Tech: One, two, three, four, five consonant words

First, an addendum to my last post: the Tech Elves have a very ancient
traditional religion based on one supreme deity (root: ?j-l < Nostratic ?il ~
?el, a sun god); it is very much like the monotheism promoted by the Egyptian
king Akhenaten.  It is possible that the Pharaoh may have learned his new faith
from an influential elf in society.

Now on to Tech word formation.

There are five levels of words in Tech, determined by the number of consonants
in the root:

1 consonant: particle (pronouns, prepositions, question markers, imperatives and
prohibitives)
2 consonants: simple word (a basic root)
3 consonants: complex word (root + one consonant extension)
4 consonants: compound word (two roots linked together)
5+ consonants: compound-complex word (two roots + extension(s))

Let's look at some examples of "word skeletons", roots based on consonants.  All
I have for now are one- and two-consonant forms, and maybe a three-bagger
somewhere.

dw-g    "fish" (Cw = labialized consonant)
q'-l    "neck, throat" (C' = ejective)
s    "demonstrative marker"
b-d    "divide, split"
t-n.    "spread, stretch" (C. = retroflex)
gj-r    "scratch" (Cj = palatized consonant)
H-l-b    "white" (H = pharyngeal h)

Vowels are inserted in the word to indicate grammatical function (as in
Semitic).  In the case of H-l-b, lb is treated as a single consonant if the word
functions as a simple word.

More later, and sorry folks but progress will be pretty slow since I have a LOT
of research to do...

~DaW~



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