### constraints

The following constraints on morpheme design make it easy to determine the boundaries between morphemes within a compound or derivative word, and also reduce the frequency of hard-to-pronounce consonant clusters. (A “morpheme” is a building-block from which words are made; for example, the English word undoubtedly consists of four morphemes: the prefix un-, the verb doubt, the suffix -ed and the suffix -ly.)

All nouns have the form IVF, IVMVF, IVMVMVF, IVMVMVMVF, etc.
I (initial) = b, c, d, f, g, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, y, z
M (medial) = b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, z
F (final) = b, c, d, f, g, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, z, µ
V (vowel) = a, e, i, o, u

As a general rule, 3-letter nouns refer to broad, generic concepts and high-frequency ideas; longer nouns refer to less frequent items and very specific concepts such as particular substances and phenomena.

Polysyllabic nouns cannot end with VC (vowel-consonant) combinations that are reserved for use as derivational suffixes.

The constraints listed above do not apply to “proper nouns” such as the names of cultures and individual humans. The names of the letters j, w, x, y also deviate from the rules.

Morphemes that are not nouns can have different phonetic shapes. Suffixes may have forms such as V, VC, VCC, and SVC (where S = semivowel w or y). Function-words such as conjunctions and special particles may have forms like CV, CSV, CVV, or CVhV.

## 3: Sounds and Symbols

### Vorlin names of the letters

Alphabetic languages have names for the letters they use; e.g. in English we refer to Z as “zee” (in the US) or “zed” (in the UK). The table below gives the Vorlin words that refer to each glyph. The names of most voiced consonants contain the vowel e and most unvoiced consonants have u; this makes them very distinct from one another, moreso than English pairs such as “bee” and “pee.”

a | lac |  | j | jej |  | t | tut
b | beb |  | k | kuk |  | u | luc
c | cuc |  | l | lel |  | v | vev
d | ded |  | m | mom |  | w | wu
e | hec |  | n | nar |  | x | hxc
f | fuf |  | o | hoc |  | y | yi
g | geg |  | p | pup |  | z | zez
h | huz |  | r | rer |  | µ | raµ
i | lic |  | s | sus |  |  |

## 8: Prepositions