Aingeljã
Aingeljã (IPA: [aiŋge'lja]) is a conlang invented by Ángel Serrano, who started to work in it around 1992. Its all-in-Aingeljã Aingeljã grammar was published online for the first time in 2002, after which it received a warm interest from the conlang community, specially in the Conlang Mailing List and the Spanish-based Ideolengua group.
As a conlang it can be classified as follows:
- It is an artistic conlang (artlang), where the sounds, vocabulary and grammar rules have been chosen just because they look nice to the author. It has been created as a linguistic experiment about how it would be to make up a language.
- It is not intended to be learnt nor spoken by people different to the author, except perhaps for courtesy greetings and other simple messages by other conlangers. It has no associated conworld, nor does it appear in any fictional work. It is therefore a personal conlang.
- Its grammar and vocabulary have been modelled after existing natural languages (natlangs), in particular, some Romance languages. So it is an a posteriori conlang.
Introduction
Although Aingeljã has its own grammar rules, it is mainly related to Spanish, Aragonese and Catalan. These three languages belong to the western branch of Romance languages, the former two to the Ibero-Romance subgroup, and the latter to the Occitano-Romance subgroup. In particular:
- With Spanish, it shares many features such as its verbal system, many lexicon roots, etc. Similarly to Spanish, there are only five vowels, /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/, plus a schwa sound /ə/ not present in Spanish (but in Catalan and other languages). However, the two Spanish verbs corresponding to "to be" (ser and estar) are present in Aingeljã as a unique verb esăre.
- With Catalan, it shares its tendency to apocopes and syllables ending in a consonant. Words beginning with l- are palatalized before e, i and u (in Catalan before any vowel). Example: llop (Cat, Ain), lobo (Spa), "wolf". Singular words ending in -n have lost this letter both in Catalan and in Aingeljã, although this letter is present in plural and in feminine. Example: mà (Cat), mã (Ain), "hand", plural: manas; estació (Cat), stazõ (Ain), "station", plural: stazonas; bõ, bona, bõns, bonas (Ain), "good".
- With Aragonese, and unlike the other two, it shares its tendency to keep unvoiced plosives between a pair of vowels (no lenition). Example: sapre (Ain), saper (Ara), saber (Spa, Cat), "to know".
Other Romance languages have a moderate influence in Aingeljã, such as:
- Galician and Portuguese, from whose definite articles o and a have been derived ou, a, meaning "the". The nasal accent (~) from Portuguese is used very frequently, although it has nothing to do with a nasalization of the vowel. It is a maker of the loss of an etymological nasal at the end of the word, which is recovered when followed by a vowel sound. In this case, both words are pronounced together. This process is similar to the liaison in French and is called "ligature" in Aingeljã grammar. Example: ego sum (Latin), jo sõ (no ligature in Ain), "I am"; jo sõn unatstatès (with ligature in Ain), "I am American".
- French and Italian, which have provided Aingeljã; with some vocabulary. Examples: cheville (Fre), caviglia (Ita), chavilla (Ain), "ankle"; chercher (Fre), cercare (Ita), cercre (Ain), "to look for". With French, it also shares the tendency to palatalize the sound /k/ before /a/ (although this process is partial and incomplete). For example, camminus (Lat), chemin (Fre), chamĩ (Ain), "path"; capillus (Lat), cheveau (Fre), capell (Ain), "hair".
- The only in influence taken from Romanian is the use of the breve accent (ă), which can only appear above the vowel a to represent the schwa sound /ə/. It is used in certain verb infinitives, the so-called weak verbs (see below).
Some little traces from Germanic languages such as English and German are present in the vocabulary as well. For example: "to work" (Eng), vircre (Ain); "child" (Eng), cjude (Ain); Vogel (Ger), focle (Ain), "bird"; Wolke (Ger), vouca (Ain); "weather" (Eng), Wetter (Ger), vedra (Ain).
