Pekseili

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Re: Vutulkian

Post by Sier »

shimobaatar wrote:
Sier wrote:At the end, there are – what I called them – angry consonants. These ones are ‹f›, ‹h› and ‹r›. They are called angry because they can neither end a consonant cluster (like ‹t› in ‹nt› can) nor be doubled by gemination (like ‹mm› or ‹pp›).
Interesting! Is there any particular historical reason for this?
As disappointing as it may be, it is from no particular reason except for the consequences of their existence. The "unofficial" table below shows all the possible consonant clusters and the fact that angry consonants can never end a cluster (geminations are also treated as clusters).

Image
(weird order here)

Note: The gemination ‹yy› came into existance from ‹ttl› (while single ‹y› from ‹tl›). It is an exception in Vutulkian where a gemination was immediately followed by a consonant.
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Re: Vutulkian

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Vutulkian syllabary

Although it's just a draft version of the syllabary I will be working on more, I think it already shows the proper mechanics of the Vutulkian writing system. It tightly corresponds to its moraic system where each symbol prepresents exactly one mora. Also, each symbol has its own stroke order defined but I'll post it when the syllabary gets finished.

The first column contains non-vowel moras and the last row contains continuations for long vowels. In the latter, there are no representation symbols for ‹e› or ‹i›, and ‹ea›, ‹ia›, ‹ei›. That's because in Vutulkian ‹ee› and ‹ii› don't exist.

Image


I'll take some pseudo-words from my first post, where I talked about moras, and show you how to represent them in the syllabary.

hu (hu) 1 mora (CV)
This consists of one mora so will be represented by one symbol. Columns hold vowels and rows hold consonants. So hu will look like this:
Image
huu (hu-u) 2 moras (CV-V)
There are two moras: hu and u. The last row holds vowel continuations (and cannot be used for purposed other than continuing a long vowel). Two moras = two symbols.
Image
hut (hu-t) 2 moras (CV-C)
Single consonants are also treated as single moras so we'll use the first column to represent a non-vowel mora. (similarily, the first-column symbols cannot be used for purposes other than representing a non-vowel mora.
Image
huuă (hu-uă) 2 moras (CV-D)
Diphthongs are represented by a single symbol. In this case we have two moras: hu and ua (the latter being a continuation of a long vowel).
Image
huuăntaĭn (hu-uă-n-taĭ-n) 5 moras (CV-D-C-CD-C)
The last one is a little bit trickier because of that ‹nt› cluster. A mora cannot contain two consonants even if they are unseparable clusters. A cluster is split into two moras, where the first one is a non-vowel mora.
Image
If something is not clear or I've forgotten to explain something, feel free to ask.
Last edited by Sier on 24 Jun 2015 21:32, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Vutulkian

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Looks very nice! Was this writing system inspired, at least in part, by the Canadian Aboriginal syllabics?
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Re: Vutulkian

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shimobaatar wrote:Looks very nice! Was this writing system inspired, at least in part, by the Canadian Aboriginal syllabics?
Nope. The only language to inspire me to use a syllabary rather than an alphabet was Japanese. Although this insipiration was limited to the sole idea only; the shapes of the symbols are unrelated whatsoever.

I'm also thinking about incorporating those little dashes for diphthongs into the symbols itself. And probably about making the shapes curved, not angular.
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Re: Vutulkian

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Alright, it's been quite a while since my post. By this time I made several improvements to the language, added some features that I found interesting. I'll list all changes here in this post, and later I may change my previous posts to reflect the changes. (I hope I don't skip anything by accident.)

Note: All features affected by these changes prior to this post are not to be considered archaic or "still correct" unless specifically noted.

Language
  • The name of the language has been officially changed from Vutulkian to Pekseili. The new name, Pekseili, comes from peka «to give, provide» and seili «(archaic) language, dialect; way of speaking». The old name, Vutulkian, that comes from vutul that comes from vusti «ice» + tulki «people», will probably be the name of one of the conworld Pekseili-speaking tribes and their dialect (but that's just an idea, there's nothing to the conworld at the moment).
Pronunciation
  • The [ɦ] sound has been added to the phonetic inventory. It is an allophone of an initial /h/ when the previous word ends in [m/n/v](V).
  • The [tɬ] sound will no longer be romanized as ‹y› but as ‹tl› instead. This change was dictated by the fact that in the native writing system ‹tl› is realized as two distinct sounds. In careful, slow speech ‹tl› should be pronounced as [tl], however at normal speaking pace it is [tɬ], to make pronunciation easier.
  • The sound [ʂ] has been added to the phonetic inventory. It is a non-standard, dialectical way of realizing the ‹st› cluster, normally pronounced as [st].
Nouns and pronouns
  • Nouns and pronouns no longer have the possessive form. Instead, the so- prefix is used for that purpose (e.g. kotu sonan «my house»).
  • Nouns no longer have the singular-plural number distinction. Instead, there are two productive classes – unmarked and singulative – and one non-productive/archaic – plurative. The unmarked class does not define whether the noun is referring to one object or more; the singulative class specifically marks the noun as singular. The plurative is an archaic class once productive, now only seen in some fixed collective nouns (e.g. tulkaa «humankind, human race»). As the plurative declination has fallen from use, in the modern language plurative nouns are indeclinable (e.g. their declarative and empathic forms are the same).

    Image
  • The pronoun system has been reworked to fit the new number-class system. It features unmarked, singulative and in some cases plurative forms.

    First-person:
    Image

    Second-person:
    Image

    Third-person:
    Image

    Fourth-person:
    Image
  • A new way to define subject pronouns in relation with the previous utterance has been added. Consider the following sentence: The lamp fell over on the floor. It was all white. – there is an ambiguity of the it pronoun due to which we cannot clearly say if it was the lamp that was white or the floor. In Pekseili it is now possible to get rid of such ambiguity using the contracted form of the particle suama which for this purpose becomes ma. And so we have: lim «it (subject of the previous utterance)», lim ma «it (direct object of the previous utterance)», lim suima «the one that it was in (indirect inessive object of the previous utterance», and so on.

    Direct-object-referential third-person pronouns:
    Image
    1. Slightly more popular variant.

    The ma particle can be used with nouns too in the same manner.
Verbs
  • The verb system in Pekseili has been reworked. All verbs now fall into two groups that strongly affect their conjugation and direct-object marking. Every verb is either an action verb or a state verb:

    Action verbs, as the name suggests, describe actions that may either be completed or repeated many times. Their conjugation shows distiction for as much as three perfectiveness aspects: initiative (action being initiated), progressive (action being in the time of realization) and completive (action being completed). An action verb can take a direct object without any prefix attached, thus it can be concluded that actions verbs are very closely tied to their direct objects.

    Image


    State verbs generally describe continued states although some of them when translated into English might not look like so. They do not show distinction for perfectiveness. A state verb however can be converted to an action verb using the two suffixes -atta or -ara. The former takes the state initiation and the latter the state completion as the action. Once the suffix is added, a new verb is created and conjugated as any other action verb (I guess Pekseili turns into an agglutinative language, huh). An example of such conversion could be the state verb sava «to search» and the action verb savara «to find», or even savatta «to start searching». Direct objects aren't as closely tied to state verbs as to action verbs and thus must take the se- prefix to be a direct object of such.

    (Particles share the same conjugation scheme as state verbs.)

    Image
  • Both action and state verbs have been granted a new indicative-only tense, the unmarked tense, which does not mark the tense being used. The unmarked ending for action verbs is -an and for state verbs it's -en. It finds its widespread use where it is not necessary to signify the tense. Even though its ending is longer than that of the present tense, it's commonly used even for the present, especially in colloquial speech.
  • 2 categories have been added for nouns that can function as verbs given an appropriate auxiliary verb:

    There are kaksa-verbs that facilitate the action verb kaksa «to do; to participate» and a noun to create an expression with the noun as its meaning and the kaksa verb as an auxiliary. Example: mitla «early time» → kaksa mitla «to get up early».

