Introduction to Naromi (grammar and script)

A few days ago I found a large pile of dusty paper (made me sneeze! ;))
with some old 6 months ago conlang material. It seems I had worked on a
script for my older conlang Naromi /na"ro.mi/. According to a backup file,
I started the actual conlang on 02/07/26.

Link: http://starfish.mine.nu:8080/~vaxje/gfx/naromi.png
(Now let's just hope the server stays online for now. ;))

The second line is just a faster written variation of the first. ;)

It's a partial-syllable script. There are separate characters for |r|, |s|,
and |n|. I'm sure the script is not finished yet; there are a few syllables
I still need to cover, I reckon.

Naromi itself isn't an interesting language (from my perspective anyway):

Singular nouns end in _-a_, singular verbs (agree with subject) end in
_-u_. Plural nouns end in _-i_ (_naromi_ from _naroma_ "word"), plural
verbs end in _-o_. Behold an example:

(1) Thida duatudi dithanmu fama    simarasu.
     moon  CLSTR   reveal   opening planet:LOC
     /"Ti.da dy.a."ty.di di.Ta=n.my fa.ma si.ma=r"a.sy/

The (not really) innovating feature is the cluster (CLSTR), which marks
some stuff in advance, such as verb tense, subject, verb category and
object (in)definiteness (it also distinguishes proper nouns).

I wish I could parse (1)'s cluster, but my current notes are quite
contradicting. ;) According to my grammar notes, _duatudi_ is either
ditransitive or imperative. That surely makes no sense. The only thing I
can come up with is that _duatudi's_ |tu| is a dumb contraction of |tau|
(which makes perfect sense). Perhaps an undocumented rule. ;))

The other peculiar feature: through the CLSTR you can mark an infinitive as
plural to indicate repetition or an action that occurs more than once.
Also, on the CLSTR, infinitives are marked for their purely syntactic
indefiniteness. Strict word order: [SUBJ] CLSTR VERB [INF] [DO|IO] [IO|DO]
[ADVERBS].
(DO = direct object, IO = indirect object)

(2) Nuato domasu  naromimua          unata damano  sanon.
     CLSTR VERB[1] words:POS:2/3rd:SG CLSTR VERB[2] too-much
     He is a fool, [because] his words are too many.
     [1] = to be a fool
     [2] = to have
     POS = possessive

Sentence (2) contains two clauses: |nuato| marks the first, |unata| marks
the beginning of the second. Both CLSTRs have a different marking order
(respectively: T-N-P & N-T-P). (T=tense N=numer P=person)

(3) Nimar duato dasandaru  uditadidiu nathinku dandaru noa  nua.
     Nimar CLSTR was killed CLSTR      command  kill    them him
     Nimar was killed, [because] I commanded them to kill him.

(3) seems more complicated. I don't look forward to parsing this one. ;(((
|Dasandaru| is the passive of |dandaru|. Simply a matter of the _-sa-_
infix after the first syllable. |Uditadidiu| is similar to |unata| in that
it marks a secondary clause (it's just a whole lot longer!!!!). This
unforgivable CLSTR also indicates whether |noa| or |nua| is DO/IO. Note
that the pronouns only differ in number, not in person (since 2rd and 3rd
have the same marking ;))).

I still have some other fantasy RPG world languages hanging around (which I
will introduce too of course) that are less experiment than this one. If I
ever finish the Naromi script, I might make some additions for use with
some of those other languages.

Okay!! That's about it, sorry to bore you people so much with this old
crap. ;))

vaksje.
http://starfish.mine.nu:8080/~vaxje/
(unfortunately does not yet contain conlang stuff ;)

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