Phonology
Aingeljã has 6 vocalic phonemes:
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Mid | ə | ||
| Open-mid | |||
| Open | a |
The 22 consonantic phonemes are summarized in the following table. When in pairs, the phoneme on the right is voiced and the one on the left is voiceless.
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p b | t d | k ɡ | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ||||
| Fricative | f v | s z | ʃ | ||||
| Affricate | ʧ ʤ | ||||||
| Approximant | w | j | |||||
| Lateral approximant | l | ʎ | |||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Flap | ɾ |
Spelling
Aingeljã is written with a modified version of Latin script with 27 letters:
| A a | B b | C c | Ç ç | D d | E e | F f | G g | H h |
| /a/ | /be/ | /ke/ | /ke zete'ʎa/ | /de/ | /e/ | /fe/ | /ge/ | /aʃ/ |
| I i | J j | K k | L l | M m | N n | O o | P p | Q q |
| /i/ | /jot/ | /ka/ | /le/ | /me/ | /ne/ | /o/ | /pe/ | /ku/ |
| R r | S s | T t | U u | V v | W w | X x | Y y | Z z |
| /re/ | /se/ | /te/ | /u/ | /ve/ | /ve 'doula/ | /eʃ/ | /i 'gɾeka/ | /zet/ |
The vowels can have several diacritics, accents or tildes (called tjudas in Aingeljã Grammar), which help the pronunciation. They are the following:
- Nasal accent (~), to mark a lost etymological nasal in the process of ligature. The syllable
with this tilde is always stressed (and this tilde overrides the use of other accents).
- Grave accent (`), the usual way to mark the stressed syllable.
- Accute accent (´), only used in several forms of the indefinite past tense of the verbal
conjugation to indicate the stressed syllable.
- Diaeresis (?¨), to break a diphthong into a hiatus.
- Breve accent (ă), to indicate the schwa sound.
The only allowed combinations of vowels and diacritics are:
| ã | ă | à | è | é | ĩ | ì | ï | õ | ò | ũ | ù | ü |
Some comments about specific spelling features that should be taken into consideration:
- The letter C is always pronounced /k/, even before front vowels E, I. It is considered a completely different letter to Ç, which is always pronounced /s/.
- The letters K and Y are kept for foreign words only.
- The letter X is always part of the digraph IX, which is always pronounced /ʃ/. This digraph can only appear in the middle or at the end of a word (never at initial position).
- The letter J always corresponds to the semiconsonantic phoneme /j/ and appears in
ascending or rising diphthongs (ja, je, jo, ju, jă), where the stressed vowel is the second part of the diphthong. However the semivowel sound [i◌̯] is always written I and appears in descending or falling diphthongs (ai, ei, oi). In this case the stressed vowel is the first vowel of the diphthong.
- The letter W always corresponds to the semiconsonantic phoneme /w/ and appears in
ascending or rising diphthongs (wa, we, wi, wo, wă), where the stressed vowel is the second part of the diphthong. However the semivowel sound [u◌̯] is always written U and appears in descending or falling diphthongs (au, eu, ou). In this case the stressed vowel is the first vowel of the diphthong.
Morphology
According to its Morphology, Aingeljã is a synthetic fusional language, as it makes use of morphemes to denote grammatical, syntactic, or semantic change.
The types of parts of speech in this conlang are the usual ones in Romance languages: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, determiners, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.
Morphological rules
A word has a lexeme or stem, which carries the semantic information, followed by a set of morphemes called suffixes. In some occasions, a set of morphemes can appear before the lexeme. These are called prefixes. Less frequently, they can appear in the middle of the word before other suffixes. In this case, they are called infixes.
The morphological rules available in Aingeljã are: inflection and word formation.
Inflection
Inflection is the process of creation of variants of a single word, all of them with the same lexeme (and therefore meaning), in order to fulfil agreement rules: gender, number, verbal conjugation, etc. In particular:
Gender
Gender (masculine or feminine) is specific to nouns. Some nouns are masculine and others are feminine, so gender has to be learnt by heart. In both cases, adjectives complementing a noun has to agree with it in gender.
