Mekoshan
| Mekoshan Maññòŝ | |
| Spoken in: | USA |
| Conworld: | Future |
| Total speakers: | 50 Million |
| Genealogical classification: | Germanic
|
| Basic word order: | VSO |
| Morphological type: | Fusional |
| Morphosyntactic alignment: | Accusative |
| Writing system: | |
| Created by: | |
| Taylor Selseth | 2012 C.E. |
Mekoshan is a descendant of English spoken in the American Midwest.
Phonology
IPA
| Labial | Coronal | Dorsal | Glottal | ||
| Plosives, Plain | p | t ʦ ʧ | k q qʷ | ||
| Plosives, aspirated | pʰ | tʰ ʦʰ ʧʰ | kʰ qʰ qʷʰ | ||
| Nasals | m m̥ | n n̥ ɲ ɲ̥ | |||
| Fricatives, unvoiced | f | s ʃ | x χ χʷ | h | |
| Fricatives, voiced | v | z ʒ | ʁ | ||
| Other | w | l r j |
| Front | Central | Back | Diphthong | |
| High | i iː ẽ | y yː | u uː õː | |
| Mid | e eː ɛ̃ | ø øː | o oː ɔ̃ | ɛu ɔi |
| Low | a | aː ã | ɑ | ai au |
Orthography
| Labial | Coronal | Dorsal | Glottal | ||
| Plosives, Plain | b | d dz j | g x br/rb | ||
| Plosives, aspirated | p | t ts c | k q pr/rp | ||
| Nasals | m mh | n nh ñ ñh | |||
| Fricatives, unvoiced | f | s š | kh qh/hr fr/rf | h | |
| Fricatives, voiced | v | z ž | r | ||
| Other | w/rv | l ŕ y |
| Front | Central | Back | Diphthong | |
| High | i í į | ü ű | u ú ų | |
| Mid | e é ę | ö ő | o ó ǫ | eu oi |
| Low | a | á | à/ra | ai au |
Allophony and Morphophonology
Unaspirated plosives and affricates are voiced when in between vowels or adjacent to a voiced consonant.
Coda /n n̥/ assimilate in POA to a following consonant.
Nasal vowels are long.
/ʁ/ devoices to /χ/ when adjacent to a aspirated plosive, a voiceless nasal, or a voiceless fricative.
Vowels are backed and lowered when adjacent to uvular consonants
Grammar
Like many Anglic languages, Mekoshan is a moderately synthetic, fusional language with a bias towards prefixes in it's verbs.
The Noun Phrase
The noun phrase has the following structure:
1. Preposition
2. Article
3. Possessive Determiner
4. Demonstrative, or numeral
5. Adjective(s)
6. Noun
Articles
There are definite, indefinite, and generic article, all of which inflect for case and number. The generic article is derived from the reanalysis of prepositions, and is highly syncretic with the Indefinite. The article is simply omitted in the Generic and Indefinite Nominative
In the following chart, some article forms differ depending on if the following word begins with a consonant or vowel, the vowel form follows the consonant form.
| Generic | Indefinite | Definite | |
| Absolutive | Ø | Ø | lé |
| Ergative | l' | la | lél |
| Genitive | o/ov | ov | ol |
| Dative | ta/t' | ta | tal |
| Benifactive | fr'/fra | fra | fral |
| Locative | é | é | él |
Possessive Determiners
Possessive determiners, also called possessive adjectives or adjectival genitive pronouns, indicate who or what possesses a noun: "my shirt", "her house"
| 1st. Person | 2nd. Person | 3rd. Masculine | 3rd. Feminine | 3rd Neuter | |
| Singular | me | ör | hez | hra | ois |
| Plural | ar | vör | lar | lar | lar |
Nouns and Adjectives
Nouns inflect for number. For most nouns the plural is formed by a -s, -z, or -az suffix in voicing agreement with the preceding consonant, if any. Some nouns are formed by mutation of the final consonant with or without the normal plural suffix. 4 nouns retain the old Germanic Umlaut: Men, Womn, Mos, and Gus; meaning man, woman, mouse, and goose.
tö - töz = toy - toys
braikh - braik = brick - bricks
cref - crep = trap - traps
men - man = man - men
Adjectives only inflect for the comparative and superlative forms.
