Mekoshan
| Mekoshan Meexoŝ | |
| Spoken in: | USA |
| Conworld: | Future |
| Total speakers: | 50 Million |
| Genealogical classification: | Germanic
|
| Basic word order: | VSO |
| Morphological type: | Fusional |
| Morphosyntactic alignment: | Accusative |
| Writing system: | |
| Created by: | |
| Taylor Selseth | 2011 C.E. |
Mekoshan ('Mheqqoŝ) is a descendant of English spoken in the American Midwest. It is notable among the Anglic languages for it's pharyngealization of consonants.
Phonology
Mekoshan has a very large consonant inventory and a very complex syllable structure. Most notable are the Uvular, Pharyngeal, and Pharyngealized consonants that developed from clusters with the historical English /ɹ/. Most voiceless nasals come from /s/+nasal clusters. most /ɬ/ come from English /sl/.
IPA
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | |
| Plosives, Plain | p | t | k | q qʷ | |||
| Plosives, aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | kʰ | qʰ qʷʰ | |||
| Affricates, Plain | ʦ ʦˤ | ʧ | |||||
| Affricates, aspirated | ʦʰ ʦˤʰ | ʧʰ | |||||
| Nasals | m m̥ | n n̥ | |||||
| Fricatives, unvoiced | f | s ɬ | ʃ | x | χ χʷ | ħ | h |
| Fricatives, voiced | v | z | ʒ | ɣ | ʕ | ||
| Approximants | w | l | j | ||||
| Trill | r r̥ |
| Front | Central | Back | Diphthong | |
| High | 'i iː | y yː | u uː | |
| Mid | e eː | ø øː | o oː | ɛi ɛu ɔi ɔu |
| Low | a aː | ai au |
Orthography
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | |
| Plosives, Plain | b | d | g | x br/rb | |||
| Plosives, aspirated | p | t | k | q pr | |||
| Affricates, Plain | ds jr | j | |||||
| Affricates, aspirated | ts cr | c | |||||
| Nasals | m mh | n nh | |||||
| Fricatives, unvoiced | f | s lh | š | kh | qh fr/rf | hr | h |
| Fricatives, voiced | v | z | ž | r | |||
| Approximants | w | l | y | ||||
| Trill | dr tr |
| Front | Central | Back | Diphthong | |
| High | i ii | ü üü | u uu | |
| Mid | e ee | ö öö | o oo | ei eu oi ou |
| Low | a aa | ai au |
Allophony and Morphophonology
Vowels
All vowels become lower and/or more back in quality when adjacent to uvular pharyngeal, and pharyngealized consonants. The vowel allophony is thus:
/a e i o u/ > [ɑ ɛ ɪ ɔ ʊ]
/aː eː iː oː uː/ > [ɑː ɛː ɪː ɔː ʊː]
/ai au ei eu oi ou/ > [ɑɘ ɑo æɘ æo ɒɘ ɒo]
Consonants
Unaspirated plosives and affricates are voiced when in between vowels or adjacent to a voiced consonant.
Coda /n n̥/ assimilate in POA to a following consonant.
/l/ is velarized when adjacent to a back vowel.
Morphophonology
Morphemes starting or ending with /ħ ʕ/ trigger the following assimilation in adjacent consonants and the dropping of /ħ ʕ/:
/p pʰ t tʰ k kʰ/ > /qʷ qʷʰ r r̥ q qʰ/
/f v s z ʃ ʒ x ɣ/ > /χʷ w sˤ zˤ sˤ zˤ χ ʕ/
/ʦ ʦʰ ʧ ʧʰ/ > /ʦˤ ʦˤʰ ʦˤ ʦˤʰ/
/j/ > /ɣ/
Grammar
Like many Anglic languages, Mekoshan is a moderately synthetic, fusional laguage with a bias towards prefixes in it's verbs.
The Noun Phrase
The noun phrase has the following structure:
1. Preposition
2. Article
3. Possessive Determiner
4. Demonstrative, or numeral
5. Adjective(s)
6. Noun
Articles
There are definite, indefinite, and generic article, all of which inflect for case and number. The generic article is derived from the reanalysis of prepositions, and is highly syncretic with the Indefinite. The article is simply omitted in the Generic and Indefinite Nominative
In the following chart, some article forms differ depending on if the following word begins with a consonant or vowel, the vowel form follows the consonant form.
| Generic | Indefinite | Definite SG | Definite PL | |
| Nominative | Ø | Ø | de | do |
| Accusative | da/d' | da | dead | doad |
| Genitive | o/ov | ov | ööd | ood |
| Dative | ta/t' | ta | tead | toad |
| Benifactive | fr'/fra | fra | fread | froad |
| Locative | ę/ęn | ęę | ęęd | ǫǫd |
Possessive Determiners
Possessive determiners, also called possessive adjectives or adjectival genitive pronouns, indicate who or what possesses a noun: "my shirt", "her house"
| 1st. Person | 2nd. Person | 3rd. Masculine | 3rd. Feminine | 3rd Neuter | |
| Singular | maa | ör | šez | hra | žes |
| Plural | ar | yaa | der | der | der |
Nouns and Adjectives
Nouns inflect for number. For most nouns the plural is formed by a -s, -z, or -az suffix in voicing agreement with the preceding consonant, if any. Some nouns are formed by mutation of the final consonant with or without the normal plural suffix. 4 nouns retain the old Germanic Umlaut: Men, Womn, Mos, and Gus; meaning man, woman, mouse, and goose.
tö - töz = toy - toys
brekh - brek = brick - bricks
cref - crep = trap - traps
men - man = man - men
Adjectives only inflect for the comparative and superlative forms.
Comparative: mor*-
