Emeigu

Emeigu (Emeigu: The language of Eigu) is a largely isolating nominative-dechticaetiative language spoken in Tarbaithenu.

Phonology

Phoneme Inventory

Emeigu distinguishes the following consonants:

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive/Affricate	p /p/ b /b/	t /t/ d /d/		č /ʨ/	k /k/ g /g/
Fricative			s /s/	š /ɕ/		h /h/
Nasal	m /m/		n /n/	ny /ɲ/	ng /ŋ/
Liquid	w /w/		r /ɾ/ l /l/	y /j/

There are five vowel phonemes, /i e a o u/, represented by i e a o u, as well as five diphthongs, all falling: /ai au ei eu oi ou/, ai au ei eu ou. In native words, /o u/ only occur in closed syllables.

Orthographically, the diphthongs are distinguished from two discrete vowel nuclei with an apostrophe, e.g. tai /tai/ ta'i /ta.i/. /ng/ is distinguished from /ŋ/ the same way.

Syllable Structure

Emeigu has a simple (C)V(m n t s) syllable structure, with the caveat that coda s only occurs after /a/.

Allophony

-/n/ assimilates to the point of articulation of any following consonant /ankas/ [ɐŋ'kas]

-Unstressed vowels, and stressed vowels in closed syllables, tend to be realised as lax [ɪ ɛ ɐ ɔ ʊ], except after a palatal, where /a/ tends to be realised as [æ].

Syntax

Emeigu is quite strongly isolating, and has often been accused of being a 'word soup' language, and syntactic rules can be a bit complicated.

Syntactic Categories and Parts of Speech

Emeigu is generally considered to distinguish three types of speech: Nouns, Verbs, and Particles. The majority of adjectives or adverbs are actually either nouns (e.g fawas - strenght, strong), or stative verbs (like mran - (to be) afraid), whilst some fall under the (rather nebulous, really) particles category, such as seu - other, or ei - too, also.

Basic Word Order

The basic word order in Emeigu is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO), as in English:

Ari dau shono
Man look dog
the man looks/looked/will look at the dog

and

Ari kimdi 
Man eat
The man eats/ate/will eat

Adverbial phrases can occur in two possible positions: immediately after the verb they modify, or at the end of the clause, so SVX1OX2 is our word order when non-core arguments are included. Generally, simple time phrases such as imah today and braya soon; adverbial particles such as ei too, also and a thus; simple directional particles such as risi here, and dechticaetiative formations occur in X2 position, whereas more complex temporal and locative phrases occur in X1. Verbal particles occur directly after X1. Thus:

Ari dau shono imah
Man look dog today
The man looked at the dog today

Ari dau u srahi shono
Man look in town dog
The man looked at the dog in town

Ari dau u srahi shono yam
Man look in town dog already
The man has already looked at the dog in town

Prepositions in the X1 position can often be dropped, especially if there is a verbal particle to demarkate it from the object:

Ari dau srahi thi shono
Man look town PERF dog
The man saw the dog in town

Morphology

Emeigu has very little nominal or verbal morphology, being a largely isolating language. It does have a richer derivational morphology and word compounding system, however

Plurality

Emeigu has a plural morpheme, -u (-yu after /i u/). However, when plurality is marked by a number or a word such as jana many, the noun is always left unmarked.

Derivational Morphology

Emeigu uses a mix of compounding and derivational affixes to derive new words. Some derivational affixes are not standalone morphemes, for example:

The prefix en- produces an inaminate agent or tool from a verb or adjective: maru to pierce - emmaru thorn  ; jau black - enjau ink

Similarly, y(e)- means 'one who does X': tirni to dance - yetirni dancer; amem to know - yamem savant, scholar

Abstractions of nouns are made with kei- (verbs can be abstract nouns, too): yat farmer - keiyat agriculture but gamne to die, death ; arbai to join, joint, alliance

A place is formed with was-: wasyat farm ; wajau the underworld