Emeigu
Emeigu (Emeigu: The language of Eigu) is a largely isolating nominative-dechticaetiative language spoken in Tarbaithenu.
Phonology
Phoneme Inventory
Emeigu distinguishes the following vowels and consonants:
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
| Plosive/Affricate | p /p/ b /b/ | t /t/ d /d/ | j /ɟ/ | k /k/ g /g/ | ||
| Fricative | f /ɸ/ v /β/ | th /θ/ | s /s/ | sh /ɕ/ | h /ɦ/ | |
| Nasal | m /m/ | n /n/ | ||||
| Liquid | w /w/ | r /ɾ/ l /l/ | y /j/ |
There are five vowel phonemes, /i e a o u/, represented by i e a o u, as well as five diphthongs, all falling: /ai au ei eu ou/, ai au ei eu ou.
Orthographically, the diphthongs are distinguished from two discrete vowel nuclei with an apostrophe, e.g. tai /tai/ ta'i /ta.i/.
Syllable Structure
Emeigu has a simple (C)(r)V(r s h n m t th) syllable structure, with the following caveats:
-Word-internal coda /s/ does not occur before voiced plosives.
-Coda /th/ does not occur in a syllable with /th/ in the onset, having dissimilated to /t/ at an earlier stage in the language.
-Word-internal coda /t/ does not occur before another plosive.
-Diphthongs do not occur in syllables with a coda consonant.
-Onset /nr lr yr wr vr pr/ do not occur.
Allophony
-/n/ assimilates to the point of articulation of any following consonant.
-Unstressed vowels, and stressed vowels in closed syllables, tend to be realised as lax [ɪ ɛ ɐ ɔ ʊ], except after a palatal, where /a/ tends to be realised as [æ]
- The palatal stop /ɟ/ tends to be realised as an affricate [ɟʝ] or [dʑ].
Syntax
Emeigu is quite strongly isolating, and has often been accused of being a 'word soup' language, and syntactic rules can be a bit complicated.
Syntactic Categories and Parts of Speech
Emeigu is generally considered to distinguish three types of speech: Nouns, Verbs, and Particles. The majority of adjectives or adverbs are actually either nouns (e.g fawa - strenght, strong), or stative verbs (like thoro - (to be) afraid), whilst some fall under the (rather nebulous, really) particles category, such as seu - other, or ei - too, also.
Basic Word Order
The basic word order in Emeigu is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO), as in English, for example:
Ari dau shono
Man look dog
the man looks/looked/will look at the dog
Ari kimdi
Man eat
The man eats/ate/will eat
Morphology
Emeigu has very little nominal or verbal morphology, being a largely isolating language. It does have a richer derivational morphology and word compounding system, however
Plurality
Emeigu has a plural morpheme, -u (-yu after /i u/). However, when plurality is marked by a number or a word such as jana many, the noun is always left unmarked.
Derivational Morphology
Emeigu uses a mix of compounding and derivational affixes to derive new words. Some derivational affixes are not standalone morphemes, for example:
The prefix en- produces an inaminate agent or tool from a verb or adjective: maru to pierce - emmaru thorn ; jau black - enjau ink
Similarly, y(e)- means 'one who does X': tirni to dance - yetirni dancer; amem to know - yamem savant, scholar
Abstractions of nouns are made with kei- (verbs can be abstract nouns, too): yat farmer - keiyat agriculture but gamne to die, death ; arbai to join, joint, alliance
A place is formed with was-: wasyat farm ; wajau the underworld