Some nouns and all adjectives have masculine and feminine variants. In this case, they will appear by default as masculine in an Aingeljã dictionary, as masculine gender is unmarked. The easiest way to produce the feminine version of a word is to add an -a to the masculine. In case the masculine ends in -e, this letter is removed before adding the -a. Example: cjude bõ (m), cjuda bona (f), "good boy", "good girl".
If the masculine ends in a vowel with a nasal accent, the feminine is formed by adding -na but loses the accent. Example: bõ (ms), bona (fs), "good".
Any word ending in -a is feminine, while masculine words can end in any other letter. Of course there are exceptions and particular cases to this rules. For example, a feminine word can end in a nasal vowel. Examples: mã (f), "hand"; nesonnazõ (f), "reverie".
Gender agreement is also present in determiners complementing a noun, including articles, and in pronouns (they agree with the noun they substitute). Personal pronouns have gender only in the third person.
Number
Number (singular or plural) expresses the quantity of a noun (one or many, respectively). Adjectives complementing a noun also agree with it in number.
As a general rule, singular is unmarked, and that is how Aingeljã words appear in a dictionary by default. The easiest way to transform a word into plural is to add an -s to the singular. Example: cjude (ms), cjudes (mp), cjuda (fs), cjudas (fp), "boy", "boys", "girl", "girls". In some cases where the word ends in a specific letter, such as -ç, -f, -gg, -ix, -ll, -nn, -s, -z, the plural is made by adding -es instead of -s. Example: sonn (s), sonnes (p), "dream", "dreams".
A masculine word ending in a vowel with a nasal accent, adds -ns and keeps the accent. Example: chamĩ (ms), chamĩns (mp), "path", "paths". A feminine word ending in a vowel with a nasal accent, adds -nas and loses the accent. Example: mã (fs), manas (fp), "hand", "hands".
As with gender, number is also present in determiners accompanying a noun, in pronouns substituting a noun, and in personal (conjugated) forms of verbs.
In a nutshell, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, determiners, and verbs are variable words, and adverbs, prepositions, conjuntions and interjections are invariable words.
Verbal conjugation
See the verbs section below.
Word formation
Word formation is the process of creating a new word from another one. Unlike inflection, word formation generates a word completely different in meaning, but also the resulting word can be a different part of speech, or it can have a different gender or number. There are two ways for word formation: derivation and composition.
Derivation
Derivation is the process by which a new word is formed by adding prefixes, infixes or suffixes to the original word. Examples: cità (n), citatã (n), "city", "citizen"; trist (adj), tristiza (n), "sad", "sadness"; manggăre (v), manggata (n), "to eat", "meal"; cristau (n), cristawain (adj), "crystal", "crystalline"; gaubĩ (adj), gaubinèntic (adj), "yellow", "yellowish"; prowăre (v), prowail (adj), "to prove", "probable"; dezeix (n), dezeixăre (v), "wish", "to wish"; ouscur (adj), ouscureçre (v), "dark", "to darken"; tocre (v), tocatejăre (v), "to touch", "to fiddle".
Composition
Composition is the process of creating a new word by putting togetter two or more single words. Example: mal (adv), "wrong", razonator (adj), "someone who can reason", malrazonator (adj), "crazy"; wardre (v), "to keep away from", plugga (n), "rain", wardepluggas (n), "umbrella"; mins (adv), "less", prezăre (v), "to appreciate", minsprezăre (v), "to look down on somebody"; ràpid (adj), "quick", ment (n), "way, style", ràpidament (adv), "quickly"; qwĩ" (prn), "who", vollăre (v), "to want", qwĩvolle (prn), "whoever".
Nouns
Nouns can be masculine or feminine in gender, singular or plural in number.