    And there are kesa-verbs that use the state verb kesa and a noun to create a similiar expression but with a stative aspect. The kesa verb itself has a very wide range of possible translations (to be, show, do, display, etc.). Unlike kaksa, kesa has been almost completely grammaticalizated and is rarely employed for different purposes. And in the entire language, it is the only case where a state verbs takes a direct object without the se- prefix. Example: nale «worry, concern» → kesa nale «to worry, be concerned».
  • There are 2 irregular verbs: ha «to exist» and kaksa «to do; to participate»:

    (the forms in red are the irregular exceptions to the conjugation).

    Image

    Image

    (the colloquial kas'ka is written with an apostrophe here because such cluster as ‹sk› did not originally exist in Pekseili and colloquial forms are most often only spoken)
Adjectives and adverbs
  • Adjective and adverb comparison endings have been changed a bit. Adjectives end always in -e and adverbs have been divided into two groups: a-adverbs and eta-adverbs. A-adverbs are words that were formerly adverbs, and eta-adverbs are adverbs that have been created by attaching the -eta prefix to an adjective.

    Adjective comparison:
    Image

    Adverb comparison:
    Image
    (in comparison, a-adverbs have their -a ending dropped and eta-adverbs have their -eta dropped to be able to have the above endings attached)
Writing system and roots
  • The native writing system have been redesigned from scratch. Not only its shape, which is now more rounded and smoother, changed but also its mechanics altogether. All Pekseili roots (e.i. CVC(C)) are now written in a single square block and can be written one after another to produce compounds. Prefixes, suffixes, conjunctional and decinational endings are all written in the lower half of a separate block.
  • As was mentioned in the previous point, Pekseili incorporates a compounding-system where several roots (not words!) can be attached one after another to create more complex words. Also, each root in a compound may undergo one or more vowel/consonant normalization processes.
Et cetera
  • Personal names in Pekseili are most often created by compounding 1, 2 or more roots. For example, by compounding the roots *falk «courage» and *taaih «forest» we get the name Fataai or its shorter version Fata (literally: courageous forest), or *peat «love», *pir «fullness» and *tuis «optimism, happiness» to get Peapituis, Peapitu or Pepitu. Consonant gradation or vowel dropping at the end of names is considered very offensive, and so personal names are always pronounced as they're written. Personal names also does not declinate like regular nouns. The -na prefix is used to nominalize (or rather, grammaticalizate) a name; it comes from veina, the polite variant of veinu «person, individual».

    Image

    The difference between Fata and Fatana is that the latter is most commonly used as an object in sentences and the former as the subject. But it's no rule; they both mean the same.

    If you wanted to insult someone called Fata, you would most probably want to say Fat or Fan. The more letters are gradated or dropped, the more insulting it sounds.

Sorry for this chaos, I'll try to make it more organized at a later time. :P And probably, don't expect numerals any time soon. Right now, I have as much as 3 numerals. It's probably the most boring and repulsive part of conlanging for me.
Last edited by Sier on 27 Jul 2015 11:02, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Vutulkian

Post by shimobaatar »

Sier wrote:Alright, it's been quite a while since my post. By this time I made several improvements to the language, added some features that I found interesting. I'll list all changes here in this post, and later I may change my previous posts to reflect the changes. (I hope I don't skip anything by accident.)
Hello, it's nice to see another update here! [:)]
Sier wrote:Note: All features affected by these changes prior to this post are not to be considered archaic or "still correct" unless specifically noted.
If you don't mind my asking, could you please elaborate on what you mean here?
Sier wrote:
  • The name of the language has been officially changed from Vutulkian to Pekseili. The new name, Pekseili, comes from peka «to give, provide» and seili «(archaic) language, dialect; way of speaking». The old name, Vutulkian, that comes from vutul that comes from vusti «ice» + tulki «people», will probably be the name of one of the conworld Pekseili-speaking tribes and their dialect (but that's just an idea, there's nothing to the conworld at the moment).
Cool! Do you want to change the name of the thread to account for this?
Sier wrote:
  • The [ɦ] sound has been added to the phonetic inventory. It is an allophone of an initial /h/ when the previous word ends in [m/n/v](V).
  • The [tɬ] sound will no longer be romanized as ‹y› but as ‹tl› instead. This change was dictated by the fact that in the native writing system ‹tl› is realized as two distinct sounds. In careful, slow speech ‹tl› should be pronounced as [tl], however at normal speaking pace it is [tɬ], to make pronunciation easier.
  • The sound [ʂ] has been added to the phonetic inventory. It is a non-standard, dialectical way of realizing the ‹st› cluster, normally pronounced as [st].
Nice, I especially like how the conditions for /h/ being pronounced as [ɦ] occur across word boundaries!
Sier wrote:
  • A new way to define subject pronouns in relation with the previous utterance has been added. Consider the following sentence: The lamp fell over on the floor. It was all white. – there is an ambiguity of the it pronoun due to which we cannot clearly say if it was the lamp that was white or the floor. In Pekseili it is now possible to get rid of such ambiguity using the contracted form of the particle suama which for this purpose becomes ma. And so we have: lim «it (subject of the previous utterance)», lim ma «it (direct object of the previous utterance)», lim suima «the one that it was in (indirect inessive object of the previous utterance», and so on.
Is the system for defining subject pronouns in relation to previous utterances, in your opinion, at all similar to this phenomenon?
Sier wrote:
  • State verbs generally describe continued states although some of them when translated into English might not look like so. They do not show distinction for perfectiveness. A state verb however can be converted to an action verb using the two prefixes -atta or -ara. The former takes the state initiation and the latter the state completion as the action. Once the suffix is added, a new verb is created and conjugated as any other action verb (I guess Pekseili turns into an agglutinative language, huh). An example of such conversion could be the state verb sava «to search» and the action verb savara «to find», or even savatta «to start searching». Direct objects aren't as closely tied to state verbs as to action verbs and thus must take the se- prefix to be a direct object of such.
Do you mean that -atta and -ara are suffixes, not prefixes? Also, what makes you categorize the language as agglutinative, specifically?

[+1] This was all very interesting and seemingly well thought-out, as usual. Hopefully we get to see more soon!
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Re: Vutulkian

Post by Sier »

shimobaatar wrote:
Sier wrote:Note: All features affected by these changes prior to this post are not to be considered archaic or "still correct" unless specifically noted.
If you don't mind my asking, could you please elaborate on what you mean here?
I tried to say that everything that was changed here was not a natural evolution of the language unless specifically noted. For example, the possessive form that I got rid of never existed, but the plurative form was explicitly told in my post to be archaic so I must have existed before in the history of the language. Sorry for my English :(
shimobaatar wrote:Cool! Do you want to change the name of the thread to account for this?
If it's possible, then yes. :)
shimobaatar wrote:Is the system for defining subject pronouns in relation to previous utterances, in your opinion, at all similar to this phenomenon?
Hmm, I haven't heard about obviative pronouns before, thanks :P It was just an idea that popped in my head. Yes, I think it is somewhat similiar. However, in Pekseili, it is possible to mark nouns as obviative (?) too (generic nouns such as "person", "building" or even noun phrases with subordinate modifiers).
shimobaatar wrote:Do you mean that -atta and -ara are suffixes, not prefixes? Also, what makes you categorize the language as agglutinative, specifically?
Yes, they are suffixes. My mistake :(

