Alel grammar

This article is one of many about Alel

Orthography

Alel uses 23 letters of the Latin alphabet, leaving q, w and x unused. Each of them is pronounced as their respective IPA equivalents with four exceptions. The exceptions are c, which is pronounced as a voiceless postalveolar fricative, j, which is pronounced as a voiced postalveolar fricative, u, which is pronounced as a voiced labiovelar approximant when followed by another vowel and , y, which is pronounced as a palatal approximant. Occasionally, an apostrophe is used to indicate a glottal stop.

Articles

• There is no indefinite article [English a, an]; there is only a definite article al, alike for all genders, cases and numbers [English the].

• EXAMPLE

ketab = book, a book

al ketab = the book

Nouns

plural

• To form the plural, add the ending -t, or -at to words ending in a consonant. If the last consonant in word is an alveolar plosive, then the endings -m, or -em respectively

cases

• There are three cases: nominative, accusative and genitive.

• EXAMPLE

Al hunda jodabi al ulademin kucayon.

DEF.ART dog.NOM chase.PAST.3SG DEF.ART boy.PL.ACC house.GEN

The dog chased the boys of the house.

• Endings:

Nominative: Ø | Ø

for the purposes of freeing up word order, the nominative endings an and yan may be used.

Accusative: in | yin

Genitive: on | yon

Adjectives

Adjectives follow the noun they modify and do not inflect for case or number. The comparative is made with the word yoc [English more], the superlative with gun [English most]; for the comparative the conjunction ke [English than] is used.

• EXAMPLES:

• Al hunda cakra jodi al muratin asud

The brown dog is chasing the black cats.

• Al hunda ilha yoc cito ke al muratin asud

The brown dog is larger than the black cats.

• Ama, al anaca ilha al gun cito o kul.

But the human being is the largest of all.

Numerals

The basic numerals (not declined) are:

• ua - one
• ni - two
• uc - three
• yon - four
• go - five
• ca - six
• seb - seven
• ota - eight
• nen - nine
• da - ten
• sad - hundred
• hezra - thousand

--

• Tens and hundreds are formed by simple juxtaposition of the numerals.
• To show ordinal numbers we add -ma or -ema to numbers ending in a consonant; for multiples, the suffix –yoc or -eyoc; for fractions [actually, reciprocals], -ten or -eten; for collectives, -ku or -eku; for divisionals.

EXAMPLES:

• Hezra nensad nenda-go. = 1995.
• Al oza goma. = The fifth throne.
• Kusra niyoc. = A double error.
• Yoneten uc. = Three quarters.
• Niku. = A pair.
• Verabu hum na emla uc. = I gave them three apples each.

Index

1. Alel grammar
2. Alel lexicon
3. Alel phrases
4. Alel thematic lexicon