Kala

• Kala is meant to be a simple and euphonic personal conlang.

• Many lexical entries are inspired/influenced/borrowed by/from any number of natlangs

Pronunciation

• Where ~ appears, it indicates free variation between phonemes.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i~i: (i)		u~u: (u)
Mid	e~e: (e)		o~o: (o)
Open		a~a: (a)

Diphthongs

falling

• [aɪ~aɪ:] - ai
• [aʊ~aʊ:] - ao

rising

• [wa~wa:] - ua
• [waɪ~waɪ:] - uai
• [ja~ja:] - ya
• [jaʊ~jaʊ:] - yao
• [je~je:] - ye
• [jo~jo:] - yo

Consonants

	Labial	Dental		Palatal	Velar		Glottal
		central	lateral		plain	labial
Nasal	m (m)	n (n)		ɲ (ny)
Plosive	p~b (p)	t~d (t)			k~g (k)	kʷ~gʷ (ku)	ʔ (')
Fricative		s (s)		ʃ (s)			h~ɦ (h)
Affricate		ts (ts)	tɬ (tl)	tʃ (ts)
Approximant			l~r (l)	j (y)		w (u)

Syllable Structure

• (N)(C)V
• N = prenasal /n/ or /m/

• The three codas are /k/, /m/, and /n/.
• /k/ only occurs as a final coda to negate verbs and nouns.

Prenasalized consonants

• In Kala, almost every consonant can be prenasalized, but primarily the plosives /p/, /t/ and /k/ can be analyzed as prenasalized,

while most other instances could be easily analyzed as cases of syllabic /n/ or /m/.

• mb /mp~mb/

Example: mpaka /ˈmpa.ka/ - n - boundary / border / line

• nt /nt~nd/

Example: ntama /ˈnta.ma/ - n - calf (a young cow or bull)

• nk /ŋk~ŋɡ/

Example: nkapa /ˈŋka.pa/ - n - alcohol / grog

Writing System

See: Moya

Grammatical Principles

• The grammar of Kala should be regarded as a guide indicating how grammatical distinctions of gender, number, tense/aspect, noun, verb and particles are made. I have adopted the Arab grammarian's division into three categories (1) Noun [no / ata] / , (2) Particle [peya] , (3) Verb [uati] . Kala does not always follow European models. It discards all redundancies. In English we say “two boys came yesterday”; in Kala “two boy come yesterday” [ta’o tahi yomaye tala] it is clear that more than one boy is already indicated by ‘two,’ while ‘yesterday’ shows the time, or tense of the verb.

Sentences

See: Kala Sentences

Nouns

See: Kala Nouns

Verbs

tense / aspect

The future tense is marked with the suffix -tli. Past tenses, including perfect and pluperfect, are marked with the suffix -ye. The present tense is unmarked:

• na ina - 1.S eat - I eat / I am eating.
• na inatli - 1.S eat.FUT - I will eat / I am about to eat.
• na inaye - 1.S eat.PAST - I eat / I was eating / I have eaten / I had eaten.

Kala does not distinguish perfect and imperfect aspects of the verb (e.g. ‘I ate’, ‘I used to eat’, ‘I have eaten’, ‘I had eaten’). However, one can easily clarify the temporal sequence of two actions by marking the earlier one with the adverbial tsa (‘already’).

mood

• The conditional mood is formed with the particle iya.

• iya na ina - COND 1.S eat - I might be eating.

• The imperative mood is formed with the particle kya.

• kya ina - IMP eat - Eat!

• The negative mood is formed with the suffix -k.

• na inak - 1.S eat.NEG - I do not eat / I am not eating.

• The volitive mood is formed with the suffix -ue (from ueha - to want, desire).

• na inaue - 1.S eat.VOL - I want to eat.

• The necessitative mood is formed with the suffix -he (from heya - to need, require).

• na inahe - 1.S eat.NEC - I need to eat.

• The abilitative mood is formed with the suffix -pa (from pala - to be able).

• na inapa - 1.S eat.ABIL - I am able to eat./ I can eat.

voice

• The passive voice is formed by attaching the accusative prefix e- to the pronoun.

