Re: My new conlang

----- Original Message -----
From: "Padraic Brown" <agricola@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Sunday, December 09, 2001 10:07 PM
Subject: Re: My new conlang


> At first look, I'd say you can't go wrong with VSO word order!
> I note that the 3pl pronoun undergoes some sound changes:
> ahok > ihog. Is this a function of case, or does the particle
> p' do this? iho- seems to be a _very_ busy root! It's working
> as 1st and 3rd animate pronouns, as well as inanimate. Curious
> the way the subject of the hortatory "satoz" is ACC. Neat! Is
> there a story behind that?
>

Ok...ihog is a reflexive 3rd person pronoun, p' indicates a reflexive, just
to make sure.  iho- is an accusative plural pronoun. A two letter root
beginning with 'h' is usually a pronoun. eg. hr - inanimate pronoun.
Pronouns are treated as nouns, and I'm going to let on the grammar of my
conlang.

Noun roots are much like this:

C(C)(C)(C)

Pronoun Roots go like this:

{h}C

Verb Roots like this:

CC(C)

Adjective roots like this:

VCVCV
CVCVCV

Prepositons like this:

C{'}

Prepositons are latched on to the target noun, the{'} is a glottal stop.
All prefixes are also like that.  The one article, the, is also the same
format.

Cases

There are 4 cases, Nominative, Accusative, Dative and Genitive.

They are signified with the first vowel in a noun:

a- Nominative
i- Accusative
u- dative
o- genitive

Numbers

There are three things to say number, singular, plural and dual.  They are
determined by the second noun (all vowels are between consonants, or at the
start, except in 1 letter nouns, where one is possible at the end.)

o- plural
e- dual
w- singular

If there are two consonants together, then more nouns are added, the third
depending on the case, and fourth on number.

Case in third place

nominative- u
accusative- o
dative- e
posessive- w

Number in fourth place

plural- a
dual- i
singular- u

Verbs

Tense

Tense is also defined by vowels

In the first place:

a or o - present
i or e - past
u or w - future

In the second place, it is the opposite letter to first (ie. A in 1st, O in
2nd)

Nouns always start with a vowel, while verbs always start with a consonant.

Adjectives are directly before their noun, Adverbs are exactly like
adjectives, but before verbs.