In my view an agglutinative language makes extensive use of suffixes/prefixes by chaining several of them in a row to change different aspects of a word. I think Pekseili can be called somewhat agglutinative. Prefixes are used to mark relation of a word to the rest of the sentence (and, for, because, on the right side of), or even mark quantity of a noun. Suffixes can modify a verb (-atta, -ara), conjugate verbs, ask questions about any word given appropriate prefix (-ttu for asking polar questions, -llu for non-polar question). And so, given all that affixes together, a word like this is possible:

Kaa-tut-ta tita-merm-oka-ttu ko-tita-kuitu?
And did he often like laughing alone at many things?

kaa- – context switching prefix (and, but, while, etc.)
-ta – singulative suffix
tita- – many (noun); often (verb)
-oka – favorable suffix
-ttu – polar-question suffix
ko- – to, towards (in this case translated as "at")
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Re: Vutulkian

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Sier wrote:I tried to say that everything that was changed here was not a natural evolution of the language unless specifically noted. For example, the possessive form that I got rid of never existed, but the plurative form was explicitly told in my post to be archaic so I must have existed before in the history of the language. Sorry for my English :(
Ahh, OK, thanks for the clarification. And it wasn't a problem with English or anything like that, I just thought of multiple ways to interpret what you had written, and I wanted to make sure I understood exactly what you meant. [:)]
Sier wrote:If it's possible, then yes. :)
I believe the way to do it is to click "edit" underneath the very first post in this thread and change the "Subject" line at the very top of the editing box from "Vutulkian" to whatever you want the thread to be called.
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Re: Pekseili

Post by Sier »

I'm coming with a yet another update on what's going on with Pekseili :P This time I'll cover the part of speech that I used to call particles and that has been more concretely described since then. Now, they are called context verbs, or personal verbs, and in the following post I will elaborate on them more.

Context verbs
A simple SVO sentence looks like in the picture below. Subject S carries out an action (or state) on object O.

Image

And here's a sentence with a context verb (order of words as in the picture).

Image

Context verbs are auxiliary verbs that describe an action or state directly carried out by subject S on object O in context of person C. They are also called personal because the nature of such context is that it only involves humans (with a few exceptions). For animals or things regular counterparts are used instead, and if such are used on a person it is at least humiliating, so there's a kind of a grammatical hierarchy between people and animals in Pekseili. Context verbs precede an emphatic argument that specifies person C. If no such argument is provided, it is assumed that person C is not known to the speaker or they wish not to disclose such.

A SVCO (Subject-Verb-Context-Object) syntax looks like this:

declarative subject + main verb + context verb + (optional emphatic argument) + declarative direct object + declarative indirect objects

As both the main verb and the context verb can be conjugated to signify tense, it is often redudant and only one of them is conjugated to signify tense; the other remains unmarked (the -en ending). Also, all context verbs are state verbs (in Pekseili there is a strong inflectional distinction between state verbs and action verbs) therefore such cannot express completivity, progressivity or initiativity as action verbs can.

Some context verbs:
  • saita - be allowed, be given permission by (formal). Tense of the main verb signifies when the action is permitted to be carried out and the tense of saita tells when the permission was given. Saita is often kept in unmarked form (saiten) because obviously permission precedes action.
  • kona - be wished to... by... (unrealistic wish); nina - be adviced; paina - be obliged, forced to
  • keima - be strongly believed to... by...; timma - be believed, thought to... by...; hiva - be guessed, slightly (but still positively) belived to... by...
  • hinna - be accompanied by, thanks to. The main verb is often kept unmarked while hinna signifies tense. Hinna is often used with titla «to have» as a main verb to mean "be given by".
And some exceptional or special context verbs:
  • hina - negates the main verb. The main verb signifies tense while hina is kept unmarked as hinen (often contracted to hin). It cannot take any arguments. It can stack after other context verbs to negate them (but meaning of the same sentence with a negated main verb and a sentence with a negated context verb is not the same! e.g. ... keita hina... hina keita)
  • suama - turns a verb phrase into passive voice. The argument of the context verb specifies agent while the subject of the main verb specifies patient. The main verb signifies tense while suama becomes unmarked.
  • ra - facilitates in constructing indirect/reported speech. The main verb tells when the action happened while the context verb specifies when it was said. The context verb is often unmarked and its argument signifies who said it. Ra without an argument is used to speak about rumors or what people say in general.
And now, some examples, shall we?

(nan is declarative "me", nav is emphatic "me")
(you - vaan DEC/vaaniv EMP)
(he - tuto DEC/tutiv EMP)

Nan sukule rutui tanne. (Me of_yesterday ate apple) - I ate an apple yesterday.
Nan sukule rutui hin tanne. (Me of_yesterday ate not apple) - I didn't eat an apple yesterday.

Nan rutui saiten tanne. (Me ate was_allowed apple) - I was allowed to eat an apple.
Nan rutui saiten tutiv tanne. (Me ate was_allowed by_him apple) - I was allowed by him to eat an apple.
Nan kaksui saiten tutiv. (I did was_allowed by_him) - I was allowed by him to do it/to do so.
Saiten tutiv. (was_allowed by_him) - He allowed (me).

Muiko munaila kekku. (They went_to shop) - They went to the shop.
Muiko munaila kekku ren setiv. (They went_to shop according_to her) - She said they went to the shop.

Context verbs can easily stack after each other:

Tanne hoka. (Apple is_favorable) - I like apples.
Tanne hoka ren. (Apple is_favorable according_to) - It is said that apples are good/liked.
Tanne hoka ren vaaniv. (Apple is_favorable according_to you) - You like apples.
Tanne hoka ren vaaniv ren setiv. - She says you like apples.
Tanne hoka hin ren vaaniv ren setiv. - She says you don't like apples.
Tanne hoka ren vaaniv ren setiv hin. - She doesn't say if you like apples.
Tanne hoka hin ren vaaniv hivan setiv hin. - She's not sure if you don't like apples.

Well, you get the point.

Nan titla tanne. (I have apple) - I have an apple.
Nan titlen hinna vaaniv tanne. (I have thanks_to you apple) - You gave me an apple.

Nan ruta tanne. - I'm eating an apple.
Tanne ruta suamen. (Apple eat is_being_by) - An apple is being eaten.
Tanne ruta suamen nav. (Apple eat is_being_by me) - An apple is being eaten by me.

Suama is an exception in that it can switch places with hina without impact on the meaning:

Tanne ruta hin suamen nav. / Tanne ruta suamen nav hin. (the first variant is more natural to say) - An apple is not being eaten by me.

By the way, am I correctly concluding that although Pekseili is by design a strongly head-initial language, the context-verb constructions above (especially those with ren) give it a more head-final flavor?
Last edited by Sier on 18 Sep 2015 09:46, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Pekseili

Post by Sier »

I feel like Pekseili is finally becoming complete. [>:D] Here are definitions of some units used to measure time in Pekseili:

Munta – heikiv sumen letakihi meise tanakusaleksu meise maikkuuahe mainitte hatta. Munta manan suamen puliv kaalavan suamen sitliv. Kihi pilo kitustu pulu sanaselle sanaraaihe sanaluiko sanasitlu niren hatta.
[ˈmʉnta] [ˈhɛɪ̯kɪʉ̯ ˈsʉmɛ̃ lːɛŋˈkɪhɪ ˈmɛɪ̯sɛ taŋkʉsaˈlɛksʉ ˈmɛɪ̯sɛ ˈmaɪ̯kːʉːa̯hɛ ˈmaɪ̯nɪtːɛ ˈhatːa] [ˈmʉnta ˈmanã ˈsʉa̯mɛm ˈpʉlɪʉ̯ kaːˈlavã ˈsʉa̯mɛ̃ ˈsɪt͡ɬɪʋ] [ˈkɪhɪ ˈpɪlˠo kɪˈtʉʂʉ ˈpʉlʉ sãˈsɛlːɛ sãˈraːɪ̯hɛ sãˈlːʉɪ̯ko sãˈsɪt͡ɬʉ ˈnɪrɛ̃ ɦatːa]
Munta (year) - a time span lasting five seasons, approximately three hundred sixty-five days. A year begins with "pulu" and ends with "sitlu". In order, the five seasons are pulu, selle, raaihe, luiko and sitlu.