Comparative: mor-
Superlative" maus-
The Verb
The morphological structure of the verb is thus:
1. Personal Inflection
2. Negation
3. Tense-Aspect-Mood-Voice (TAMNV)*
4. Adverbal prefixes
5. Causative
6. Verb root
7. Secondary TAMV suffixes*
- Many of the TAMV morphemes are circumfixes.
Morphophonology of Verbs
The 2 suffix elements found in the TAMV system, -t and -n, merge with many preceding consonants and mutates them.
Personal Inflections
There are 5 sets of personal inflections:
Normal
| 1st. Person | 2nd. Person | 3rd. Masculine | 3rd. Feminine | 3rd Neuter | |
| Singular | e- | ü- | hi- | ši- | oi- |
| Plural | vi- | že- | lai- | lai- | lai- |
Subjunctive
This conjugation is used for relative and subordinate clauses.
| 1st. Person | 2nd. Person | 3rd. Masculine | 3rd. Feminine | 3rd Neuter | |
| Singular | loi- | lő- | leti- | leci- | lai- |
| Plural | lefi- | lèjè- | lete- | lete- | lete- |
Polar Question
This conjugation is used for yes-no questions.
| 1st. Person | 2nd. Person | 3rd. Masculine | 3rd. Feminine | 3rd Neuter | |
| Singular | de- | jü- | ti- | ci- | doi- |
| Plural | dvi- | je- | dle- | dle- | dle- |
Optative
This conjugation is used for wishing or hoping for something to happen.
| 1st. Person | 2nd. Person | 3rd. Masculine | 3rd. Feminine | 3rd Neuter | |
| Singular | moi- | mő- | bši- | bši- | mai- |
| Plural | mí- | bže- | blai- | blai- | blai- |
Hortative
This conjugation is similar to the Imperative, except it has a less demanding and more encouraging meaning.
| 1st. Person | 2nd. Person | 3rd. Masculine | 3rd. Feminine | 3rd Neuter | |
| Singular | ómi- | ócü- | wém- | óŕ- | woi- |
| Plural | wes- | óje- | ótai- | ótai- | ótai- |
Tense, Aspect, Mood, and Voice
In Mekoshan the marking of tense, aspect, mood, and voice is highly fusional from a synchronic standpoint and the different elements of the morphemes can only be teased out of one has knowledge of their diachronic development.
The Tense categories are Past and Non-Past.
The Aspect categories are Perfective, Imperfective, and Perfect,
The Mood categories are quite numerous and will be described below.
Tense and Aspect
As is common in languages that have both tense and a perfective-imperfective distinction, the the Perfective does not have any tense distinctions and since the Perfective in Mekoshan is derived from a fusion of the English Preterite and Non-Past Perfect it usually has a past perfective meaning, and so it will be called the Aorist in this grammar to prevent confusion. The Past and Non-Past Imperfective will be called the Imperfect and Present, respectively, for brevity.
The Stative Present is the simplest finite verb form, with only the verb root and the personal inflection. it is used with stative and experiential verbs. It has a habitual meaning when used with dynamic verbs, but this usage is somewhat archaic and is only found in formal writing and by older individuals.
esi ü "I see you"
e-si ü
The Dynamic Present is formed by the suffix -n, which, as mentioned above, is often realized as a mutation of the preceding consonant. It is only used with dynamic verbs.
evañh "I am walking"
e-vakh-n
The Imperfect is formed with the prefix -vo- along with the suffix -n. it is used to refer to actions in the past with internal structure. It is often used when describing the background information of a past situation (he was sleeping when...), whereas foreground events would be spoken of in the Aorist(...then the door opened and...).
evorain
"I was reading"
e-vo-raid-n
The Aorist is formed by suppletion, ablaut of the verb root, or by the cicumfix -v- -t. As mentioned above, -t is often realized as consonant mutation. It it used for completed action, usually implying a past tense meaning.
hifon oi "he found it"
hi-fon oi
evsdap "I stopped"
e-v-sdaf-t
The Perfect is formed by the circumfix -ven- -n is used to describe an event in the past spoken of as a whole from the perspective of the present.
evenrain "I have read"
e-ven-red-n
The Pluperfect is formed by the circumfix -bben- -n and is like the Perfect except it refers to that past event from a past perspective that is still after the event itself.
ebbenvañh "I had been walking
e-bben-vakh-n
