Amal

See also:

• lexicon
  • thematic lexicon
  • verb charts
• phrases & translations

Phonology

24 of the 26 Latin letters are used, leaving w and x unused. All letters are pronounced like their IPA equivalents with a few exceptions.

• c - /ʃ/, /t͡ʃ/ or /t͡s/ without confusion
• e - /e/ or /ɛ/ without confusion
• i - /i/ or /ɪ/ without confusion
• j - /ʒ/
• u - /w/ when followed by another vowel
• y - /j/
• ai - /a͡ɪ/ (this is the only diphthong in Amal)

Verbal Morphology

The verbal inflection of Amal is quite simple. There are only three tenses (present, past, future), plus the conditional and the imperative, each marked by person and number.

conjugation

There is only one regular paradigm or conjugation. There are a few irregular verbs, covered later. The personal endings are uniform within each conjugation:

• -an - 1sg - I
• -e - 2sg - you
• -a - 3sg - he / she
• -uk - 1pl - we
• -ut - 2pl - you
• -um - 3pl - they

tense

Verbs are listed in the lexicon in the infinitive: tenek, amek, hamak. The verb root, the basis of most of the tenses, is formed by removing the endings -ek or -mak. The past tense is indicated by -i(y)-, and the future tense by -u(y)-.

icek
to drink

	Present	Past	Future
1sg	ican I drink	iciyan I drank	icuyan I will drink
2sg	ice you drink	iciye you drank	icuye you will drink
3sg	ica she/he/it drinks	iciya she/he/it drank	icuya she/he/it will drink
1pl	icuk we drink	iciyuk we drank	icuyuk we will drink
2pl	icut you (pl) drink	iciyut you (pl) drank	icuyut you (pl)will drink
3pl	icum they drink	iciyum they drank	icuyum they will drink

interrogative

The interrogative is formed by adding -em to the verb root.

• inti bunyema?

sun shine-Q-3sg

Is the sun shining?

negative

The negative is formed by adding -la at the end of the verb construction.

• savanla

know-1sg-NEG

I do not know.

Nominal morphology

Nouns in Amal have five cases (nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, instrumental), and two numbers (singular and plural). The two genders (masculine and feminine) can be shown but are usually not indicated.

number

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:

• bet > betim — house > houses
• ajba > ajbam — answer > answers

Other parts of speech

adjectives

Amal does not have adjectives as a distinct part of speech. Instead, many intransitive verbs can be used as adjectives, in which case they follow the noun they modify. (ceket coat, and yacek to be wet)

• ceket yaca

coat be.wet-3sg

The wet coat or The coat is wet

personal pronouns

Pronouns in Amal are marked for number, person, and case. There are three persons. The stand-alone personal pronouns are not used widely as the person is evident from the personal verb ending. They are used for emphasis only in their simple form as the verb form itself already points to the person. This is similar to Spanish where a person will say comprendo - "I understand" instead of Yo comprendo - "I understand".

Like nouns, pronouns are inflected by case, but are very irregular:

relative and interrogative pronouns

The interrogative a relative pronouns are the same:

• cika - q - how
• kam - q - how much/many
• ma - q - what
• imta - q - when
• narye - q - where
• mada - q - which
• man - q - who
• miyin - q - whose
• ce/ra - q - why

• hada - pro - everything
• hara - pro - everyone
• nul - pro - nothing