Kihi – heikaniv somunta hatta. Lim soma titla kihi meise letaheika tolmu. Lim situ sumen letaheifi maile kaasumen liv situ letaheifi hike.
[ˈkɪhɪ] [ˈhɛɪ̯kanɪʉ̯ soˈmʉnta hatːa] [lɪ̃ soˈma ˈtɪt͡ɬa ˈkɪhɪ ˈmɛɪ̯sɛ lɛ̃ˈɦɛɪ̯ka ˈtolmʉ] [lɪ̃ ˈsɪtʉ ˈsʉmɛ̃ lːɛ̃ˈɦɛɪ̯fɪ ˈmaɪ̯lɛ kaːˈsʉmɛ̃ lːɪʉ̯ ˈsɪtʉ lɛ̃ˈɦɛɪ̯fɪ ˈhɪkɛ]
Kihi (season) - one of the time spans in a year. The latter has five seasons lasting for different amounts of time. Some of them last for three "heifi" (months) and others for two "heifi".

Heifi – heikiv sokihi hatta. Heika solim kesa maakotlo seniare sofihi. Lim sumen letakusaleksu mailme kuuahe.
[ˈhɛɪ̯fɪ] [ˈhɛɪ̯kɪʉ̯ soˈkɪhɪ ˈhatːa] [ˈhɛɪ̯ka soˈlɪŋ ˈkɛsa ˈmaːkot͡ɬo sɛˈnɪa̯rɛ soˈfɪhɪ] [lɪ̃ ˈsʉmɛ̃ lːɛŋkʉsaˈlɛksʉ ˈmaɪ̯lmɛ ˈkʉːa̯hɛ]
Heifi (month) - a time span in a year. Such time span is dependant on moon cycles. It lasts for about twenty-eight days.

Heifihim – himuniv soheifi tanahikihim hike kitasumen kenaliv letakusaleksu veippe hatta. Heifi titla heifihim hike, heifihim kulke sanaheifihim kuittu tanan.
[ˈhɛɪ̯fɪhɪm] [ˈhɪmʉnɪʉ̯ soˈhɛɪ̯fɪ tãˈɦɪɦɪ̃ ˈhɪkɛ kɪtaˈsʉmɛŋ kɛ̃ˈlːɪv lːɛŋkʉsaˈlɛksʉ ˈvɛɪ̯pːɛ ˈhatːa] [ˈhɛɪ̯fɪ ˈtɪt͡ɬa ˈhɛɪ̯fɪhɪm ˈhɪkɛ ˈhɛɪ̯fɪhɪm ˈkʉlkɛ sãˈɦɛɪ̯fɪhɪŋ ˈkʉɪ̯tːʉ ˈtanan]
Hefihim - division of a month into two halves, each lasting approximately fourteen days. A month has two "heifihim", the first "heifihim" and the second "heifihim".

And some random grammatical analysis [>:D]

"Kihi pilo kitustu pulu sanaselle sanaraaihe sanaluiko sanasitlu niren hatta."
"In order, the five seasons are pulu, selle, raaihe, luiko and sitlu."
Image

"Heifihim himuniv soheifi tanahikihim hike kitasumen kenaliv letakusaleksu veippe hatta."
"Hefihim is a division of a month into two halves, each lasting approximately fourteen days."
Image

"EMP." means "emphatic" and refers to the emphatic form (-iv ending) of nouns, contrasting with the declarative form.
And yes, Pekseili no longer has adjectives per se. All adjectival expressions are simply nouns in modifying positions or verbs phrases.

Sorry for any errors that I may have made. And thanks for reading this stuff ^^

Take care!
Last edited by Sier on 25 Sep 2015 20:28, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Pekseili

Post by shimobaatar »

Sier wrote:This time I'll cover the part of speech that I used to call particles and that has been more concretely described since then. Now, they are called context verbs, or personal verbs, and in the following post I will elaborate on them more.

Context verbs
A simple SVO sentence looks like in the picture below. Subject S carries out an action (or state) on object O.
Spoiler:
Image
And here's a sentence with a context verb (order of words as in the picture).
Spoiler:
Image
Context verbs are auxiliary verbs that describe an action or state directly carried out by subject S on object O in context of person C. They are also called personal because the nature of such context is that it only involves humans (with a few exceptions). For animals or things regular counterparts are used instead, and if such are used on a person it is at least humiliating, so there's a kind of a grammatical hierarchy between people and animals in Pekseili. Context verbs precede an emphatic argument that specifies person C. If no such argument is provided, it is assumed that person C is not known to the speaker or they wish not to disclose such.

A SVCO (Subject-Verb-Context-Object) syntax looks like this:

declarative subject + main verb + context verb + (optional emphatic argument) + declarative direct object + declarative indirect objects

As both the main verb and the context verb can be conjugated to signify tense, it is often redudant and only one of them is conjugated to signify tense; the other remains unmarked (the -en ending). Also, all context verbs are state verbs (in Pekseili there is a strong inflectional distinction between state verbs and action verbs) therefore such cannot express completivity, progressivity or initiativity as action verbs can.

Some context verbs:
Spoiler:
  • saita - be allowed, be given permission by (formal). Tense of the main verb signifies when the action is permitted to be carried out and the tense of saita tells when the permission was given. Saita is often kept in unmarked form (saiten) because obviously permission precedes action.
  • kona - be wished to... by... (unrealistic wish); nina - be adviced; paina - be obliged, forced to
  • keima - be strongly believed to... by...; timma - be believed, thought to... by...; hiva - be guessed, slightly (but still positively) belived to... by...
  • hinna - be accompanied by, thanks to. The main verb is often kept unmarked while hinna signifies tense. Hinna is often used with titla «to have» as a main verb to mean "be given by".
And some exceptional or special context verbs:
  • hina - negates the main verb. The main verb signifies tense while hina is kept unmarked as hinen (often contracted to hin). It cannot take any arguments. It can stack after other context verbs to negate them (but meaning of the same sentence with a negated main verb and a sentence with a negated context verb is not the same! e.g. ... keita hina... hina keita)
  • suama - turns a verb phrase into passive voice. The argument of the context verb specifies agent while the subject of the main verb specifies patient. The main verb signifies tense while suama becomes unmarked.
  • ra - facilitates in constructing indirect/reported speech. The main verb tells when the action happened while the context verb specifies when it was said. The context verb is often unmarked and its argument signifies who said it. Ra without an argument is used to speak about rumors or what people say in general.
Wow, that's so cool! [:D] I don't think I've personally ever seen anything quite like this before; I love it!
Sier wrote:By the way, am I correctly concluding that although Pekseili is by design a strongly head-initial language, the context-verb constructions above (especially those with ren) give it a more head-final flavor?
Please excuse my stupidity here, as I'm sure the answer should be obvious to me and I'm just somehow missing it, but what makes you describe the context verb constructions as head-final?

