or content.

Directional (orientational) prefixes

 * ŋay- Upward
 * ot- Up stream/Inward
 * la- Neutral
 * ŋge- Downward
 * ɨr- Down stream/Outward
 * map- Towards the speaker

Directive use of directional prefixes
Some verbs may not take directional prefixes, those that do, are verbs related to movement. Like to go, to pass, to flow and to arrive.

Writing system
Around the year 900AGS Möxali people sailed in Ansang islands, some forward years in 950AGS their writing system the Opsíbdañox developed into Ansang Writing System.

Classifiers

 * -mboŋ small, roundy, from "rock".
 * -urɨŋ fleshy, bloody (related to body parts), from "meat".
 * -mar waterlogged places or things.
 * -ŋgayu stackable or foldable things.

Ordinal numbers
Formed by preceding the number with sa.

Counters
Ansang features counters for basically anything.