Kosi
- Language name: Kosi
- Language author: Trebor Jung
- Started: December 2003
- Abstract: I wanted to make a Uralic-esque language - but not a clone. Important features of Kosi include: (1) Tense is only optional (as in Chinese) and is indicated with temporal adverbs; perfectness takes its place. (2) Some grammatical functions are marked with ablaut (as in English and Kebreni), as well as with affixation. (3) Much of the vocabulary is Uralic: ir- 'to write', kek 'blue', and öt 'five' come from Hungarian; kaheks 'eight', kel- 'to speak', and tuli 'fire' come from Finnish. Some lexical items were borrowed from Romance: am- 'to like', mer 'ocean', mil 'one thousand'. (4) The language has numerous irregularities and oddities.
Internal History
Like Latin in Roman times on Earth, Kosi is the auxiliary language of the planet Kosia. It is the scholarly language, and the source of many creole languages spoken by the common people; cf. Vulgar Latin. Kosi's descendants have a distinct, non-Kosian feel slightly horrifying to the scholars. Previous to 1902, speaking one of the creoles in the presence of a scholar was punishable by imprisonment; happily, nowadays such speech is frowned upon by educated people but for speaking such a tongue will only result in laughter.
Kosi has many creoles, the main ones being Hezy /hez@/ and Huzí /huzi/. The most-liked (or rather, least-disliked!) of these creoles on the part of the scholars is one called Kezi /kezi/. On November 10, 2003, the Kosian Supreme Linguistic Assembly (SLA) passed a resolution making Kezi the second official language.
There are three forms of Kosi: Ancient Kosi, Classical Kosi, and Modern Kosi. The grammatical sketch and lexicon in this document is Modern Kosi material.
Ancient Kosi apparently had quite a large phonemic inventory and a complex grammar. Unfortunately, specifics are unavailable at this time because the scholars are still debating.
We know much more about Classical Kosi than Ancient Kosi, as scholars have been able to get an idea of what it might have sounded like. We know that Classical Kosi had a larger phonemic inventory than Modern Kosi; beside the consonants of Modern Kosi, Classical Kosi probably had the following extras: /f, K_d, S, tS, J, K_j, L, J\, q, G\/. The vowel system was quite different, and was probably something like /I, i:, Y, y:, E, e:, 9, 2:, a, a:, {, 7, O:, O, o:, M, U, u:/. Traces of the old phoneme inventory can be found in Modern Kosi: /i/ and /e/ (from /I/ and /E/) still back to /M/ and /7/ respectively, and consonantal length is still used (rare though it is) phonemically: tuli 'fire' vs. tulli 'wind'.
Grammar
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Lateral | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops | p, b | t, d | c | k | ||||
| Nasals | m | n | ||||||
| Fricatives | v | th, dh, s | h | |||||
| Affricate | ts | |||||||
| Liquids | r | l | ||||||
| Glides | j |
Vowels
| Front | Mid | Palatal | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | i, ü | û (1), u | ||
| Mid | e, ö | y | jo | ô (1), o |
| Low | a | ja |
Diphthongs: ae /ai)/, au /au)/
Stress falls on the first syllable of a word.
Syllable structure is (C)V(C). If the addition of a suffix to a root or another suffix would cause an awkward consonant or vowel cluster, the epenthetic vowel /i/ or consonant /j/ is added. The following consonants do not cause this because they are pronounced as syllabic consonants: /m l n r/.
(1) These vowels are remnants of Classical Kosi's phonology, and are only found in words whose roots contained the vowels /i/ and /e/ which were backed to /M/ and /7/.
Morphology
Nominal and Adjectival Morphology
Case
| Case | Example (with noun has 'house') |
|---|---|
| Nominative | has |
| Accusative | hasyt |
| Dative | hasad |
| Genitive | hase |
| Instrumental | hasi |
| Illative | hasn |
| Allative | hasjak |
| Inessive | hasaik |
| Superessive | hasult |
| Adessive | hasim (2) |
| Elative | hasel |
| Delative | hasar |
| Ablative | hasüb |
| Terminative | hasjo |
| Commetative | hasr |
| Benefactive | hasaenk |
| Formal | hasken |
(2) -am may also be used temporally: ötam.
Possession
- (non-nominative forms derived with the suffixes -l (accusative) and -n (dative))
| Person | Example (with noun has 'house') |
|---|---|
| 1s | hasmi |
| 2s | hasta |
| 3s | hasen |
| 1p | haspa |
| 2p | hasüt |
| 3p | hasyva |
Plural
The first vowel of a root is changed as follows: i > û, ü > u, e > ô, ö > e, y > i, a > e, o > ö, u > ü.
Demonstratives
- (non-nominative forms derived with the suffixes -t (accusative) and -n (dative))
| Person | Example (with noun has 'house') |
|---|---|
| 1s | hastu |
| 2s | hasti |
| 3s | hassa |
| 1p | hastü |
| 2p | hastû |
| 3p | hasse |
Concordance Rules
Adjectives must agree in case and number with the nouns they modify. The same operations and suffixes are used for declension of adjectives and nouns. Use of quantifiers does not affect the number: öt 'five' + has 'house' = öt has 'five houses' - not *öt hes.