Adjectives
Adjectives can be masculine or feminine in gender, singular or plural in number. They can appear before or after the noun they accompany, but always after other possible determiners, such as articles, possessive or demonstrative ones, among others. Adjectives always agree in gender and in number with the noun they accompany.
Determinate articles
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | ou | ous |
| oul' | ||
| Feminine | a | as |
| al' |
Determinate articles are a type of determiners that are used mainly to constrain the extension of the noun they accompany to entities already known by the interlocutors. They correspond in English to "the".
- Ou and a are used before singular nouns that begin by a consonant other than h (this is a mute letter). They are already used before nouns beginning with the semiconsonants j or w. Examples: Ou llï?ur (m), "the book", a fama (f), "the woman", ou went (m), "the wind".
- Oul' and al' are used before singular nouns that begin by a vowel or by h. In this case, there is a word bonding, so that the last letter of a word (the article) is bonded when pronouncing to the first letter of the following word. This is represented by an apostrophe ( ' ). These words are also written without intermediate blank spaces. Examples: oul'ùnic (m), "the only one", al'aqwa (f), "the water".
- The articles ous (masculine) and as (feminine) are used for plural.
Indeterminate articles
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | ũ | ũns |
| ũn' | ||
| Feminine | una | unas |
| un' |
Indeterminate articles are a type of determiners are used with the noun they accompany, to show that it represents an unknown entity for the interlocutors, which is mentioned for the first time in the conversation, or which is going to be described in a vague and indefinite way. They correspond in English to "a/an".
- Ũ and una are used before singular nouns beginning with a consonant, other than h. They are also used before nouns beginning with the semiconsonants j or w. Examples: ũ dïe (m), "a day", una pereixõ (f), "a person".
- Ũn' and un' are used with singular nouns beginning with a vowel or with h. In this case, there is a word bonding, so that the last letter of a word (the article) is bonded when pronouncing to the first letter of the following word. This is represented by an apostrophe ('). These words are also written without intermediate blank spaces. Examples: ũn'home (m), "a man", un'oreixa (f), "an ear".
- The articles ũns (masculine) and unas (feminine) are written for plural.
Possessive determiners and pronouns
Possessive words indicate who the owner of something is. The possessed thing is specified by the noun they accompany (if they are determiners) or the noun they substitute (if they are pronouns). They agree in gender and number with this noun, but as well, they agree in person and number with the owner/s.
They correspond in English to the determiners "my", "your" (singular), "his", "her", "its", "our", "your" (plural) and "their", as well as the pronouns "mine", "yours" (singular), "his", "hers", "its", "ours", "yours2 (plural) and "theirs".
| Masculine | Feminine | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | ||
| Singular | 1st Person | mou / moul' | mous | ma / mal' | mas |
| 2nd Person | tou / toul' | tous | ta / tal' | tas | |
| 3rd Person | sou / soul' | sous | sa/ sal' | sas | |
| Plural | 1st Person | nou / noul' | nous | na / nal' | nas |
| 2nd Person | vou / voul' | vous | va / val' | vas | |
| 3rd Person | sou / soul' | sous | sa / sal' | sas | |
The forms ending in -l' are used in the same way as oul', al', ũn' and un', this is, before words beginning with a vowel or h.
Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns indicate the grammatical persons. There are two types:
- Strong or tonic, with full meaning and stress. They can be the subject of a sentence, but they can also act as an object if they follow a preposition. Example: jo sõ, "I am", a jo, "to me".
- Weak or atonic, without full meaning, nor stress, so they cannot be used alone in a sentence. These pronouns always act as objects of a verb, and join with it by means of a hyphen, so they appear in an enclitic position. Example: illa ame-mi, "she loves me", where illa is the strong pronoun (subject) and mi is the weak pronoun (enclitic). These pronouns never appear after a preposition.
Some weak pronouns are used with the so-called pronominal verbs (see below). These pronouns just give a special meaning to the verb (which usually presents both versions, a pronominal one and a non-pronominal one), usually a reflexive or reciprocal meaning.
