Ilya
Introduction and Morphology
- Ilya is an agglutinative language.
- Suffixes predominate Ilya morphology, though there is a small number of prefixes. Verbs can express tense and aspect, and they agree with the subject in person and number. There is no grammatical gender in Ilya, nor are pronouns marked for natural gender.
- See also: Ilya dictionary
Phonology
consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ||||||||||
| Stop | p | b | t | d | k | ɡ | ||||||
| Affricate | t͡s | t͡ʃ | ||||||||||
| Fricative | f | v | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | h | |||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | |||||||||
| Flap | ɾ | |||||||||||
vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i~ɪ | u~ʊ | |
| Mid | e~ɛ | o~ɔ | |
| Open | a~ə |
- ai - /aɪ/
Orthography & Allophony
Ilya uses 23 of the 26 letters in the English alphabet; q, w, and x are unused.
- c - /ʃ/; /t͡ʃ/ when followed by a front vowel; /t͡s/ when word final
- g - always /g/
- h - can be /ɦ/ when followed by a front vowel
- j - /ʒ/ in all cases; can be /dʒ/ in proper names
- u - /u/ but /w/ when followed by another vowel
- y - always /j/
Accents
The acute accent ◌́ is used to mark stressed syllables in words that deviate from the standardized stress patterns. It is also used to distinguish minimal pairs.
- á é í ó ú
Syntax
Nouns
Nouns are commonly preceded by determiners. 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:
- doma > domam — house > houses
- ajen > ajenim — woman > women
Adjectives modifying a noun do not change when the noun is plural. But when an adjective is used as a noun, it can be pluralized:
- dobrá > dobrám — the good > the goods
- guzá > cok guzám — a beauty > many beauties
Mass nouns include liquids, powders, and substances, such as usu (water), uramla (sand), and heta (wood). They do not normally require determiners or the plural. However, one may add these to indicate specific examples or different types:
- usu — the water (e.g. in the cup)
- hetam — woods (e.g. various kinds)
Gender is typically not indicated. If necessary, nouns may be modified by -uj- for masculine, and -en- for feminine:
- kavla - horse
- kavluja - stallion
- kavlena - mare
Case
| Case | Ending | Examples | Meaning | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| karya "village" |
sac "tree" | |||
| Nominative cuka |
Ø (none) | karya | sac | (the) village/tree |
| Genitive idafa |
-ín | karyín | sacín | the village's/tree's of the village/tree |
| Dative | -é | karyé | sacé | to the village/tree |
| Accusative | -í/-yí/-á | karyá | sacá | the village/tree |
| Ablative | -(e)cí | karyací | sacecí | from the village/tree |
| Locative | -(e)dá | karyadá | sacedá | in the village/on the tree |
- NOTE: If a noun ends in a vowel, that vowel is replaced by the appropriate case ending.
- NOTE: The accusative case has a bit of vowel harmony in that stems with front vowels receive the -í or -yí ending whereas all others receive the -á.
Determiners
Pronouns
- Ilya is a null-subject, or pro-drop, language, so personal pronouns (e.g. I, he, she) are optional. Pronouns generally are the same for all cases.
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | na | nuk |
| 2nd | te | tum |
| 3rd | il | hum |
Verbs
Tense
Future
The future tense is marked with -ar- (or -ur- if the stem has a back vowel) to which the personal suffixes are attached.
- gayaran aglá
- buy-FUT-1SG.NOM bicycle.ACC
- I will buy a bicycle.
- ne kujuruk
- NEG come-FUT-1PL.NOM
- We will not come.
Past
The past tense is marked with -ec- to which the personal suffixes are attached.
- edecana
- make-PST-1SG-3SG
- I made it.
- ne rayecumuk
- NEG see-PST-3PL-1PL
- They did not see us.
