New Lang: Leropho (LONG !)

Here is the presentation of how a language I've been working on
with Ed Heil developed. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Ed 'donated'
Sawila to me, so I thought that it would be kind to return a language so
he had something to work on. My proposals went to and fro and
the result so far is a language I like a lot.

I started out with asking to Ed what he liked (agglutination, sounds etc)
He mentioned he wanted something Greek or Latin, but not really Latin
or Greek. So I had a problem, because I don't know about both
languages.

Then I decided to make a lang that sounds like Greek, but has other
morphology and syntax.

I started to make words to show what the lang ultimately should look
(=sound) like. Funny detail: I added the phoneme 'pt', because I thought
it was a phoneme in Greek (because of the words "Ptolemeus",
"pterodactylus" etc). Ed pointed out that that wasn't the case.

Here is the phoneme inventory. Note that I forgot sounds like 'ts':

Consonants
voiceless stops p       t       k
voiceless fric   'ph'   'th'  s 'ch' (phi, theta, chi)
voiced fric     'v'     'd'     'g' (beta, delta, gamma)
nasals          m       n
rhotics         r       l
stop+fricative  x (k+s)

Vowels and diphtongs
i       e       a       o       u (spelled 'ou')
ei      eu      ai      au

Stress
Stress falls on the syllable preceding the last consonant.
Exceptions are marked with an acute (e.g. "enó").


Quite soon I had an idea of what sounds should occur frequently, like
-eion, -aion etc..
Then I started thinking of a structure that would make these sounds occur
frequently. I decided that third person subject should be -n, and 3 person
object should be o- becoming before the -n. This would guarantee
-on frequently.

So now a had a lang that suffixes on the verb, I decided to have it a slot
system. I choosed for Circassian, because it is quite regular, I have a lot
of info on it and it is something 'different' than normal.
I had to reverse it 180 degrees, tho, because Circassian prefixes the
persons and I needed suffixing.

Some slots became obsolete along the road (mainly because we switched
from ergative- absolutive to nominative-accusative, boring, isn't it?)

Here is the verbal slot system:

Nearly all actants are marked in the verb: Subject, object and
direct object.

Slots
1. Aspect/Mood
2. Causative
Root
3. Negative
4. Object (1-2p)
5. Indirect object (1-2p)
5a. Object/Indirect Object (3p)
6.  Agent (Subject)
7.  Dualis
8.  Pluralis

Slots 7 and 8 indicate that one or more of the actants specified
in slots 4-6 is dual or plural.  If that actant is also specified in
the sentence (not just by verb markers), it must be placed last,
after the verb, even if this violates the normal OVS order.
Dualis and pluralis marking is optional for non-subjects.

Slot 6 is obligatory for intransitive verbs, slots 5/5a and
6 for transitive, and slots 4-6 or 5a and 6 for ditransitive verbs;
the rest is optional.

Slot 2 (Causative) increases the number of actants in the verb,
creating a new agent: the agent of causation, in addition to
the agent of the root.  The agent of causation is the new subject
(slot 6), and the agent of the root is now a direct object.
The direct object is no longer marked on the verb; if it is expressed
at all, it is expressed with the preposition 'oud'.

Slots
1       2       {root}  3       4       5
pt/s/h  re              vour    a/e/o   (t)ai/ei/oi

        6       7       8
                m/s/n   oi      ou


Slot 1
pt(a)   Perfective
ps(a)   Imperfective
ph(a)   Irrealis (often optative)

Slots 4-6

                slot 4  slot 5  slot 6
1st person      a(u)    ai      (i)a
2nd person      e(u)    ei      (i)s
3rd person      o(t)    oi      (i)n

The (u/t) in slot 4 is used to break up sequences of vowels,
and the (i) in slot 6 is used to break up difficult sequences of consonants.


Examples of slots 4, 5 and combined

chi-otoia       I give it to him
chi-oteia       I give it to you
chi-otois       you give it to him
chiotais        you give it to me
chiotoin        he gives it to him
chiotain        he gives it to me
chiotein        he gives it to you
chiauein        he gives me to you (forgive me the strange sentence)
chieuaia        he gives you to me
psachivoureuainou       they are not giving you to me
rechiauois                you make me give to her
phachivourotoinoi       may he not give it to the two of them.

l-e-n   I see you
loa     I see him
las     you see me
los     you see him
len     he sees you
lan     he sees me
lon     he sees him (no distinction (yet?)
                in obviative/proximative

Some verbs:
0-      'to be'
th-     'to do'
v-      'to make'
chi-    'to give'
ek-     'to say'
l-      'to see'
phou-   'to sleep'
t-      'to have'

naxa a 'I am a man'
naxa an'he is a man'

a- is a dummy root to prevent the occurence of a syllabic n

Congratulations for those who made it so far.
What do you think of it? I'm very interested in your
feedback!

Tomorrow I'll show the compound verbs, tense/mood/
aspect, nouns, and some adjectives