Emeigu: Difference between revisions

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


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


==Morphology==
==Morphology==

Revision as of 15:18, 16 March 2009

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


Phonology

Phoneme Inventory

Emeigu distinguishes the following vowels and consonants:

Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive/Affricate p /p/ b /b/ t /t/ d /d/ j /ɟ/ k /k/ g /g/
Fricative f /ɸ/ v /β/ th /θ/ s /s/ sh /ɕ/ h /ɦ/
Nasal m /m/ n /n/
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 ou/, ai au ei eu ou.

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

Syllable Structure

Emeigu has a simple (C)(r)V(r s h n m t th) syllable structure, with the following caveats:

-Word-internal coda /s/ does not occur before voiced plosives.

-Coda /th/ does not occur in a syllable with /th/ in the onset, having dissimilated to /t/ at an earlier stage in the language.

-Word-internal coda /t/ does not occur before another plosive.

-Diphthongs do not occur in syllables with a coda consonant.

-Onset /nr lr yr wr vr pr/ do not occur.

Allophony

-/n/ assimilates to the point of articulation of any following consonant.

-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]

- The palatal stop /ɟ/ tends to be realised as an affricate [ɟʝ] or [dʑ].


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 fawa - strenght, strong), or stative verbs (like thoro - (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, for example:

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

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

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