• ena ina - ACC.1.S eat - I am eaten. / I am being eaten.

Questions

• There are three kinds of question: those that can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no", those that present a range of options to choose from, and those that ask for a particular piece of information.

• Additionally, questions can be direct ("Where are we going?") or indirect ("I asked you where we are going", "I don't know who I am").

Yes/No questions

• A sentence can be turned into a yes/no question by adding a? ("yes?") or ak? ("no?") just before the interrogative particle ka.

• Do you speak German?

ta alemanyatla kala ka

2S Germany.Language speak INT.PART

• Did you eat?

ta inaye ka

2S eat.PAST INT.PART

• We're lost, aren't we?

nam kayo ak ka

1P lost COP.NEG INT.PART

• Does she understand?

ha unya ka

3S understand INT.PART

Indirect

• I want to know whether the food has arrived.

na iya ke ina talaye unyaue

1S COND.PART TOP.PART food come.PAST know.VOL

• She asked if I could help.

ha iya ke na yotapa kanyoye

3S COND.PART TOP.PART 1S help.ABIL ask.PAST

• The answer to a yes/no question is a ("yes") or ak ("no"), a states that the possibility expressed in the question is true; ak states that it is false:

• ta nkapaue ka - 2S alcohol.VOL INT.PART – Do you want (a) beer?

• tsepa a - please yes – Yes, please. (I do want beer)
• nyasak - thank you.NEG – No, thanks. (I don't want beer)

Alternative questions

• An alternative question simply asks the listener to pick one of a number of options, usually expressed as a list joined with the conjunction ua:

• ta tsa'i ua kaua ua nkapa ueha ka - 2S tea or coffee or beer want INT.PART – Do you want tea, coffee, or beer?

• tsepa kaua - please coffee – Coffee, please.

• ta nya tsiti ua uelo ua yala talaye ka - 2S tea or coffee or beer want INT.PART - Did you come by car, or by bicycle, or did you walk?

Other questions

• Other questions use interrogative determiners or pronouns such as ote, ko, ke, ama, ku, to, mo, and nye. The interrogative word appears at the beginning of the sentence:

• ote mosa ke ta yomu ka - which book TOP.PART 2S read INT.PART - Which book are you reading?
• ko moyako ke ta tsopo ka - person write.AG TOP.PART 2S prefer INT.PART - Who is your preferred author?
• ke itla maka kapi ka - TOP.PART this music ugly INT.PART - What is this ugly music?
• ke ta muya ka - TOP.PART 2S do INT.PART - What are you doing?
• ama ta moku ka - time 2S sleep INT.PART - When do you sleep?
• ku ta inatli ka - amount 2S eat.FUT INT.PART - How much will you eat?
• to ta yalaye ka - way 2S walk.PAST INT.PART - How did you walk?
• mo nam a ka - place 1P COP INT.PART - Where are we?
• nye ta empa ka - reason 2S run INT.PART - Why are you running?

Numbers

Cardinal Numbers

• e'o - zero / nothing
• na'o - one
• ta'o - two
• ha'o - three
• ma'o - four
• ya'o - five
• tsa'o - six
• ka'o - seven
• pa'o - eight
• sa'o - nine
• ue'o - ten
• nye'o - (one) hundred
• tle'o - (one) thousand
• mue'o - ten thousand
• kye'o - (one) hundred thousand
• nte'o - (one) million

Higher Numbers

• uena'o - eleven / 11

• taue'o - twenty / 20

• nyeka'o - one hundred seven / 107

• hanyetauetsa'o (long form) | hatatsa'o (short form) - three hundred twenty six / 326

• tsatletauema'o - six thousand and twenty four / 6024

Ordinal Numbers

• ki- - ordinal prefix

Example : kisa'o - ninth (in a sequence)

Example : kiyanyepa'o - 508^th

Fractions

• i- - fractional prefix

Example : isa'o - a ninth, 1/9

Example : iha'o te pa'o - three eighths, 3/8 [lit: a third of eight]

Punctuation

See: Moya

Index

grammar outline | sentences | questions | lexicon | thematic lexicon | writing