Anyway, whether I understand that at the moment or not, I personally don't feel that an otherwise strongly head-initial language would be given more of a head-final "flavor" by one group of head-final constructions. It would probably depend a lot on how common the group of head-final constructions was, though.
Sier wrote:I feel like Pekseili is finally becoming complete. [>:D] Here are definitions of some units used to measure time in Pekseili:
Spoiler:
Munta – heikiv sumen letakihi meise tanakusaleksu meise maikkuuahe mainitte hatta. Munta manan suamen puliv kaalavan suamen sitliv. Kihi pilo kitustu pulu sanaselle sanaraaihe sanaluiko sanasitlu niren hatta.
[ˈmʉnta] [ˈhɛɪ̯kɪʉ̯ ˈsʉmɛ̃ lːɛŋˈkɪhɪ ˈmɛɪ̯sɛ taŋkʉsaˈlɛksʉ ˈmɛɪ̯sɛ ˈmaɪ̯kːʉːa̯hɛ ˈmaɪ̯nɪtːɛ ˈhatːa] [ˈmʉnta ˈmanã ˈsʉa̯mɛm ˈpʉlɪʉ̯ kaːˈlavã ˈsʉa̯mɛ̃ ˈsɪt͡ɬɪʋ] [ˈkɪhɪ ˈpɪlˠo kɪˈtʉʂʉ ˈpʉlʉ sãˈsɛlːɛ sãˈraːɪ̯hɛ sãˈlːʉɪ̯ko sãˈsɪt͡ɬʉ ˈnɪrɛ̃ ɦatːa]
Munta (year) - a time span lasting five seasons, approximately three hundred sixty-five days. A year begins with "pulu" and ends with "sitlu". In order, the five seasons are pulu, selle, raaihe, luiko and sitlu.

Kihi – heikaniv somunta hatta. Lim soma titla kihi meise letaheika peitle. Lim situ sumen letaheifi maile kaasumen liv situ letaheifi hike.
[ˈkɪhɪ] [ˈhɛɪ̯kanɪʉ̯ soˈmʉnta hatːa] [lɪ̃ soˈma ˈtɪt͡ɬa ˈkɪhɪ ˈmɛɪ̯sɛ lɛ̃ˈɦɛɪ̯ka ˈpɛɪ̯t͡ɬɛ] [lɪ̃ ˈsɪtʉ ˈsʉmɛ̃ lːɛ̃ˈɦɛɪ̯fɪ ˈmaɪ̯lɛ kaːˈsʉmɛ̃ lːɪʉ̯ ˈsɪtʉ lɛ̃ˈɦɛɪ̯fɪ ˈhɪkɛ]
Kihi (season) - one of the time spans in a year. The latter has five seasons lasting for different amounts of time. Some of them last for three "heifi" (months) and others for two "heifi".

Heifi – heikiv sokihi hatta. Heika solim kesa maakotlo seniare sofihi. Lim sumen letakusaleksu mailme kuuahe.
[ˈhɛɪ̯fɪ] [ˈhɛɪ̯kɪʉ̯ soˈkɪhɪ ˈhatːa] [ˈhɛɪ̯ka soˈlɪŋ ˈkɛsa ˈmaːkot͡ɬo sɛˈnɪa̯rɛ soˈfɪhɪ] [lɪ̃ ˈsʉmɛ̃ lːɛŋkʉsaˈlɛksʉ ˈmaɪ̯lmɛ ˈkʉːa̯hɛ]
Heifi (month) - a time span in a year. Such time span is dependant on moon cycles. It lasts for about twenty-eight days.

Heifihim – himuniv soheifi tanahihim hike kitasumen kenaliv letakusaleksu veippe hatta. Heifi titla heifihim hike, heifihim kulke sanaheifihim kuittu tanan.
[ˈhɛɪ̯fɪhɪm] [ˈhɪmʉnɪʉ̯ soˈhɛɪ̯fɪ tãˈɦɪɦɪ̃ ˈhɪkɛ kɪtaˈsʉmɛŋ kɛ̃ˈlːɪv lːɛŋkʉsaˈlɛksʉ ˈvɛɪ̯pːɛ ˈhatːa] [ˈhɛɪ̯fɪ ˈtɪt͡ɬa ˈhɛɪ̯fɪhɪm ˈhɪkɛ ˈhɛɪ̯fɪhɪm ˈkʉlkɛ sãˈɦɛɪ̯fɪhɪŋ ˈkʉɪ̯tːʉ ˈtanan]
Hefihim - division of a month into two halves, each lasting approximately fourteen days. A month has two "heifihim", the first "heifihim" and the second "heifihim".
What are the five seasons like? How many months are there in each season? Do the months have names? Do the half-months have names?
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Re: Pekseili

Post by Sier »

shimobaatar wrote:
Sier wrote:By the way, am I correctly concluding that although Pekseili is by design a strongly head-initial language, the context-verb constructions above (especially those with ren) give it a more head-final flavor?
Please excuse my stupidity here, as I'm sure the answer should be obvious to me and I'm just somehow missing it, but what makes you describe the context verb constructions as head-final?
For example, this sentence: "Tanne hoka ren vaaniv ren setiv."

Tanne hoka (Apple is liked) ren vaaniv (said you) ren setiv (said she) = She said you said apple is liked.

At least, it seemed to me at first sight ^^
shimobaatar wrote:What are the five seasons like? How many months are there in each season? Do the months have names? Do the half-months have names?
Months and half-months do not have names. If anything, they're just numbered (first month of "pulu", second month of "pulu", etc.; first half of this month, second half of this month).

For Pekseili speakers, the year starts at the same time when here fall begins (around September). The first season is "pulu" (= fall) and it lasts 3 months. Around December here, the second season begins, "selle", and lasts 2 months (roughly, winter). Then comes "raaihe", which begins a little bit sooner than spring here; it lasts 3 months. After "raaihe", there is "luiko" lasting 2 months, covering May and June, and finally "sitlu", summer, lasting 2 months.

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Re: Pekseili

Post by shimobaatar »

Sier wrote: For example, this sentence: "Tanne hoka ren vaaniv ren setiv."

Tanne hoka (Apple is liked) ren vaaniv (said you) ren setiv (said she) = She said you said apple is liked.
Ohh, OK. Sorry, it wouldn't have occurred to me to analyze it like that. Thanks for the explanation!
Sier wrote: For Pekseili speakers, the year starts at the same time when here fall begins (around September). The first season is "pulu" (= fall) and it lasts 3 months. Around December here, the second season begins, "selle", and lasts 2 months (roughly, winter). Then comes "raaihe", which begins a little bit sooner than spring here; it lasts 3 months. After "raaihe", there is "luiko" lasting 2 months, covering May and June, and finally "sitlu", summer, lasting 2 months.

Image
Very interesting!
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Re: Pekseili

Post by Prinsessa »

Can't say much more than that I like it a lot. Came here for inspiration and it appears I clicked a useful thread right away. Good stuff!
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Re: Pekseili

Post by Sier »

I've decided to rewrite everything that's already been said, exclude what's outdated, include what's new, and generally describe the Pekseili grammar in a different way than I previously did (or at least tried :P).

