Typologic survey, parts I and II...and a new conlang [Veldane'as Lingwas]

Cool!  Just in time for me to have the first of a set of sketches (to start with)
of my RPG conlangs up on the web....

On 01/27/2001 at 8:20 PM taliesin the storyteller wrote:

>---- PART I Conlang Typlogic Survey 2001 ----
>
>House-keeping data
>
>Name of the participating conlang:
Veldane'as Lingwas
[the e' is meant to be an e with an acute accent]

>Name/id of the creators:
Cian Ross

>Name/id of the submitter, if different from the creator:
N/A

>Place used, if any:
Fictional RPG world (which has different names in the different
languages...in the "present" stage of the language, the usual
term is that borrowed from the Elvish, Arda.)

>Web-address with more information, if any:
http://www.io.com/~cian/conlang/veldan.html

(Veldan is the Common-tongue (English) name for the language.)

>Type of language as per Rick Harrison's system[2]:
2.1.2 (I think).

>1: Word order of Subject (S), Object (O) and Verb (V)
Normally VSO, the exceptions being that relative pronouns are
often pulled to the front in relative clauses and that the focus
of interest is pulled to the front (after a particle) in contrast
word-order.  In poetry, all bets are off. :)  Intransitive verbs take
the same word order as transitive verbs.

>---- PART II Conlang Typlogic Survey 2001 ----
>
>2: Order of genitive (G), and noun (N)
Normally GN, but not rigidly (especially in poetry).

Note: using the genitive to express relationships between persons
is most rude, as it denotes actual ownership.  Instead, a prepositional
phrase is used, e.g., "me'va cyna" (= my dog), but "uios ag me'su"
(= son related-to me = my son).

>How is it shown?
Genitive case, on the possessor (see above: me'va vs. nominative me').

>3: Order of adjective (A) and noun (N)
AN; either order in poetic usage

>Does the language have a closed class of adjectives?
I'm not completely sure what the question means, but I think
the answer is no: there are (for example) active adjective-forming
suffixes.

>Regardless of being a separate class or not:
>How are they similar, how do they differ from verbs and nouns?
Adjectives are inflected like thematic-vowel nouns (thus have number,
case, and gender).  Exceptions are the definite article (which is optionally
indeclinable or an adjective) and the demonstratives (which are declined
like consonant-declension nouns).

>Can they take a copula (that is: need/don't need equivalent of "to be")?
Predicate adjectives must have the copula.

Cian Ross                       cian@io.com
http://www.io.com/~cian/conlang/

CCS !l cG:R:S:B: a++ y0 n4d:2d6 !R A-- E- L- N1
Isv k+ ia@ p m++ o P-- d? b? Veldaneas Lingwas