Kosi

• Language name: Kosi
• Language author: Trebor Jung
• Started: December 2003
• Abstract: I wanted to make a Uralic-esque language - but not a clone. Important features of Kosi include: (1) Tense is only optional (as in Chinese) and is indicated with temporal adverbs; perfectness takes its place. (2) Some grammatical functions are marked with ablaut (as in English and Kebreni), as well as with affixation. (3) Much of the vocabulary is Uralic: ir- 'to write', kek 'blue', and öt 'five' come from Hungarian; kaheks 'eight', kel- 'to speak', and tuli 'fire' come from Finnish. Some lexical items were borrowed from Romance: am- 'to like', mer 'ocean', mil 'one thousand'. (4) The language has numerous irregularities and oddities.

Internal History

Like Latin in Roman times on Earth, Kosi is the auxiliary language of the planet Kosia. It is the scholarly language, and the source of many creole languages spoken by the common people; cf. Vulgar Latin. Kosi's descendants have a distinct, non-Kosian feel slightly horrifying to the scholars. Previous to 1902, speaking one of the creoles in the presence of a scholar was punishable by imprisonment; happily, nowadays such speech is frowned upon by educated people but for speaking such a tongue will only result in laughter.

Kosi has many creoles, the main ones being Hezy /hez@/ and Huzí /huzi/. The most-liked (or rather, least-disliked!) of these creoles on the part of the scholars is one called Kezi /kezi/. On November 10, 2003, the Kosian Supreme Linguistic Assembly (SLA) passed a resolution making Kezi the second official language.

There are three forms of Kosi: Ancient Kosi, Classical Kosi, and Modern Kosi. The grammatical sketch and lexicon in this document is Modern Kosi material.

Ancient Kosi apparently had quite a large phonemic inventory and a complex grammar. Unfortunately, specifics are unavailable at this time because the scholars are still debating.

We know much more about Classical Kosi than Ancient Kosi, as scholars have been able to get an idea of what it might have sounded like. We know that Classical Kosi had a larger phonemic inventory than Modern Kosi; beside the consonants of Modern Kosi, Classical Kosi probably had the following extras: /f, K_d, S, tS, J, K_j, L, J\, q, G\/. The vowel system was quite different, and was probably something like /I, i:, Y, y:, E, e:, 9, 2:, a, a:, {, 7, O:, O, o:, M, U, u:/. Traces of the old phoneme inventory can be found in Modern Kosi: /i/ and /e/ (from /I/ and /E/) still back to /M/ and /7/ respectively, and consonantal length is still used (rare though it is) phonemically: tuli 'fire' vs. tulli 'wind'.

Grammar

Phonology

Kosi's phonemic inventory is as follows:

Consonants

	Labial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Lateral	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops	p, b		t, d			c	k
Nasals	m		n
Fricatives		v	th, dh, s					h
Affricate			ts
Liquids				r	l
Glides					j

Vowels

	Front	Mid	Palatal	Back
High	i, ü			û (1), u
Mid	e, ö	y	jo	ô (1), o
Low		a	ja

Diphthongs: ae /ai)/, au /au)/

Stress falls on the first syllable of a word.

Syllable structure is (C)V(C). If the addition of a suffix to a root or another suffix would cause an awkward consonant or vowel cluster, the epenthetic vowel /i/ or consonant /j/ is added. The following consonants do not cause this because they are pronounced as syllabic consonants: /m l n r/.

(1) These vowels are remnants of Classical Kosi's phonology, and are only found in words whose roots contained the vowels /i/ and /e/ which were backed to /M/ and /7/.

Morphology

Nominal and Adjectival Morphology

Case

Case	Example (with noun has 'house')
Nominative	has
Accusative	hasyt
Dative	hasad
Genitive	hase
Instrumental	hasi
Illative	hasn
Allative	hasjak
Inessive	hasaik
Superessive	hasult
Adessive	hasim (2)
Elative	hasel
Delative	hasar
Ablative	hasüb
Terminative	hasjo
Commetative	hasr
Benefactive	hasaenk
Formal	hasken

(2) -am may also be used temporally: ötam.

Possession

• (non-nominative forms derived with the suffixes -l (accusative) and -n (dative))

Person	Example (with noun has 'house')
1s	hasmi
2s	hasta
3s	hasen
1p	haspa
2p	hasüt
3p	hasyva

Plural

The first vowel of a root is changed as follows: i > û, ü > u, e > ô, ö > e, y > i, a > e, o > ö, u > ü.