Comparison
| Form | Example (with adjective nac 'big') |
|---|---|
| Comparative of inferiority | linac |
| Comparative of superiority | denac |
| Superlative of inferiority | tonac |
| Superlative of superiority | runac |
| Equetive | sönac |
There is no comparative conjunction: ‘X less-big Y’, 'X more-big Y', ‘X equally-big Y’, ‘X least-big Y’, 'X most-big Y'.
Verbal Morphology
Person
See possessive suffixes above; third person singular is marked with a null morpheme -0.
Aspect
Examples are with the verb keli 'to speak', adjective kek 'blue', or vila 'having reflected/illuminated light'.
| Aspect | Example |
|---|---|
| Perfect | kel |
| Imperfect* | kile |
| Habitual | kelim |
| Inceptive | keltö |
| Inchoative | kekatö |
| Causative | kelmit |
| Cessative | kelse |
| Pausative | kelda |
| Resumptive | kelsu |
| Protractive | kelke |
| Iterative | kelha |
| Random | kelvo |
| Frequentative | keltü |
| Experiential | kellau |
| Volitional* | hiky |
| Intensive | vilcö |
| Moderative | vilkae |
| Attenuative | veltsa |
| Crescendo | vilnu |
| Decrescendo | viladh |
- For imperfect, add the person endings and substitute the root vowel with the ending -i and -i with the root vowel.
- For volitional, change the height of the first vowel: i > e, ü > ö, e > i, ö > ü, y > a, a > y, o > u, u > o.
Moods
| Imperative* | Kile! |
| Subjunctive | keltae |
| Obligative | keles |
| Abilitative | Kelvi |
| Interrogative | Kelviko? |
- *(see "Imperfect Aspect" above)
Valency
The suffix -yth converts intransitive verb to its transitive form, or vice versa.
Voice
| Active | kel |
| Passive | kelen |
| Reflexive | keljo |
| Reciprocal | kelum |
Switch-Reference
Derivation
- Verbal noun lek 'book' (< leki 'to read'), hesti 'goodness' (< hasti 'good')
- Gerund laka 'an act of reading' (< leki 'to read'), myska 'an act of singing' (< mysin 'to sing')
- Verb tuli 'to burn' (< tuli 'fire'), mysin 'to sing' (< mysi 'music')
- Adjective mysu 'musical' (< mysi 'music'), kal 'linguistic' (< kel 'language')
- Perfect active participle leki
- Perfect passive participle lekin
- Imperfect active participle (substitute the root vowel with the ending -i and -i with the root vowel) like
- Imperfect passive participle (substitute the root vowel with the ending -i and -i with the root vowel) liken
- Personal participle (substitute the root vowel with the ending -i and -i with the root vowel, then raise or lower the second vowel, according to the pattern i > e, ü > ö, e > i, ö > ü, y > a, a > y, o > u, u > o) liki
Syntax
Basic word order is SOV. Relative clauses are formed using participles: kile man 'the man who spoke/the spoken man', inemi en 'the food I want to eat/the I-want-eat food'.
Lexicon
- ami (< Spanish amar): to like
- e (< Finnish ei): no
- emy (< Hungarian ember): person
- es (see eni): food; meal
- esi (< Hungarian eszek): to eat
- evy (< Hungarian év): year
- hali (< Hungarian hallani): to listen; to hear; to perceive audibly
- has (< Hungarian ház): house
- hasti (< Estonian hästi): good; well
- hul (< Welsh hwyl): mood, atmosphere, emotion
- huth (< Welsh chwith): left (as opposed to right)
- iri (< Hungarian ír): to write
- ja (< German/Estonian ja): yes
- kaheks (< Finnish kaheksa): eight
- karom (< Hungarian három and Finnish karom): four
- kek (< Hungarian kék): blue
- keksö (< Hungarian kettõ and Finnish keksi): two
- keli (< Estonian keel)): to speak
- kinjo (< Welsh cinio): lunch; midday meal
- lec (< Spanish leche): milk
- leki (< Estonian lekuda): to read
- loti (< Estonian lotama): to hope
- luhi (< Swedish lugga): to pull someone's hair
- lunki (< Quechua llunk'uy): to clean the plate and lick the fingers, to eat to one's heart's content
- mas (< French musique): music; song
- mer (< French mer): ocean; sea
- mil (< French mille): one thousand
- naran (< Hungarian narancs): orange (colour)
- naran rut: orange (fruit)
- nati (< Finnish): to see; to perceive visually
- neri (< Estonian neri): four
- naeru (< Rokbeigalmki ngiirau): awe and respect for something dangerous
- ör (< Estonian öör): evening; night
- öt (< Hungarian öt): five
- piru (< Hungarian piros): red
- savi (< French savoir): to be familiar with
- so (< Hungarian szó): word; morpheme
- soba (< Estonian sõber): loyal
- sol (< French soleil): sun, day
- talva (< French table): table
- taua (< English tower): tower
- to (< Hungarian tó): lake
- toi (< Hungarian tojás): egg
- tort (< Hungarian torta): cake
- tudi (< Hungarian tud): to know (a fact)
- tuli (< Finnish tuli): fire
- tulli (< Finnish tulli): wind
- ulis (< Polish julic): street
- üs (< Estonian üks): one
- vaco (< Hungarian vacsora): dinner; supper
- vede (< Spanish verde): green
- veni (< French venir): to come
- ves (< Finnish vesi): water
- vila (origin unknown): having reflected/illuminated light
