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[[category:A priori conlangs]]
[[category:A priori conlangs]]


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Sevvufery is a language spoken by the ''Sevvuferýkilý'' of Sevvuferý, a country at the centre of contemporary maps of the fictional planet Erad. Its inhabitants are similar to humans, apart from differences in intellectual capacity. Though there has been some change in the language, not much has evolved over time, which is why this page's information was taken from a time when the language has lived for about 200 years.
Sevvufery is a language spoken by the ''Sevvuferýkilý'' of Sevvuferý, a country at the centre of contemporary maps of the fictional planet Erad. Its inhabitants are similar to humans, apart from differences in intellectual capacity. Though there has been some change in the language, not much has evolved over time, which is why this page's information was taken from a time when the language has lived for about 200 years.

Revision as of 04:05, 1 October 2023



Sevvufery is a language spoken by the Sevvuferýkilý of Sevvuferý, a country at the centre of contemporary maps of the fictional planet Erad. Its inhabitants are similar to humans, apart from differences in intellectual capacity. Though there has been some change in the language, not much has evolved over time, which is why this page's information was taken from a time when the language has lived for about 200 years.


Phonology

Consonants

Sevvufery has 27 consonants. Some of these are represented using two of the same letter, but they are treated as one letter in writing, and would be considered as such to a native speaker. The same applies for "ΔΓ".

Bilabial Labio-dental Dental Alveolar Postalveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal
Plosive p [p] b [b] t [t] d [d] k [k] vv [g]
Nasal m [m] n[n] n[ɳ]* ΔΓ [ŋ]
Trill r [r]
Affricate g[t̠ʃ] yy [dʑ]
Fricative f [f] v [v] å [θ] ð [ð] s [s] x [z] rr [ʃ] ii [ʒ] hh [χ] h [h] ʰ [h]* [ɦ]*
Lateral Fricative ∞ [ɬ]
Approximant w [ʋ] j [j]
Lateral Approximant l [l]

n is pronounced [ɳ] if it comes before another consonant. Otherwise, it is just pronounced as [n].

h is pronounced [ɦ] if it is the last letter of a word. ʰ is pronounced as a weaker version of [h] and cannot appear at the start or end of words.

Letters representing consonant clusters

The cluster [ks] is represented by the letter 'z'

The cluster [zχ] is represented by the letters 'zz'

Monopthongs

Sevvufery uses 17 letters to represent vowel/dipthong sounds. Of these, 13 represent monopthongs. Where two sounds are included in the same row, the one on the left represents the unrounded version

Front Central Back
Close i/ý [i]* u [y] ö [u]
Near-close í [ɪ]
Close-mid y [e] ä [ɵ]
Mid õ [o̞]
Open-mid e [ɛ] o [ɔ]
Near-open ú [ɐ]
Open a [a] ã [ɑ]

i and ý both make the [i] sound, but ý is the shorter vowel of the two.

Dipthongs

Vowel clusters are banned in Sevvufery, so other letters are used for dipthongs, as are shown below:

  • ÿ [ai]
  • ø [aɔ]
  • ë [ɛi]
  • ï [ɪi]/[ei]
  • ü [ɐi]

Morphology

Sound clusters

Start of a word

Most sound clusters are banned at the start of words, but there are three which are permitted: kr, tr and kw, although the latter is rarely used since it would replace the "q" sound, a sound which is nearly unused in Sevvufery to begin with.

For example, in the word 'krut' (/kryt/) meaning 'synagogue'

Middle

However, in the middle of words, consonant clusters are allowed, if they are no longer than two letters (with one exception : ntr), provided that a vowel both preceeds and proceeds them.

For example, the word 'ysry' (/esre/) meaning 'voice'.

End of a word

There is some more lenience at the end of words, although not much. Again though, the clusters must not be any longer than 2 letters. The following are permitted: ns, nt, nk. And here the effect I mentioned earlier occurs, where the n shifts to being pronounced as [ɳ].

For example, the word 'nunk' (/nyɳk/) meaning 'to notice'.

Uses of ʰ

Vowel lengthening

Now, with the exception of 'i' and 'ý' (both pronounced as [i] but the former is the longer version), Sevvufery does not distinguish between long and short vowels with the use of different letters. In order to lengthen another vowel, two of the same vowel are placed on either side of the letter ʰ.

