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Revision as of 09:38, 26 February 2016
- See also:
Introduction
Phonology
24 of the 26 Latin letters are used, leaving w and x unused. All letters are pronounced like their IPA equivalents with a few exceptions.
- c - /ʃ/, /t͡ʃ/ or /t͡s/ without confusion
- e - /e/ or /ɛ/ without confusion
- i - /i/ or /ɪ/ without confusion
- j - /ʒ/
- u - /w/ when followed by another vowel
- y - /j/
- ai - /a͡ɪ/ (this is the only diphthong in Amal)
Verbal Morphology
The verbal inflection of Amal is quite simple. There are only three tenses (present, past, future), plus the conditional and the imperative, each marked by person and number.
conjugation
There is only one regular paradigm or conjugation. There are a few irregular verbs, covered later. The personal endings are uniform within each conjugation:
- -an - 1sg - I
- -e - 2sg - you
- -a - 3sg - he / she
- -uk - 1pl - we
- -ut - 2pl - you
- -um - 3pl - they
tense
interrogative
The interrogative is formed by adding -em to the verb root.
- inti bunyema?
- sun shine-Q-3sg
- Is the sun shining?
negative
The negative is formed by adding -la at the end of the verb construction.
- savanla
- know-1sg-NEG
- I do not know.
Nominal morphology
Nouns in Amal have five cases (nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, instrumental), and two numbers (singular and plural). The two genders (masculine and feminine) can be shown but are usually not indicated.
number
Plural nouns are formed by appending -m to nouns ending in vowels or -im to nouns ending in consonants. This does not alter the stress:
- bet > betim — house > houses
- ajba > ajbam — answer > answers
gender
case
Other parts of speech
adjectives
Amal does not have adjectives as a distinct part of speech. Instead, many intransitive verbs can be used as adjectives, in which case they follow the noun they modify. (ceket coat, and yacek to be wet)
- ceket yaca
- coat be.wet-3sg
- The wet coat or The coat is wet
adverbs
personal pronouns
Pronouns in Amal are marked for number, person, and case. There are three persons. The stand-alone personal pronouns are not used widely as the person is evident from the personal verb ending. They are used for emphasis only in their simple form as the verb form itself already points to the person. This is similar to Spanish where a person will say comprendo - "I understand" instead of Yo comprendo - "I understand".
Like nouns, pronouns are inflected by case, but are very irregular:
relative and interrogative pronouns
The interrogative a relative pronouns are the same:
- cika - q - how
- kam - q - how much/many
- ma - q - what
- imta - q - when
- narye - q - where
- mada - q - which
- man - q - who
- miyin - q - whose
- ce/ra - q - why
- hada - pro - everything
- hara - pro - everyone
- nul - pro - nothing