We have already mentioned that weak pronouns appear in an enclitic position after the verb they complement. However, they occupy an advanced position and follow the first verb for compount tenses, or in periphrastic verbs. Examples: jo sent-mi, "I sit down", j'heh-mi sentat, "I have sat down", jo pot-mi sentre, "I can sit down", Jo nõ potr?e-mi hawăre sentat, ""I couldn't have sat down", where the verb sentre-si is pronominal.
| Strong | Weak | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Non-pronominal | Pronominal | |||
| Singular | 1st Person | jo / j' | mi | mi |
| 2nd Person | tu / t' | ti | ti | |
| 3rd Person | ill | ou / oul' / ïu / ïul' / si | si | |
| illa | a / al' / ïa / ïal' / si | |||
| ũ / ũn' | - | |||
| se / s' | - | |||
| Plural | 1st Person | nos | nus | nus |
| 2nd Person | vos | vus | vus | |
| 3rd Person | illes | ous / ïus / si | si | |
| illas | as / ïas / si | |||
Several considerations about personal pronouns:
- The direct object (accusative) pronouns for the 3rd person are: ou, oul' , a, al' , ous, as. They correspond in English to "him", "her", "it", "them".
- The indirect object (dative) pronouns for the 3rd person are: ïu, ïul' , ïa, ïal' , ïus, ïas. They also correspond in English to "him", "her", "it", "them".
- Impersonal sentences (without a real subject, especially when talking about weather and existence) use the pronoun se (s' before vowels and verbs beginning with h-) as a formal subject to compensate the lack of it. The corresponding verb is always conjugated in the third person of singular. Examples: se plugge, "it is raining", se njeixe, "it is snowing", s'eh fret, "it is cold", s'eh caude, "it is warm", s'hast ũn'home, "there is a man", s'hast moutas cosas qwe façre, "there are many things to do".
- In general-sense sentences you talk about something that is done or believed by many people but you do not specify exactly who these people are. They use the pronoun ũ as a subject, which corresponds to "one" (English), "man" (German) or "on" (French). Example: ũ virce r?ïalament dur ne dal'interpriza, "one works really hard in this firm".
Preposition + article unions
Some prepositions followed by a determinate article are contracted into one single word. This is the case of ne ("in") and de ("of").
In case they are followed by a word beginning by a vowel or h- (included the indeterminate article), they suffer a bonding or ligature and become n' and d' , respectively.
Bear in mind that the preposition a ("at/to") is never contracted with an article, and becomes ad when it is followed by a vowel or h-.
| Preposition + Article | With contraction | |
|---|---|---|
| ne + | + ou | = nou |
| + ous | = nous | |
| + a | = na | |
| + as | = nas | |
| de + | + ou | = dou |
| + ous | = dous | |
| + a | = da | |
| + as | = das | |
| Preposition + Article | With bonding | |
| ne + | + ũ | = n'ũ |
| + ũn' | = n'ũn' | |
| + ũns | = n'ũns | |
| + una | = n'una | |
| + un' | = n'un' | |
| + unas | = n'unas | |
| de + | + ũ | = d'ũ |
| + ũn' | = d'ũn' | |
| + ũns | = d'ũns | |
| + una | = d'una | |
| + un' | = d'un' | |
| + unas | = d'unas | |
| Preposition + Article | Without contraction nor bonding | |
| a + | + ou | = ad ou |
| + ous | = ad ous | |
| + a | = ad a | |
| + as | = ad as | |
| + ũ | = ad ũ | |
| + ũn' | = ad ũn' | |
| + ũns | = ad ũns | |
| + una | = ad una | |
| + un' | = ad un' | |
| + unas | = ad unas | |
Verbs
A verb is the most important word in a sentence, and expresses action, process or state with respect to a noun. They always agree in number and person with the subject of the sentence. There are some features that make Aingeljã verbs easier than in other Romance languages:
- All the verbs follow a regular paradigm, except for two. The only irregular verbs are the auxiliary ones: esăre, "to be", which is used in the passive voice, and hawăre, "to have", which is used in the compound (perfect) tenses. However these verbs are irregular only in the present tense. In the remainder tenses, they follow the regular rules.