Please read to the very end. :P

Revised Pekseili Guide (sounds, grammar, et cetera)
Pippakka sopekseili veatlan suamen (vormo tuihenhe tuinonken)

Pekseili /ˈpʰɛksəɪli/, Pek. pekseile /ˈpɛksɛɪ̯lɛ/ (previously called Vutulkian) is an a priori language based on a primitive grammar, minimalistic phonology and flexible word formation. What you'll get here is probably a morning breath smelling surprisingly minty, like a mixture of Finnish and Japanese sounds and grammar, but several concepts are new and were created just for Pekseili. So take a seat, feel home and keep reading. ^^

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Tulki pilo hevaila tatulki kommi sere kura hansokso kura heesaita. Muiko kesen heeteke sana koovhalme sana muu kitlen ninen leta kena muiko kinesu.
[ˈtʉlkɪ ˈpɪlˠo ˈhɛⱱaɪ̯la taˈtʉlkɪ ˈkomːɪ ˈsɛrɛ ˈkʉra ˈhãsokso ˈkʉra ˈhɛːsaɪ̯ta] [ˈmʉɪ̯ko ˈkɛsɛ̃ ˈhɛːtɛkɛ saŋ ˈkoːʋɦalmɛ sam mʉː ˈkɪtɬɛn ˈnɪnɛ̃ lːɛŋ kɛm ˈmʉɪ̯ko kɪˈnɛsʉ]


Phonetics and phonology (Kiihete tuihilkiihete)

Consonants (Sitkili)

Image
1. [ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ before /k/.
2. [ʂ] is an allophone of /st/.
3. [ɦ] is an allophone of /h/.
4. The affricate [tɬ] is an allophone of /tl/.
5. The velarized [lˠ] is an allophone of /l/ before /o/.
6. [v] is an allophone of /ⱱ/ before /ʉ/.
7. The affricate [bv] (with labiodental /b/) is an allophone of an initial /ⱱ/.
8. The approximant [ʋ] is an allophone of a final /ⱱ/ and /ⱱ/ before voiced consonants; a non-syllabical vowel [ʉ] is an allophone of /ⱱ/ before unvoiced consonants; a final /ⱱ/ can also be pronounced as /ʔ̪/ (a labiodental glottal stop).

Pekseili's phonemic inventory is rather small, consisting of as few as 11 consonant phonems, of which 7 can be geminated phonemically (/pː/ /mː/ /tː/ /nː/ /sː/ /lː/ /kː/) and 2 geminated allophonically (/fː/ and /ʋː/); /r/ and /h/ cannot exist in geminations. There are 13 consonant clusters: /tk/ /tl/ (realized as the affricate [tɬ]) /ks/ /nt/ /ŋk/ /st/ (can be realized as [ʂ]) /lm/ /lk/ /vl/ /ft/ /ht/ /rm/ and /rt/. Some situations enforce strong allophony on consonants (some of them undergo typical allophony, others lengthen preceding vowels or add nasalization). The most allophonic is probably /t/, which, depending on the surrounding sounds, can be pronounced as /t/, /p/ or /m/, or nasalize the preceding vowel.

There are two consonant types that decide how compound words are formed (more precisely, whether modifier roots are appended on the left or on the right of the main root). The first type of consonants are type-N consonants /m, f, ⱱ, t, n, l/. These consonants are laid on the left and undergo heavy allophony (see the table below). The second type of consonants are type-S consonants /p, s, r, k, h/. These consonants are laid on the right and can't undergo allophony.

The table below shows how allophony works depending on the neighboring consonants. It is primarily set in the context of compound formation. In the first column, type-N consonants were marked black and type-S consonants were marked red. On the white, there is /v/ and /n/ - the only consonants allowed to exist word-finally. Cells in bold with a superscripted "C" contain consonant clusters existing phonemically too. Shading with diagonal lines means that such a combination of consonants is prohibited or that it's not allowed in compounds (e.g. type-S consonants but also some type-N consonants too).

Image

Vowels (Volkili)

Image
1. Overlong and some long vowels are allophones of a short/long vowel + /l/ + short vowel (as in /maːlara/, pronounced as [maːːra]).

Phonemically, Pekseili has 5 short vowels and 3 long vowels. When followed by /t/, /n/ or /m/, they are in some cases nasalized. When followed by /l/, they are sometimes lengthened. Whether or not depends on the particular word and the surrounding sounds. There are 6 short diphthongs (/ɛa̯/ /ɪa̯/ /ʉa̯/ /aɪ̯/ /ɛɪ̯/ /ʉɪ̯/) and 3 long diphthongs (/ʉːa̯/ /aːɪ̯/ /ʉːɪ̯/).

Accent/stress (Sufruupu)

The stress in Pekseili always lies on the first syllable of a word. If a prefix of some sort is attached, the stress remains on the first syllable after the prefix.

Phonotactics (Kiisuiru)

All Pekseili roots, from which all primitive words originate, are CVC(C). The vowel inside can be a short/long vowel or a short/long diphthong, and the consonant on the right can be a single consonant (C) or a consonant cluster (CC). There are no restrictions for consonants, but a combination of a long vowel/diphthong and a consonant cluster is prohibited. This gives a theoretical number of 4,477 possible roots.

Primitive words (single-root words) are compounded into compound words (multi-root words) in a fashion much like in Japanese. Phonotactics of compounds are a little bit more complicated but they're basically a combination of the primitive-word phonotactics and the allophony table above.

Orthography (Hetere)

Pekseili is currently written in a variation of the Latin alphabet consisting of 17 letters. Long vowels are represented by doubling them and overlong by tripling. I tried designing Pekseili's own writing system but realized that I best like seeing it written with Latin letters.

Aa Uu Oo Ee Ii Pp Mm Tt Kk Nn Ss Ll Vv Ff Hh Rr
[kal kʉl kol kɛl kɪl pʉ mʉ to kʉ nʉ so lʉ vʉ fo hʉ rʉ]

There are two orthographies in Pekseili: Literal Orthography and Common Orthography. The former is used in dictionaries and legal contexts, and can take a bit more space than the latter. The latter is used in everyday communication. I am going to use Common Orthography in the following posts unless specified otherwise.

Compounding (Sinhese)

In Pekseili, compounding plays a major role in word formation. As said earlier, it is a bit similiar to that in Japanese but has its own quirks. All compounds are nouns. Every compound must have a head root. Let's take the root *hes «word» and turn it into some linguistic terminology, shall we? :>

The primitive word for *hes is heso /ˈhɛso/ «word». If we combine the N-type root *maan (to negate, oppose) with *hes as a head root, we get maahese /ˈmaːhɛsɛ/ «antonym» (*maan sticked to the left because it's an N-type root - the consonant right after the vowel is a N-type consonant). But hey! What did just happen? /n/ disappeared and there's an /ɛ/ at the end while heso has an /o/! Well, compounding can get a bit tricky and unpredictable because some words are just easier to pronounce if we get rid of a sound or two. /n/ disappeared for this very reason. maanhese /ˈmãːhɛsɛ/ would be correct as well. But what about that /ɛ/ at the end? It's vowel harmony. We can't just take the /o/ from heso because we're joining roots not words, and roots don't end with vowels. Vowel harmony requires us to put the same vowel at the end of the root as before the final consonant. Maahese. *maan (to negate, oppose) is a common root for producing words of opposite meaning.

Now, if we wanted to have a word for borrowing, loanword, we would use the root *fest (to borrow). It is a type-S root because the consonant right after the vowel is /s/. It is laid on the right of a head root and type-S roots don't undergo allophony. Instead of allophony, all consonants on the right of the vowel are cut so we have only fe. Borrowing is thus hesefe (*hes + *fest) /ˈhɛsefɛ/.

If we, on the other hand, wanted to say dictionary, we would use a different head root (because a dictionary is not a word actually :roll: - it's a book). The root for book is *vaak. *hes is a type-S root so it will go on the right of *vaak. Dictionary in Pekseili is vaakahe /ˈvaːkahɛ/ (*vaak «book» + *hes «word»; a word book).

Compound in Pekseil is sinhese /ˈsɪ̃hɛsɛ/ made up from the roots *sit (collection, amount) and *hes (word). In the Literal Orthography it would be written sitihese (notice double vowel harmony) but still pronounced the same. *sit is pronounced /sɪ̃/ because of allophony (see the allophony table above ;)).

