CMCtä

CMCtä is a fictional grammatical particle described for the purposes of this article. In the imagined constructed language family CMC, it functions as an evidential marker attached to finite verbs. The marker appears as the suffix tä, written with the umlaut on the a to signal vowel harmony in CMC phonology. When attached to a verb, -tä indicates that the information is second-hand, hearsay, or inferred rather than directly witnessed.

Origin and name reflect its construction. The term CMCtä combines the language-family acronym CMC with the suffix tä. The umlauted ä in the orthography is used to suggest a vowel-harmony system imagined for the language and helps distinguish this marker from plain -ta in other linguistic contexts.

Grammar and usage are straightforward. The suffix attaches directly to the verb stem in predicate position and does not occur with imperative forms. It interacts with the verb’s tense and aspect in the sense that it primarily conveys evidentiality, though in some dialects of the fictional language it can bear additional politeness or formality nuance. Phonologically, tä is realized as [tæ] and may be realized as [tə] in rapid speech.

Examples illustrate its function. lako-tä means “it is said that someone saw,” with lako meaning “to see.” biro-tä means “it is reported that someone left,” with biro meaning “to leave.” These examples show how -tä marks the source of information rather than the speaker’s direct experience.

See also: evidentiality, conlangs, morphological markers.