- There is only one conjugation, as all the verbs have converged into the first Latin conjugation: -are > -re. Examples: amare (Lat), amăre (Ain), "to love", videre (Lat), vidre (Ain), "to see".
- Subjunctive mood is not marked with the conjugation suffixes, but with the use of the conjunction qwe, "that".
Verbs have three impersonal (not conjugated) forms:
- Infinitives, the main form of the verb, which all end in -re. Infinitives are invariable and can act as masculine nouns.
- Gerunds (or present participles), which end in -ant. Gerunds are invariable and can act as adverbs.
- Participles (or past participles), which end in -at. Participles can act as adjectives, and therefore they must agree in gender and number with the noun they accompany (for example in the passive voice). In compound tenses participles are invariable.
The lexeme or stem of a verb is the core part of the verb carrying its meaning. According the lexeme, there are two kinds of verbs in Aingeljã:
- Strong verbs, whose lexeme is obtained directly from the infinitive by removing the ending -re. The infinitive of these verbs is a paroxytone word, this is, the stressed syllable is the penultimate one. Example: chantre /"tʃantɾe/, "to sing", whose lexeme is chant-. These verbs do not have an ending in the 1st person of singular of the present tense: jo chant, "I sing".
- Weak verbs, for which there is an intermediate -ă- (pronounced /ə/), between the lexeme and the ending -re. The infinitive of these verbs is a proparoxytone word, this is, the stressed syllable is the last one but two. Example: venăre /"venəɾe/, "to come", whose lexeme is ven-. They have an extra -e in the 1st person of singular of the present tense: jo vene, "I come". For the rest of the conjugation, it is the same as for strong verbs. This -ă- changed to a in other verbal forms such as gerund or participle. Example: venant, "coming", venat, "come".
The personal (conjugated) forms are generated by concatenating the lexeme with a set of
morphemes. The morphological information encoded in the verb conjugation is the following:
- Number (singular or plural).
- Person (1st, 2nd or 3rd).
- Mood, with three values: indicative (for statements), subjunctive (for hypotheses or irreal situations) or imperative (for commands).
- Aspect, with two values: imperfect (in process but not finished) and perfect (finished).
- Tense. Depending on when the action represented by the verb takes place, tenses can be present, past, future or conditional (hypothetical future). According to its construction, tenses can be simple (a stand-alone verb), or compound (conjugated form of auxiliary verb hawăre followed by the participle of the main verb). There are six simple tenses: present, imperfect, indefinite, future, conditional and imperative. There are five perfect tenses: perfect, pluperfect, indefinite perfect, future perfect and conditional perfect.
- Voice (active or passive). An active voice verb connects the subject with its direct object, indirect object, etc. A passive voice connects the patient subject with its agent complement, the latter being preceded by the preposition pur, "by". Passive voice is constructed with the auxiliary verb esăre followed by the participle of the main verb in agreement of gender and number with the subject.
Examples of conjugation for normal verbs:
| Present tense of strong verb chantre | Present tense of weak verb venăre |
|---|---|
| Jo chant | Jo vene |
| Tu chantes | Tu venes |
| Ill/Illa chante | Ill/Illa vene |
| Nos chantèms | Nos venèms |
| Vos chantèts | Vos venèts |
| Illes/Illas chanten | Illes/Illas venen |
Examples of conjugation for auxiliary verbs:
| Present tense of verb hawăre | Present tense of verb esăre |
|---|---|
| J'heh | Jo sõ |
| T'has | T'es |
| Ill/Illa hast | Ill/Illa eh |
| Nos hawèms | Nos soimes |
| Vos hawèts | Vos ets |
| Illes/Illas hen | Illes/Illas sen |
Syntax
The usual word order in an Aingeljã sentence is SVO, this is, the first part is the Subject (who did the action of the verb), followed by the Verb (the word meaning action or state) and the Object (who or what received the action). It is the same order as other Romance languages, although some inversions (OVS, OSV) are possible in specific situations (see below).
