Tandí

Introduction

'obala waTandí yábalí is the native language of the ŋation of N'ogaben waYukuz yalekki on order of lappi Miya on the 3rd of May, 2026, at 12:06 P.M. CST

Phonology

Vowels

closure	front	central	back
close	í/		/ó
near-close	i/
close-mid	é/		/o
mid		u/
open-mid	e/
near-open	á/
open	a/

Vowels may be nasalized or elongated

Consonants

Placement → ↓ Manner	BIlabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	/m			/n
Plosive	p/b			t/d			k/g	'
Non-sibilant affricate					ts/dj
Sibilant fricative				c/z	s/j
Non-sibilant fricative		f/v	/ð			/y	k/g	h
Approximant				/r			/w (/w/)	/r (/ʢ̞/)
Tap/Flap				/r
Lateral Approximant				/l

Consonant cluster reduction rules

Consonants replace neighboring same-manner consonants of more forward placement when in a pair alone, and delete neighboring consonants of the manner below,

• lad-gíla-món-'an → laggílamón'an​ (d-g → gg, n-' → n')
• lad-púkan-món → laddúkannón​ (d-p → dd, n-m → nn)
• yá-damack-dé'an → yádamacké'an​ (ck-d → ck)
• bí-daad-ní → daaní (d-n → n)

Phonotactics

(C)(S)VC(C) or (C)CV(S)(C) ,where C is any consonant, S is any oral sonorant, and V is any vowel

V can be lengthened, which is represented as 2 vowels in the romanization but counts as 1

C can be geminated, which is represented as 2(3) consonants in the romanization but counts as 1 for syllabic structure and 2 for rhymes

There is no set tense patterning, and tense is instead considered a part of intonation

Allophones

• <f> /f/ → /fʰ/ | _N
• <g> /g/ → /ɣ/ | V!A(S)_V
• <k> /k/ → /kʰ/ | _N
• <k> /k/ → /x/ | V!A(S)_V
• <l> /l/ → /l̃/ | N_
• <p> /p/ → /pʰ/ | _N
• <r> /ɹ/ → /ɾ/ | C_
• <r> /ɹ/ → /ɹ̃/ | N_
• <r> /ɹ/ → /ʢ̞/ | #_
• <t> /t/ → /tʰ/ | _N

where C is any consonant, V is any vowel, V!A is any non-acute vowel, N is any nasal vowel, S is any oral sonorant, and #_ means word-initial

Morphology

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

bin - 1.AN

mam - 1.INAN

poka - 2.AN

tóó - 2.INAN

dããd - 3.AN

ken - 3.INAN

Deictic pronouns

mitta - this

lotta - that

Interrogative pronouns

koko - what

(other interrogatives are phrasal, e.g. 'lewa koko' [in_order_to what] meaning 'why')

Indefinite pronouns

Type	Negative	Universal	Assertive existential	Dubitative existential
Person	habunko	habunbaa	habunlin	habunẽn
Thing	lenko	lenbaa	lenlin	lenẽn
Place	ranko	ranbaa	ranlin	ranẽn
Time	cónko	cónbaa	cónlin	cónẽn

Nouns

Role assignment

subject (Nominative case): 'al-

direct object/subject complement (Accusative case): bí-

indirect object (Dative case): tú-

object complement (Genitive case): wan-

other (Oblique case): 'o-

Number

singular default, plus dual, paucal, and plural marked by suffix on a stem which goes before tense and aspect

dual: -dí

paucal: -ve

plural: -na

Gender

There is no grammatical gender in Tandí

Possession

POSD na POSR: 'obaan na 'obákúún - the room of the house (DEF-OBL-room POSS DEF-OBL-house)

Determiners

Demonstratives

_ wannitta - this _

_ wanlotta - that _

Articles

Tandí does not use articles

Possessive Determiners

_ na _: doro na bín - my ball (ball POSS 1.AN); doro na poka - your ball (ball POSS 2.AN); etc.

_ na koko bac - whose _ (POSS what AN)

Quantifiers

ãmm - all

tsupla - most

minet - few

Conjunctions

dú - CON

'ano - DIS

Numerals

Cardinals

cardinal "'amend" noun - cardinal of noun, e.g. ní 'amend doro - two CARD ball - two balls

nũm - zero

'ókcí - one

ní - two

ta'í - three

sín - four

kílan - five

jaal - six

kitten - seven

bón - eight

nítta - nine

lan - ten

cen - hundred

tõn - thousand

Ordinals

ordinal tokan noun - ordinal ORD noun, e.g. ní tokan doro - two ORD ball - second ball

ní tokan 'aban nana jelí - two ORD day PRT year- second day of the year

Nominals

root-cardinal - root number cardinal, e.g. doroní - ball-two - ball number two

baddaa 'aldaadukcí bídããní - hit-PRS NOM-3.AN-one ACC-3.AN-two - he hit him (of two people)

Adjectives

Placement

directly after the noun

'okína yálekkena wakakííta - OBL-seed-PL ADJ-green GEN-pepper - green pepper seeds

Adjectives may or may not match the number of the noun, as there is a semantic difference

Comparison

yá-adjective-degree-PRS subject - subject is degree adjective than object

Finite Verbs

Tense

attaches to verb

-da: PRS

-'ãn: PST

-lí: FUT

Aspect

goes after tense:

-bó: PROG.CONT

-len: PERF

-món: GNO

-dada: HAB

goes before verb:

kon-: INF

In addition, there is the following phrasal construction:

'ayída _: there is _, _ has happened, _ is true

Mood

'akaa- : MIR

'anõõl- : CONC.HYP

'ila- : OPT.BEND

'íyye- : HORT.JUSS

luke- : DUB.COND

me- : ABIL

tene- : PERM.PRESCR

Evidentiality

-ce'í : RPT

-mánna : INFR

-nobã : NVIS

-tócí : VIS

Negation

'eeya - NEG

Agreement

When a past-tense verb phrase contains another verb phrase, that past is the referent present of the nested verb phrase (e.g. lagað'ãn 'albín tandralí 'albín - say-PST NOM-1.AN run-FUT NOM-1.AN - I said I was going to run)

Voice

mẽna- : CAUS

lad- : PASS

'õm- : REV

Auxiliary Verbs

'ayí (AFF) conveys confirmation of an action, and is verbalized to 'ayída (AFF-PRS) to convey confirmation of a state or truth, or of an object's existence, across the past, present, or future, with tense agreement

'cirette laan ma/im' conveys that the agent has knowingly or unknowingly caused the subject to be unintentionally involved in the direct object (a state or event)

Copula

There is no copula in Tandí

Adpositions

Agreement

No agreement between adposition and complement is necessary

Syntax

Sentence Order

VSO word order

Particles go before the words they attach to, and prepositions after

Adjectives may attach to any words except conjunctions and postpositions. They go directly after the word they attach to (except verbs, where they go after the postposition)

Adjectives can also be placed at the head of a verb phrase to convey 'SBJ is ADJ', just as nouns may do the same to convey 'SBJ is N'

Verb complements may be placed before the verb phrase's prepositional phrases and connected clauses, but still after the postposition and adjectives, if they are only one word long

Auxiliary Verb Constructions

Nouns cannot be advanded forward within auxiliary verb phrases

'ayí can be either a verb or a preposition, as mentioned in Auxiliary Verbs

Auxiliary verbs follow a regular form:

V PREP PREP-PHR S (Od) (Oi)

where V PREP is the auxiliary verb, PREP-PHR holds the direct object of the verb, and either the subject (S) is the agent, the direct object (Od) is the subject, and the indirect object is the indirect object, or the subject is the agent and subject and the direct object (Oi) is the indirect object if the agent is the same as the subject

1. cirette'ãn laan ma 'o'óta 'alpoka bíbín moo bípoka
   1. stumble-PST to PERL.PROL OBL-fight NOM-2.AN ACC-1.AN COM ACC-2.AN
   2. "You got yourself and I caught up in a fight"
2. mẽnacirette'ãn laan ma 'o'óta 'albín
   1. CAUS-stumble-PST to PERL.PROL OBL-fight NOM-1.AN
   2. "I got myself caught up in a fight"

Adverb Placement

Adverbs are a derivative of adjectives, and follow adjective rules

Coordination

Coordinating conjunctions go between all matrix clauses and cannot be omitted

Subordination

Subordinate clauses are treated as prepositional phrases, and subordinating conjunctions are functionally prepositions

Relative Clauses

Relative clauses follow a regular form:

HEAD REL VP

where HEAD is 3.INAN if the relative clause is free and the bound matrix clause if the relative clause is bound, REL is a grammatical particle (kaka /kaxa/), and VP is a verb phrase

Questions

Polar Questions

hal ('eeya) _: is _ (un)true?

WH-Questions

• koko - what, noun
• conna - when, noun
• mosí - who, noun
• koko walen - when (what time), noun (very specific)
• koko wanhabun - who (what person), noun (very specific)
• koko waran - where (what place), noun (very specific)
• lewa koko - why (to what end), prepositional phrase
• lak koko - how (by doing what), prepositional phrase
• no koko - about what, prepositional phrase
• 'im koko - where (near what), prepositional phrase
• 'im conna - when (near when), prepositional phrase
• 'imaan conna - for what time frame (inside when), prepositional phrase
• do koko - from what
• laan koko - to what
• etc...

ga'ãn 'almosí bíkoko 'im conna, dú 'imaan conna, dú 'im koko, dú no koko, dú lewa koko, dú lak koko, dú kepen koko, dú do koko, dú laan koko, ..., dú kit mosí túkoko?

do-PST NOM-who ACC-what near when, CON inside when, CON near what, CON about what, CON by_doing what, CON INSTR what, CON from what, CON to what, ..., CON BEN who DAT-what

"who did what when, in what time frame, where, about what, why, how, using what, from what, ... , and to what (indirect) to what (direct)?"

Existential Clause

uses the auxiliary verb construction of 'ayí

Miscellaneous

The subject, and sometimes the object, direct or indirect, of a verb phrase can be move up in the sentence in a select set of cases:

1. A quote is being given. Since the quote is a prepositional phrase, it would normally occur before the arguments of the verb. However, because this could result in poorer understanding of the quote itself, the arguments go before SPECIFICALLY the quote, and after any other prepositions or particles, and the quote prepositional phrase goes last.
2. The subject or object is only one word long. In order to promote faster delivery of important information, the word may be placed before all prepositions and particles, at the 'front' of the verb phrase (behind the verb and postposition and adverbs)