Other examples could be:
tinnihe /ˈtɪnːɪhɛ/ «information, warning» (*tinn ‹to inform, warn› + *hes ‹word›)
paahe (in literal orthography: palahe) /ˈpaːhɛ/ «root (in a compound word)» (*pal ‹piece, fragment›, *hes ‹word›)
tansonhese (in lit. orth.: tamasonohese) /ˈtãsõhɛse/ «pronoun» (*tam ‹to hide, conceal›, *sonk ‹to give name›, *hes ‹word›)
henhe (in lit. orth.: hetehe) /ˈhɛ̃he/ «grammar» (*het ‹way, manner›, *hes ‹word›)
pekseile /ˈpɛksɛɪ̯lɛ/ «the Pekseili language» (*pek ‹to give, provide›, *seil ‹language, dialect›)

Grammar (Henhe)

So, what is the grammar like?
  • strongly head-initial, right-branching (what describes follows what's being described)
  • SVO (reorderable into OSV and SOV) as a primary syntax; VSO as a secondary syntax
  • optional copula
  • no distinction for gender (except for pronouns) but visible relation to three animacy categories: human, animal and object
Introduction to grammar (Heesosto sohenhe)

There not many parts of speech in Pekseili, and turning a blind eye there probably only two: a noun and a verb. Here is a possible breakdown of all the parts of speech:
  • Nouns
  • -> Nouns
  • -> Verb-like stative nouns (kesa-verbs)
  • -> Verb-like active nouns (kaka-verbs)
  • -> Pronouns
  • -> Names
  • Verbs
  • -> Stative verbs
  • -> -> State verbs
  • -> -> Prefix verbs
  • -> -> Context verbs
  • -> Active (action) verbs
There is no perception of an adjective or adverb in Pekseili. The key to understand this grammar is that: every sentence is based on a noun, and that noun is modified by verbs or other nouns, and those nouns are modified by verbs or other nouns, and those nouns are also modified by verbs or other nouns...

The simplest sentence (but still a full one) may look like this:

Leissi. /ˈlɛɪ̯sːɪ/ - A squirrel. / A squirrel exists. / There's a squirrel. / There WAS a squirrel.

Every sentence requires a noun. And that noun is enough to constitute a complete sentence. It doesn't tell us when the squirrel possibly was (or will be? :roll:) but, given a context, we can deduce that there was something important about the squirrel because it's presence has been uttered.

Nouns (Sonhese)

There are two numbers: unmarked (doesn't tell the amount) and singulative (one piece of something). There aren't any grammatical cases for them. If anything, there are only two forms: declarative and emphatic. Historically, the emphasis stood in the opposition to the declaration, where emphasis was used to contradict or highlight something while anything else was kept in a declarative tone. Over the time, the emphatic form came to be used for different purposes: as a copulative form, for marking context verb arguments, and for marking subject in a VSO clause.

To turn a declarative noun (let's take leissi) to an emphatic noun, we remove any final vowels and add the -iv ending. So leissi becomes leissiv /ˈlɛɪ̯sːɪʋ/. An ending -kiv is added instead of -iv if the noun is a compund with a type-S root as the last root (that's because the last vowel in such a root is crucial in preserving its meaning while type-N roots duplicate the second vowel so it has no significance to the meaning). Thus, vaakahe «dictionary» would be vaakahekiv in its emphatic form while sinhese «compound» would turn into sinhesiv.

Making the singulative form is a bit trickier because there are some exceptions and different patterns depending on the final vowel or the last consonant. Turning a singulative declarative noun into a singulative emphatic noun is as simple as replacing the last -a with -iv. Compound nouns that end with -kiv in their unmarked emphatic form are turned into the singulative declarative by adding -kana (and into singulative emphatic by adding -kaniv) instead. The nouns in the first table below are all primitive while the second table shows a mixture of both.

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Nouns can either function as non-modifiers (as in the sentence: Leissi.) or modifiers (modifying other nouns). Any noun can be a modifier but a good example would be puhu «speed; fast».

Leissi puhu. /ˈlɛɪ̯sːɪ ˈpʉhʉ/ - Fast squirrel(s) is/are. / Fast squirrel(s) exist(s).

As said earlier, the emphatic form can be used as a copulative form.

Leissi puhiv. [ˈlɛɪ̯sːɪ ˈpʉhɪʋ/ - Squirrel(s) is/are fast. / Squirrel(s) was/were fast. / Squirrel(s) will be fast.

The copulative form used above still does not signify any tense; we're merely giving it a specific characteristic. And it's of course a complete sentence.

Pronouns (Tansonhese)

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The gender-neutral pronouns are considered neutral in their politeness while gendered are used only with the people we are familiar with. The "we" clusivity refers to whether third parties are involved. The inclusive huun includes: me, you and probably other people. The exclusive kun includes: me and you only (it excludes other people).

The fact that Pekseili nouns have no gender was compensated through subjectival-objectival phrases that are used in distinguishing between multiple third-person referents (otherwise possible with gendered pronouns in other languages). It is a bit similiar to the obviative but, again, due to the fact that even pronouns used in a polite way show no gender at all, the subjectival-objectival system is much more flexible and can signify virtually any kind of relationship (not only direct objects but also in expressions like "in X", "about X" or even with regular verbs: "the one that was kicked"). We'll come back to this topic once we get a grasp of verbs. :P

Verbs (Kinhese)

Now, onto the verbs, were everything will finally make sense! Although every sentence revolves around a noun, it is the verbs that the inflection is centered around the most. All verbs in their dictionary form end in -a. Here are some general points about verbs:

Verbs divide into two main categories: stative verbs and active verbs. Each of them has its own conjugation pattern. Stative verbs describe states while active verbs describe actions. The latter show distinction for three aspects: initiative, progressive and completive. The former can only be progressive because they describe states, but they can be converted into regular action verbs in the initiative and completive aspects:

sava /ˈsaⱱa/ - to search, look for sth
savara /ˈsaⱱara/ - to find sth
savatta /ˈsaⱱatːa/ - to start searching, looking for sth

Sava is a stative verb while savatta and savara are active verbs conjugated like any other active verb.

Stative verbs further divide into state verbs, prefix verbs and context verbs. We'll cover all of them in separate sections but first let's take a look at the tenses and moods in context of verbs in general.

There are 7 tenses:
  • Unmarked (heika sanke: common, general) - describes actions or states without signifying any tense. It is probably the most frequently used tense in Pekseili as it's a common practice to use the unmarked tense all the time while the person we're talking to knows whether we're talking about the past, the present or the future.
  • Infinitive-present (heika motan: happening) - describes actions or states that happen/are happening simultaneously with a previously mentioned action. In other words, it refers to the present moment relative to the context of what's being said. For example, in the following sentence: "Jack was going to the shop. He was wearing a blue T-shirt.", was wearing refers to the present moment defined by the tense of "was going". It is particularly important in context of Pekseili prefixes (in, at, on, etc.) as they are all verbs that are used in the infinitive-present (e.g. the verb suina means to fall, be put in sth but as a prefix it is translated as in, inside, within). It is also the form used in dictionaries and sometimes it is called the noun-verb nominalization because a verb in the infinitive-present tense could be interpreted as a modifier-only noun.
  • Present (heika sumen: blooming, blossoming) - describes actions or states that happen/are happening at the moment of speaking.
  • Past proximal (heika kutan: withering, wilting, drooping) - describes actions or states that happened in the past but are emotionally close to the speaker. It doesn't matter if it was a few minutes or 10 years ago as long as it's filled with emotions.
  • Past distal (heika fastan: forgotten) - describes actions or states that happened in the past and have no emotional significance to the speaker.
  • Future proximal (heika nuilen: progressive, developing) - describes action or states that will happen in the future and are emotionally close to the speaker. Again, it doesn't matter if it will happen in a few minutes or 10 years as long as there are some emotions.
  • Future distal (heika sainen: seeming, appearing) - describes action or states that will happen in the future but are of no emotional significance to the speaker.
As you can see, the difference between proximal and distal tenses is based on the amount of emotions that the speaker has regarding the action or state and not the actual timespan. Proximal tenses cannot show distinction for any of the aspects while the distal ones show distiction for the initiative, progressive and completive aspect. Nonetheless, proximal tenses are far more likely to be used in whole range of situations where it's not necessary to signify the aspect as the distal counterparts will sound cold and indifferent.