For example, the sentence Oul'Aingeljãn eh ũ langaix costrujat romànic, "Aingeljã is a Romance conlang", has the following structure:
- The Subject is "Oul'Aingeljãn".
- The Verb is "eh".
- The Object is "ũ langaix costrujat romànic".
The syntactic tree for this sentence is as follows.
As can be seen, the language is head-initial (the head of a phrase precedes its complements).
Noun phrases
A noun (or a pronoun that substitutes it) is the head of a noun phrase (NP). A noun can carry the following complements:
- Determiners usually come before the noun, although in some circumstances a possessive determiner can be used after the noun they accompany (in that case, the NP is headed by another determiner).
- Adjectives usually follow nouns, although some specific adjectives can appear before the noun. In that case they express emotional and subjective meanings. For example: ũn'home pauper, "a poor man = with little money", ũ pauper home, "a miserable man (expressing pity)".
- In case a noun has a complement meaning possession, this noun complement is headed by the preposition de, "of", and this complement appears after the head of the NP.
Verb phrases
A verb is the head of a verb phrase (VP). Its complements are other noun phrases with specific syntactic functions, such as:
- Direct object (accusative), expressing the entity that is acted upon by the subject. They never use a preposition (unless it appears in an advanced position, see below).
- Indirect object (dative), which express who receives the action of the verb or who takes advantage of it. It is marked by the prepositions a, "to", or per, "for".
- Circumstancial object (adverbial), expressing meanings of time, mode, company, instrument, etc. They can be adverbs on their own or noun phrases headed by a certain prepositions.
- Prepositional object, for verbs which are conjugated mandatorily with a certain preposition.
The usual SVO order is often reversed to OVS for emphatic reasons, or to OSV in some relative clauses (see below). In these cases the direct object appears in the first place in the sentence and is marked with the preposition a, ad (before vowels and h-), "to". If that sentence contains an indirect object as well, it is marked with the preposition per, "for". Example: jo tend ou llï?ur a Marï?a = Ad ou llï?ur tend jo per Mar?ïa = A Marï?a tend jo ou llï?ur, "I buy the book to Mary".
In general, it is not mandatory that the subject of the sentence always appears explicitly, as it can be identied by the verbal ending (Aingeljã tends to be a pro-drop language). The exceptions are impersonal sentences (which use the pronoun se) and general-sense sentences (which use the pronoun ũ). In regular sentences, the presence of the subject is necessary when the verb is conjugated in the first or the third person of singular in certain tenses to avoid ambiguity in the subject.
Relative clauses
A very common type of dependent clauses are the so-called relative clauses. These clauses act as an adjective of a previous noun (antecedent). They are connected with a relative pronoun.
Example: Mou pare, qwe vené ca hjer, apelle-si Jwã, "my father, who came here yesterday, is called John"; ou ristaurant a qwe jo dicé-ti hast fermat, "the restaurant that I told you has closed". In this last sentence, the pronoun qwe is the direct object of the relative clause, while jo is the subject. Due to this inversion OSV in the relative clause, the pronoun is preceded by the preposition a.
According to the agreement that the relative pronoun has to fulfil, there are several cases:
- The pronouns qwe ("that", "which", "who") and dõ ("where", "in whose place") are invariable. On the one hand, the antecedent of qwe can be a person or a thing, on the other one, the antecedent of dõ has to be a place.
- The pronoun qwĩ ("who") agrees in number with the antecedent, but not in gender. The antecedent of qwĩ can only be a person, not a thing.
- The pronoun ou qwell ("that", "which", "who") agrees in gender and number with the antecendent. This pronoun is similar to qwe.