For example: the word "hyliʰi" (/heli:/) meaning 'certain' or 'specific'

Joining vowels in a very weak dipthong

The other use of ʰ is less subtle, and places more importance on its pronunciation. When two vowels occur next to each other whose dipthong is not already covered by one of the letters mentioned earlier, ʰ is used to connect these since it does act as a consonant, just a weakly pronounced one.

For example, in the word 'yʰale' (/ehalɛ/) meaning 'phase'.

affixes

Grammar

Nouns and Adjectives

Nouns in Sevvufery employ a highly inflectional structure, where each case, apart from the nominative singular, is marked with a suffix. Adjectives precede the noun they describe, and must agree with it in number, but not in case (so, for example, an adjective in the dative plural does not need to be followed by a noun in the dative plural, but the noun must still be in the plural form, and not the singular). This will be explained further in the section 'Articles' burden'. All nouns and adjectives decline differently depending on whether they end in a consonant, or a vowel.

Regular nouns

Nouns in Sevvufery can have eight cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, possessive*, dative, ablative, locative, resultant, which serve the following purposes:

The Nominative acts as the subject of the sentence. Some prepositions, such as "nas" meaning "against", are followed by the nominative, but those are rare exceptions.

The Accusative acts as the object of a sentence.

The Genitive indicates possession, as does the Possessive, but the latter can be combined with any case, to achieve meanings such as 'of my' or 'to his' etc.

The Dative can be used in either a locative sense, or to indicate the recipient of an action.

The Ablative can be used in four different ways:

  1. By itself, without an article. In this case, it means 'in' or 'on'
  2. By itself, with an article. Either the article is in the ablative, or the noun is, but it is the presence In this case, it indicates an instrumental sense (i.e 'by [insert noun]')
  3. With the word 'ibajo', without an article. In this case, it means 'from' or 'out of'
  4. With the word 'ibajo', with an article, in this case, it means 'with' (in the sense of companionship)

The Locative indicates a locational sense where the observer is 'at' their destination. So, indeed, it means 'at [insert noun]'

The Resultant has two uses:

  1. Following comparatives, to achieve the meaning 'than [insert noun]'
  2. Indirect statements, to achieve the meaning 'that [insert noun]'
Consonant Vowel
Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative - - -jý
Accusative -en -ýjen -mon -kýmon
Genitive -ime -ölig -jetöd -zze
Possessive -tel
Dative -aiiu -ajahh -fodyl -kömë
Ablative -ymal -ýmal -byn -býn
Locative -gúd -mød -úd -ød
Resultant -ymuvv -imuvv -bylø -belø

Adjectives

Adjectives decline in the exact same way as regular nouns, so that will not be covered in this section.

Table of Contractions

Letter e-contraction i-contraction ú-contraction
a y ÿ ø
ä ä ú o
e e i í
ö õ u ö

ë, ï and ü have not been included here, since they would just be reduced to e + j, í + j, and ú + j respectively, after which they follow the consonant endings.

Rules of formation

Although adjectives may end in any consonant, they cannot end in any vowel. Only the following are permitted, due to the way this plays into comparatives, superlatives and absolutives, having mentioned the table of contractions in the previous section: a, ä, e, ë, ï, ö, ü.

Comparative

This is the mode adjectives take in order to, well, compare nouns to others, as is the case for many natural languages. Comparatives decline like regular adjectives. They are formed by adding -egan to consonant endings, and adding the e-contracted version of the last vowel of the adjective + gan if the adjective ends in a vowel. Refer to the Table of Contractions. Comparatives are followed by the resultant case to achieve the meaning 'than [insert object]'

For example, "dögegan TËIRymuvv mo."

I am better than him.


Superlative

This is the mode adjectives take only to indicate a substantial amount of the adjective's quality, not per se to indicate the highest possible amount of it. The latter function is taken up by the absolutive.

The Sevvuferyn superlative is formed by adding either '-ivvino' to adjectives ending in consonants, or the adjective's last vowel's i-contracted version + -vvino to adjectives ending in vowels.


Take this sentence, for example:

Oheå sytejýn dögivvino soran.
Oheå sytejýn dögivvino soran
This bread good.SUPER be.IND.ACT.3rd.SING

This bread is very good.

Absolutive

As mentioned previously, adjectives take this mode to indicate the highest possible amount of an adjective's quality. They are formed either by adding 'úme' to adjectives ending in consonants, or by adding the adjective's last vowel's ú-contracted version + -me to adjectives ending in vowels.

For example:

Soran et nagríme Sevvuferÿl* ediga.
Soran et nagríme Sevvuferÿl ediga
be.IND.ACT.3rd.SING the.NOM.SING big.ABS Sevvuferý.ABL.SING bridge.NOM.SING

It is the biggest bridge in Sevvuferý.

