Inote
| Inote | |
|---|---|
| Pronounced: | /InOte/ |
| Timeline and Universe: | ??? |
| Species: | Inote |
| Spoken: | Nenekir |
| Total speakers: | 8 million |
| Writing system: | Inote Alphabetic Script |
| Genealogy: | Keru-Inoten Inotic |
| Typology | |
| Morphological type: | Agglutinating |
| Morphosyntactic alignment: | Nominative-Accusative |
| Basic word order: | SVO |
| Credits | |
| Creator: | Sectori |
| Created: | September 2005 |
The Inote language is a simple agglutinating language. It was originally Sectori's n00blang, but underwent a major grammar revision in late April 2006.
Phonology/Orthography
Inote should be written with their own alphabet, untypeable. For convenience, this article will be transcribed in the Latin script.
| Consonants | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | Labiod. | Dental | Alveolar | Post-alv. | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||||||
| Nasal | n | |||||||||||||||
| Plosive | p | t | d | k | ||||||||||||
| Fricative | s | |||||||||||||||
| Approximant | ɹ | |||||||||||||||
| Vowels | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Near-front | Central | Near-back | Back | ||||||
| High | (i) | (u) | ||||||||
| Near-high | ɪ | ʊ | ||||||||
| High-mid | (e) | (o) | ||||||||
| Mid | (ə) | |||||||||
| Low-mid | ɛ | ɔ | ||||||||
| Near-low | ||||||||||
| Low | a | |||||||||
The vowels enclosed in parentheses occur only word-finally. Inote is (C)V(C). However, as a rule, Inote does not allow two vowels or two consonants to come in contact in the same word. Orthographically, /ə ɛ ɪ ɔ ʊ/ are represented as < a e i o u >, as are /a e i o u/ < a e i o u >.
Nominal Morphology
Nouns agglutinate to show their case: nominative, accusative, genitive, or dative. These cases show a noun's function in a sentence. The nominative case marks the subject of a sentence, the one who completes a verb action. The accusative case marks the direct object of a sentence, the one who is acted upon by the subject. The dative case marks the indirect object of a sentence, the one for whom a verb is done. The genitive case marks possession. In addition to their normal functions, the accusative and dative cases function as the objects of certain prepositions. Which case a preposition causes will be indicated in the preposition's definition.
Noun Declension
All nouns decline the same way: by adding one of seven suffixes to their end to mark case. Those eight suffixes are as follows:
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nom | -ø | -(e)n |
| Acc | -(n)a | -(a)n |
| Dat | -(n)i | -(i)n |
| Gen | -(n)o | -(o)n |
The vowels and ns enclosed in parentheses are to make sure that a word does not place a vowel next to a vowel or a consonant next to a consonant. Here is the declension of a sample noun: iner (hunt, cf<ineru, to hunt)
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nom | iner-ø | iner-en |
| Acc | iner-a | iner-an |
| Dat | iner-i | iner-in |
| Gen | iner-o | iner-on |
Here is the declension of a sample noun that ends in a vowel: nina (cloud, cf<niner, far)
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nom | nina-ø | nina-n |
| Acc | nina-na | nina-n |
| Dat | nina-ni | nina-n |
| Gen | nina-no | nina-n |
This declension pattern is true of pronouns as well. Pronouns will be covered more later.