- The pronoun douqwe ("whose") expresses possession and agrees in gender and number with the thing possessed, which appears after the pronoun, and not with the possessor (antecedent).
| Singular | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | Feminine | Masculine | Feminine |
| qwe | |||
| ou qwell | a qwella | ous qwelles | as qwellas |
| qwĩ | qwĩns | ||
| dõ | |||
| douqwe | daqwe | dousqwe | dasqwe |
Some texts in Aingeljã
The Lord's Prayer
Nou Pare, qwe ets nou cell,
qwe santificat eh vou nome,
qwe vene a nos vou reixĩ.
Qwe eh façata va voluntà,
tant na terra com nou cell.
Donat-nus hogge nou pã qwotiggãn
e pardonat-nus nas ofensas,
com tantbain nos pardonèms qwĩns ofensen-nus.
E nõ deixat-nus cadre na tentazõn
e lluwerat-nus dou Mal.
Amain.
Ring's Poem (Tolkien)
Tre aneus per ous Reixes Elfes baix ou cell.
Seit per ous Moussers Nanãns nous palazes de petra.
Nou per ous Homes Mòrtals condenats a morăre.
Ũ per ou Mouser Unrerat, super oul'unrerat trõ,
na Terra de Mòrdor dõ stenden-si as Unras.
Ũn'Aneu per reixăre tots. Ũn'Aneu per trowăre-ous,
ũn'Aneu per atrajăre tots et atre-ous nas tenrewas,
na Terra de Mòrdor dõ stenden-si as Umras.
Babel Text (Genesis 11:1-9)
1. Denn tota a terra parlabe ũ mesme langaix et usabe as mesmas paraulas.
2. Qwand ous homes emigreiren des oul'Est, troweiren illes una planura na reggõ de Sinar e stauliçeiren-si lla.
3. E diçeiren illes ũns ad autres: "Vadèms façre brecs e cocre-ous a foc." Illes useiren brecs nou loc da petra, et asfaut nou loc da mortella.
4. E diçeiren illes: "Vadèms costrujăre una citàt et una torra daqwe someta atangge adast ou cell; ainsĩ nos esarèms famoses e nõ dispereixarèms-nus super a feza da terra."
5. Meh ou Mouser baixé per vidre a citàt et a torra qwe ous homes costrujaben de segat.
6. E diçé-si: "Tots illes formen ũ sol pople e parlen ũ mesme langaix; e doul'eh sol ou principi de sas interprisas; naçata qwe illes proponen-si risoutré umposïul per illes.
7. Jo vad baixăre confuixonăre sou langaix per qwe illes nõn entenden-si ũns cõn autres."
8. Ainsĩn ou Mouser dispereixé-ous de lla pur tota a terra et illes deixeiren costrujăre a cità.
9. Pur dou motï?u illa apellé-si Babell, pur qwe lla confuixoné ou Mouser ou langaix de tots ous hautants da terra, e des lla Ill dispereixé-ous pur tota sa surfiza.
Rhyme VII (Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, 19th century Spanish poet)
Dou salõ noul'unrerat àingul,
de sa propjetarja qwejaix riprowata,
silenzosa e courata de pouve,
vidabe-si al'harpa.
Qwanta nota dormabe ne sas cordas,
com ou focle dorme nas branchas,
aspetant a mã de njeix
qwe sape arrancre-as!
Au! - pensé - qwantas voutas ou ggenn
ainsĩ dorme nou fond dal'auma,
et una voixa, com Làzar, aspete
qwe diçe-ïa «Lleva-ti et anda!»!
Participation in conlang relays
Aingeljã has participated in four conlang relays, such as the "Olympic Relay" (relay no. 10/R, 2004), the "Scheduleless Relay" (relay no. 12, 2005),l "The Missed Bus Relay" (relay no. 13, 2006) and the LCC6 conlang relay (2015).
See also
- Swadesh list for Aingeljã (list of the 207 basic words in a language)
