Ilya

Introduction and Morphology

• Ilya is an agglutinative language.
• Suffixes predominate Ilya morphology, though there is a small number of prefixes. Verbs can express tense and aspect, and they agree with the subject in person and number. There is no grammatical gender in Ilya, nor are pronouns marked for natural gender.

• See also: Ilya dictionary

Phonology

consonants

Ilya consonants

	Labial		Alveolar		Post- alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal		m		n
Stop	p	b	t	d					k	ɡ
Affricate			t͡s		t͡ʃ
Fricative	f	v	s	z	ʃ	ʒ					h
Approximant				l				j		w
Flap				ɾ

vowels

• a - /a~ə/
• e - /e~ɛ/
• i - /i~ɪ/
• o - /o~ɔ/
• u - /u~ʊ/
• ai - /aɪ/

Nouns

Nouns are commonly preceded by determiners. 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:

• doma > domam — house > houses
• ajen > ajenim — woman > women

Mass nouns include liquids, powders, and substances, such as usu (water), - (sand), and heta (wood). They do not normally require determiners or the plural. However, one may add these to indicate specific examples or different types:

• usu — the water (e.g. in the cup)
• hetam — woods (e.g. various kinds)

Gender is typically not indicated. If necessary, nouns may be followed by ...:

• A few terms for family members and traditional roles do show distinctions of gender. For example:
• ...

Apposition — the use of one noun to modify another — is mostly limited to names and titles:

Pronouns

		Number
		Singular	Plural
Person	First	na	nuk
	Second	te	tum
	Third	il	hum