Demonstratives

• (non-nominative forms derived with the suffixes -t (accusative) and -n (dative))

Person	Example (with noun has 'house')
1s	hastu
2s	hasti
3s	hassa
1p	hastü
2p	hastû
3p	hasse

Concordance Rules

Adjectives must agree in case and number with the nouns they modify. The same operations and suffixes are used for declension of adjectives and nouns. Use of quantifiers does not affect the number: öt 'five' + has 'house' = öt has 'five houses' - not *öt hes.

Comparison

Form	Example (with adjective nac 'big')
Comparative of inferiority	linac
Comparative of superiority	denac
Superlative of inferiority	tonac
Superlative of superiority	runac
Equative	sönac

There is no comparative conjunction: ‘X less-big Y’, 'X more-big Y', ‘X equally-big Y’, ‘X least-big Y’, 'X most-big Y'.

Verbal Morphology

Person

See possessive suffixes above; third person singular is marked with a null morpheme -0.

Aspect

Examples are with the verb keli 'to speak', adjective kek 'blue', or vila 'having reflected/illuminated light'.

Aspect	Example
Perfect	kel
Imperfect*	kile
Habitual	kelim
Inceptive	keltö
Inchoative	kekatö
Causative	kelmit
Cessative	kelse
Pausative	kelda
Resumptive	kelsu
Protractive	kelke
Iterative	kelha
Random	kelvo
Frequentative	keltü
Experiential	kellau
Volitional*	hiky
Intensive	vilcö
Moderative	vilkae
Attenuative	veltsa
Crescendo	vilnu
Decrescendo	viladh

• For imperfect, add the person endings and substitute the root vowel with the ending -i and -i with the root vowel.
• For volitional, change the height of the first vowel: i > e, ü > ö, e > i, ö > ü, y > a, a > y, o > u, u > o.

Mood

Imperative*	Kile!
Subjunctive	keltae
Obligative	keles
Abilitative	Kelvi
Interrogative	Kelviko?

• *(see "Imperfect Aspect" above)

Valency

The suffix -yth converts intransitive verb to its transitive form, or vice versa.

Voice

Active	kel
Passive	kelen
Reflexive	keljo
Reciprocal	kelum

Derivation

Verbal noun	lek 'book' (< leki 'to read'), hesti 'goodness' (< hasti 'good')
Gerund	laka 'an act of reading' (< leki 'to read'), myska 'an act of singing' (< mysin 'to sing')
Verb	tuli 'to burn' (< tuli 'fire'), mysin 'to sing' (< mysi 'music')
Adjective	mysu 'musical' (< mysi 'music'), kal 'linguistic' (< kel 'language')
Perfect active participle	leki
Perfect passive participle	lekin
Imperfect active participle*	like
Imperfect passive participle*	liken
Personal participle*	liki

• *For the imperfect participles, substitute the root vowel with the ending -i and -i with the root vowel.
• *For the personal participle, substitute the root vowel with the ending -i and -i with the root vowel, then raise or lower the second vowel, according to the pattern i > e, ü > ö, e > i, ö > ü, y > a, a > y, o > u, u > o.

Syntax

Basic word order is SOV. Relative clauses are formed using participles: kile man 'the man who spoke/the spoken man', inemi en 'the food I want to eat/the I-want-eat food'.

Lexicon

Kosi	English
ami	to like, to love
e	no
emy	person
es	food, meal
esi	to eat
ev	year
hali	to hear, to listen, to perceive audibly
has	house
hasti	good, well
hul	mood, atmosphere, emotion
huth	left (as opposed to right)
iri	to write
ja	yes
karom	three
kek	blue
keli	to speak
kesa	eight
ket	two
kinjo	lunch, midday meal
küsi	to greet
leki	to read
lehdi	to say farewell/goodbye to (i.e. opposite of to greet)
loti	to hope
luki	to pull someone's hair
lunki	to clean the plate and lick the fingers, to eat to one's heart's content
mer	ocean, sea
mil	one thousand
mys	music, song
naeru	awe and respect for something dangerous
nahi	to see, to perceive visually
neri	four
ör	evening, night
öt	five
piru	red
sab	six
sali	to sing
savi	to be familiar with
so	word, morpheme
soba	loyal
sol	sun, day
talva	table
tani	to dance
taua	tower
to	lake
tot	cake
tudi	to know (a fact)
tuli	fire, to burn
tulli	wind, breeze
ulis	street
üs	one
vaco	dinner; supper
ved	green
veni	to move
ves	water
vila	having reflected/illuminated light