*you may notice that the ablative of 'Sevvuferý' is not what you would expect. This irregularity is covered in the section "Irregular Terminations of 'Sevvuferý' and 'Sevvufery'"

Numbers

Number System

The way Sevvufery deals with numbers is... more mathematical than most languages can be bothered to include. But to begin, the numbers 0-10 are just direct translations (and the ordinals are also shown here):

English Sevvufery Sevvuferyn ordinal
zero nihilil nihilal
one oiienzzi oiienal
two dojeni dojenal
three trezeni trezenal
four ereja erejal
five kwinkwa kwinkwal
six xis xisal
seven pente pentejal
eight ohhoj ohhojal
nine xande xandejal
ten zortýn zortyjal

However, for numbers greater than 10, Sevvufery actually just says the digits, in base 10, of the number, starting with the biggest. However, it does not use these forms of said numbers. It uses the shortened stems instead. The other stems which are shown here will be explained afterwards, but here is a list of said stems:

Number Shortened stem(s) Root
nihilil níh,* ní,* íh,* í* n/a
oiienzzi oii o
dojeni doj id
trezeni trez ter
ereja erej er
kwinkwa kwin ki
xis xit i
pente pen e
ohhoj ohh y
xande xan ax
zortýn n/a zo

Those for 0 will vary based on the phonetics of the numbers before and after it. For example, 204 is dojíhereja, but 505 is pekwinkwa. Granted, the "n" here was already part of the shortened stem for the number 5, but the stem is still different in that it does not have the "h" that the stem in dojíhereja had.

Another useful thing to note is that this does not apply to multiples of ten. For these, we simply add -anos to the shortened stems (and -anal for the ordinal form).

For multiples of 100, we add -oðe to the shortened stems, with the exception of 100 itself, which has the name 'xendato' (ordinal: xendatal)

And for greater numbers, we use this formula:

S + R + -mil

Where S is the shortened stem and R is the root, or combination of roots. ʰ will sometimes be necessary in said combination.

For example, the current estimate for the number of atoms in the universe, in Sevvufery, is 'xendatidimil' (/zɛndatidimil/) which can be broken down into 'xendat' + 'id' 'i' + mil i.e 100 x 10^(20 + 6) or 10^78 x 10^2, which equals 10^80

Cases

Although numbers have an almost completely different declination system to regular nouns, they also do not decline for the accusative singular and plural. This can lead to some ambiguity, as, for example, the sentence "trezeni ivvuta" can mean either "three [people/beings] understand" or "they understand three [people/beings]". Granted, this can be avoided in most cases by switching the word order for the second example, and leaving the first to be understood from context.

Vowel Consonant
Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative - -mý - -emý
Accusative - -mý - -emý
Genitive -jÿ -mlÿ -ÿ -emÿ
Dative -lo -lmo -ilo -emo
Ablative -byn -býn -ymal -ýmal
Locative
Resultant -eΔΓ -eΔΓý -eΔΓ -eΔΓý

Note that for the locative and resultant, vowel and consonant endings are the same. This is because, if the number ends in a vowel, said vowel is lost in place of the ending: for example, "ereja" becomes "erejú" in the locative singular.

Combining Cases with the Possessive

Remember how there are two ways to express possession in Sevvufery? Well, the possessive can, as stated earlier, be combined with other cases. It declines like any regular noun that ends in a consonant, but the stem now has "-tel" added to it.

For example, the word "nostelymuvv" (/nɔstɛlemyg/), meaning "that the king's".

For plural subjects, the letter 'ý' is added before '-tel' to the stem. Thus, for the plural form of the same word, we have "nosýtelymuvv" (/nɔsitɛlemyg/) meaning "that the kings'".

Articles' burden

This refers to the fact that, in Sevvufery, the definite and indefinite articles do not need to agree with the noun they describe, similar to adjectives, in case. They will need to agree in number, however. Thus, you might as well say that the article "takes the burden" of the case upon itself so that the following noun does not have to.

This also applies to the 2nd and 4th uses of the ablative (see the section Regular Nouns for more information).

For example: Sytejýnen gafus (I eat bread) becomes "eten sytejýn gafus (I eat the bread).

Irregular Terminations of 'Sevvuferý' and 'Sevvufery'

These irregularities are due to the influence of neighbouring languages such as North-East Sevvufery and Cathlushenian, since those humans would more commonly use these words than the Sevvuferýkilý.

