Lhueslue

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Lhueslue Lhueslue
Spoken in:
Conworld:
Total speakers:
Genealogical classification:	Lhueslue
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.

Grammar

Verbs

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

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.

Syntax

The normal word order in Lhueslue is VOS.

Genitive

The genitive is expressed with the particle eev. The order is possessed (pro)noun - eev - possessor.

su	eev	rong
Su eev rong.
ear	GEN	3.SG.M
His ear.

Imperative

Imperative sentences have always a subject, which is the person who is requested to do something. The subject is moved to the beginning of the sentence while everything else follows the normal word order.

rixh	zexh	chuloung	aeng
Rixh zexh chuloung aeng!
2.SG.M	walk	room	toward
Go to your room!

The verb can be in either present or future tense. Using future tense is more polite, because it implies that the speaker understands that the action can't be carried out immediately.

Hortative

The hortative mood is formed exactly the same way as the imperative, but the pronoun that is used must be a first person plural.

lajlaj	sluesoex-eex	thtoedsvue
Lajlaj sluesoexeexh thtoedsvue
1.PL.N	write-FUT	note
Let's write a note, shall we?