Lhueslue
| Lhueslue Lhueslue | |
| Spoken in: | |
| Conworld: | |
| Total speakers: | |
| Genealogical classification: |
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| Basic word order: | VOS |
| Morphological type: | |
| Morphosyntactic alignment: | nominative-accusative |
| Writing system: | |
| Created by: | |
| Qwynegold | |
Phonology
Phoneme inventory
Consonants
| Consonants | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | Labiod. | Dental | Alveolar | Post-alv. | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |||||||||||
| Nasals | m | n | ŋ | |||||||||||||||||
| Plosives | p | b | t | d | k | g | q | |||||||||||||
| Affricates | tʃ | |||||||||||||||||||
| Fricatives | f | v | θ | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | ɕ | x | χ | h | |||||||||
| Trills | r | |||||||||||||||||||
| Approximants | ɻ | j | w | |||||||||||||||||
| Lateral Approximant | l̪͆ | l | ||||||||||||||||||
Vowels
| Vowels | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Near-front | Central | Near-back | Back | ||||||
| High | i | y | u | |||||||
| High-mid | e | ø | ɘ | o | ||||||
| Low-mid | ɛ | |||||||||
| Near-low | æ | |||||||||
| Low | ɑ | |||||||||
Lhueslue features vowel harmony. Each vowel belongs to one of two groups: tense (marked in red in the table above) or lax (marked with blue).
Tones
Lhueslue has three tones: low, mid and high. The mid tone is the most common one. The low tone may be realized as falling, and high can be realized as rising.
Allophony
Length
The high tone turns its vowel long, and the low tone turns it half-long. If a word has only mid tones, the final syllable will have a long vowel on two conditions.
- It must be a monophthong.
- The syllable must be open or end with one of the following consonants:
Vowel harmony
The lax vowels are paired together with the tense vowels in the following way:
| Tense | Lax |
|---|---|
| i | ɘ |
| u | y |
| e | ɛ |
| o | ø |
| ɑ | æ |
Some words, or combinations of words and affixes have so called broken vowel harmony. It means that the word contains both tense and lax vowels, but that the allophony treat the boundary between tense and lax as a word boundary (this boundary is marked with a dash in the romanization). One example of a word with broken vowel harmony is oe-i (old). This word is pronunced [øː.iː]. Note how the two vowels do not form a diphthong, and both are long as if both appeared at the end of a word.
Grammars
Verbs
Tense
The verbs have three tenses: past, present and future. The present tense is unmarked while past and future are marked with suffixes.
| Verb class | Suffix | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Tense or lax, ends with -e or -ee | -q | eze (move) > ezeq (moved); chyuelee (think) > chyueleeq (thought) |
| Tense, ends with anything else than -e | -eq | buzeyted (roll) > buzeytedeq (rolled) |
| Lax, ends with anything else than -ee | -eeq | eelùe (sleep) > eelùeeeq (sleeped) |
The future tense is formed simalarly, except with -xh instead of -q as the final consonant.
| Verb class | Suffix | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Tense or lax, ends with -e or -ee | -xh | eze (move) > ezexh (will move); chyuelee (think) > chyueleexh (will think) |
| Tense, ends with anything else than -e | -exh | buzeyted (roll) > buzeytedexh (will roll) |
| Lax, ends with anything else than -ee | -eexh | eelùe (sleep) > eelùeeexh (will sleep) |
Voice
Lhueslue has passive and active voice. Active voice is unmarked while passive voice is marked by a circumfix on the verb. The first part (prefix) of the circumfix agrees with the object's noun class, and the last part (suffix) agrees with the subject.
| Noun class | Prefix preceding a consonant | Prefix preceding a vowel |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | ree- | r- |
| Feminine | cee- | c- |
| Earth | mee- | m- |
| Water | shee- | sh- |
| Fire | fee- | f- |
| Air | hee- | h- |
| Metal | kee- | k- |
| Wood | thee- | th- |
| Aether | ue- | uelh- |
| Light | i- | t- |
| Dark | ie- | d- |
| Noun class | Suffix following a consonant | Suffix following a vowel |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | -eer | -r |
| Feminine | -eec | -c |
| Earth | -eem | -m |
| Water | -eesh | -sh |
| Fire | -eef | -f |
| Air | -eeh | -h |
| Metal | -eek | -k |
| Wood | -eeth | -th |
| Aether | -ue | -lhue |
| Light | -i | -t(i) |
| Dark | -ie | -d(ie) |
If the affix has a tense vowel while the verb is lax, or vice versa, it results in broken vowel harmony. But in the case of the light and dark suffixes following a vowel, the vowel in the suffix is skipped if it's not in the same vowel harmony group as the verb. For example eze (move) becomes tezed if the object is light and subject dark, but eelùe (sleep) becomes teelùedie.
Valency
Some verbs are by default intransitive, while others are transitive. But intransitive verbs can be derived from transitive ones by adding a suffix that agrees with the subject's noun class.
| Noun class | Suffix with tense vowel harmony, following a consonant |
Suffix with tense vowel harmony, following a vowel |
Suffix with lax vowel harmony, following a consonant |
Suffix with lax vowel harmony, following a vowel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | -ar | -ra | -eer | -ree |
| Feminine | -ac | -ca | -eec | -cee |
| Earth | -am | -ma | -eem | -mee |
| Water | -ash | -sha | -eesh | -shee |
| Fire | -af | -fa | -eef | -fee |
| Air | -ah | -ha | -eeh | -hee |
| Metal | -ak | -ka | -eek | -kee |
| Wood | -ath | -tha | -eeth | -thee |
| Aether | -alh | -lha | -ue | -lhue |
| Light | -ai | -ti | -eet | -tee |
| Dark | -ad | -da | -ie | -die |