Sevvuferý Sevvufery +possessive
Nominative Sevvuferý Sevvufery n/a
Accusative Sevvuferýj Sevvuferyj n/a
Genitive Sevvuferýn Sevvuferyn SevvuferýΔΓ SevvuferyΔΓ
Possessive Sevvuferýn Sevvuferyn n/a
Dative Sevvuferým Sevvuferem Sevvuferýmní Sevvuferymne
Ablative Sevvuferyl Sevvuferÿl Sevvuferýle Sevvuferyle
Locative Sevvuferu Sevvuferø Sevvuferun Sevvuferøn
Resultant Sevvuferýd Sevvuferyd Sevvuferýnde Sevvuferynde

Verbs

Sevvuferyn verbs fall into four categories, and these have distinctly different endings. The standard form used for study, and for giving explanations about verbs, is the present infinitive.

Simplest verb

Historically, this was the first word added to Sevvufery, when its first ruler had just arrived and before the language merged with those of its neighbours. It means 'to' but without indicating what the action is. It declines irregularly and its present tense is the source of Sevvuferyn pronouns. 'Yr' (/er/) was originally the present tense infinitive, but over time that has contracted into 'yk' (/ek/). A table of the past and future tenses will be shown below ― since the pronouns are, well, nouns, these will be omitted, being the present tense of 'yk'.


Past Future
INFINITIVE arre kyzzø
1st person singular errø ixo
2nd person singular rrolú jilu
3rd person singular minzze dizz
1st person plural ösö ximar
2nd person plural rrúntis kyzzö
3rd person plural zzøme ezzi

Since Sevvufery can turn verbs into participles in the present, past and future (as is shown in the section Participles), these will also be shown here.

Active Passive
Present nin ne*
Past sa kaå*
Future bölyb böleb*


*The passive forms of these participles are actually used as the participles for the word 'si' (to be), since they technically align in meaning.

Indicative Mood

Nothing unusual to see here. This is just what you would expect, the mood used to indicate a statement or fact.

Active Voice

Present Tenses

Let us begin with something basic, the Simple Present Tense. The four example verbs mean "to appear (in the sense of making an apparition, not as a synonym of "to seem")", "to say", "to go", and "to notice", respectively, and these will also be used as examples for all other tenses. The parts in bold are the endings, whereas the regular parts indicate the stem.

1st conjugation 2nd conjugation 3rd conjugation 4th conjugation
Infinitive apar ysi nigon nunk
1st person singular apa ys nigot nul
2nd person singular apal ysora nigo nu
3rd person singular apansí ysoran nigotamunt numan
1st person plural aparamnes ysoranos nigotus nuta
2nd person plural aparasí ysojilo nigotis nutys
3rd person plural aparante ysorajyn nigotinen nuåÿhe


The verb "si", meaning "to be", belongs in the second declension. However, aside from its irregular participles, it can also be used to form compound and continuous tenses through what are called mutations. Below are the present ones, which are used for the following tenses:

Present continuous

Perfect

Future continuous

mutation
vowel consonant
1st person singular -s* -ís
2nd person singular -ra -a
3rd person singular -ran -an
1st person plural -nos -os
2nd person plural -ilo* -o
3rd person plural -jyn -y
  * in the Perfect Tense, the first person singular is actually contracted from "ås" (θs) to "z" (ks), because the former would not be permitted in Sevvufery.
 * -ilo starting with a vowel will cause the verbs formed to have a dipthong. For example, in the word "nösÿlo" (/nusailo/) meaning "you all have noticed"
Past Tenses

Now Sevvufery has two Simple Past tenses – the Past Tense and the Historic Conditional – and five Compound Past tenses – the Imperfect Tense, the Perfect Tense, the Pluperfect Tense, the Future Perfect Tense and the Past Future Tense. The Historic Conditional Tense has its own section, therefore this one will be dedicated to the Past Tense.

1st 2nd 3rd 4th
INFINITIVE apavvÿ yse nigovõ nö
1st person singular apavv ysele nigov nuv
2nd person singular apavves yselen nigova nöiieb
3rd person singular apavven yseres nigovali nöΔΓo
1st person plural apavvemes ysemas nigovolis nönuwös
Historic conditional Tense
Future tenses

Subjunctive Mood

Active voice

Present tense
Past tense
Future tense
Uses

Imperative Mood

Participles

Cases

Adjectival use and Temporal use

Resultant Absolute

Other Features

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