As for moods, there are six:
  • Indicative (hetu kilan) - also called absolutive. The rest of the moods are called expressive.
  • Imperative (hetu pakkan) - expresses commands and requests onto the subject by the speaker.
  • Optative (hetu tenten) - expresses wishes and hopes (realistic!) onto the subject by the speaker.
  • Favorable (hetu peten) - expresses approval or approbation of the speaker for a state or action carried out by the subject.
  • Unfavorable (hetu hopen) - expresses disapproval or disapprobation of the speaker for a state or action carried out by the subject.
  • Aggressive (hetu raihen) - a stronger version of the unfavorable mood. I would suggest avoiding it at all costs if you want to keep your tone polite. :P
So there is one absolutive mood (indicative) and five expressive moods (all the rest). Expressive moods are called expressive because all of them express thoughts or emotions of the speaker (not the subject!).

Active vs stative verbs (Heseka tiisunhese)

Active verb (heseka: the word that takes the action)
Stative verb (sunhese: blossoming word)

As said earlier, active verbs describe actions and stative verbs describe continuing states. A few other things about each of them is that active verbs tend to be more closely tied to their direct objects, and therefore are more direct (something that one should keep an eye on when talking about people to whom they should show more respect). State verbs require a prefix before their direct object and therefore they seem to be less direct. Due to this difference in politeness, there are some state verbs in Pekseili that could be translated into English using active verbs, or there are active verbs that require a prefix before their direct object even though they aren't state verbs. Practically, the thing with prefixes is not set in stone and both active and stative verbs can switch prefixes if there's a need for it.

Also, the conjugation patterns are different, as shown in the conjugation tables below.

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Remember the leissi «squirrel» from one of the first sentences? Good, now we're gonna make the squirrel eat a nut. :D

As said before, every sentence revolves around a noun, and all other nouns and verbs modify that noun (or generally any noun, but eventually they all modify the main noun). The verb ruta means «to eat» and puuilo means «a nut».

Leissi rutua puuilo. /ˈlɛɪ̯sːɪ ˈrʉtʉa̯ ˈpʉːɪ̯lˠo/ - A squirrel ate a nut.

Questions (Heetisi)

Forming questions in Pekseili is very simple. There are two types of questions: polar (yes-no) and non-polar (which, what, when).

Polar questions are formed by adding the -ttu suffix to a conjugated verb. For example: Leissi rutuattu puuilo? «Did the squirrel eat a nut?».
Non-polar questions are formed by adding the -llu suffix to a noun. For example Leissi rutua kuitullu? «What did the squirrel eat» (kuitu means «thing»; kuitullu means «what/which thing»).

Stative verbs: state verbs vs prefix verbs vs context verbs

Stative verbs divide into three subcategories. They differ primarily in the position they are found in sentences as well as regarding other grammatical constructions. All three of them are stative so they share the same conjugation pattern (see the second table above).
  • State verbs (sunhese: blossoming word) is basically a name for stative verbs that are neither prefix verbs nor context verbs. It is also a name for the two other verbs when they can be used as state verbs too (e.g. most prefix verbs can also be used as state verbs).
  • Prefix verbs (nonsunhese: blossoming word lying close) are verbs found almost always in their infinitive-present form. None of them take a prefix for their direct objects. They are clitics and can be translated into English as prepositions. A few of them have shortened forms and attach directly as prefixes. Others are written separately from their direct objects.
  • Context verbs (taaimatuinhese: word of indirectness, relation, appreciation) are, technically speaking, verbs that describe an action or state directly carried out by a subject in context of some individual or group of individuals. They are also called personal verbs because the nature of a personal context is that it only involves humans (with a few exceptions). Some examples of such contexts could be permissions, obligations, expressed beliefs or speech indirection. They differ from the two above with the fact that they act like a VSO clause (in contrast with the default SVO), e.i. an emphatic argument follows a context verb, and that argument is the subject of the context verb. A sentence containing a subject, verb, object and a context verb is called a SVCO sentence (Subject-Verb-Context-Object).
There are also two small categories: emphatic verbs and post-verbs. As for now, they contain as few as several verbs but they are used very frequently.

An emphatic verb (kinhesera) doesn't have a direct object but rather relates to the emphatic phrase neighboring with a noun it's describing. For example, ha, while it has several uses, it is also an emphatic verb and means to be. If you remember the first sentence with an emphatic noun we constructed: Leissi puhiv «Squirrel is/was/will be fast». If we add ha to describe leissi like so: Leissi puhiv ha - it now means Squirrel is fast. And if conjugate ha «to be» to hua «was», the sentence Leissi puhiv hua means Squirrel was fast!

A post-verb (kinheseta), similarily to an emphatic verb, doesn't have a direct object, but this time it relates to a verb phrase. It's called a post-verb because it comes after that verb phrase. For example, hatta as a post-verb means to be going, planning to. Nan munan hattakan means I'm going to go.

Kaka-verbs and kesa-verbs (Kinhese kaka tuikinhese kesa)

And last but not least, the kaka-verbs and kesa-verbs. These are not verbs per se but nouns that go with the auxiliary verbs kaka «to do, participate in» and kesa «to display, show, be, do». The former is an active verb so a noun that goes with kaka produces an active verb construction, and the latter is a state verb so a noun that goes with kesa produces a state verb construction. Both kaka and kesa take their direct objects without any prefix.

pippaka (guide, guidance) -> kaka pippaka (to guide)
meahta (war) -> kaka meahta (to start a war)
tuurakka (film, video) -> kaka tuurakka (to record, film)

kirto (illness) -> kesa kirto (to be ill)
vorme (sound) -> kesa vorme (to be audible, hearable)
kesa pena (to be nice, pleasurable; e.g. a landscape or sound)

Due to the fact than kesa is a frequently used verb, the /ɛ/ inside is often omitted in speech (/ˈkɛ̥sa, ksa/). Kaka on the other hand is an irregular verb.

Irregular verbs

At the moment, there are two irregular verbs: ha «to be» and kaka «to do, participate in». The irregular forms were marked in red.

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Cardinal numerals (Teinhese)

Pekseili has a quinary number system. Numeral words are ordered from the smallest to the biggest (that's because of the singulative form that makes the numeral one always come first because it's an ending appended to the noun). The numeral zero is faciliated by the verb hina «to not exist» in its unmarked form (hinen).

0. (hinen)
1. -na/-ma/-ta (singulative form of the counted noun)
2. hike
3. maile
4. veile
5. meise
6. -na/-ma/-ta meise
7. hike meise
8. maile meise
9. veile meise
10. pike
11. -na/-ma/-ta pike
12. hike pike
13. maile pike
14. veile pike
15. hese
20. kuuahe

The pattern for naming numerals higher than 20 is to multiplicate by 5.

100. nitte
500. leke
2,500. soke
12,500. fite
62,500. ferte
312,500. teave
1,562,500. kaikse

Names for numerals higher than kaikse are formed by compounding with the root *sat (to go forward) starting from *fit: safiti, sanferte, sateave, sakaiksa. Even bigger numerals are formed with the root *niam (huge, enormous): nifiti, niferte, niteave, nikaiksa. Nikaiksa is 610,351,562,500. That's big enough I think. :P

Ordinal numerals (Hesetu)

Ordinal numerals are formed differently depending on whether we are enumerating people, animals or things (such a distinction does not exist with cardinal numerals).

To enumerate a noun, the scheme is as follows: <noun> + <keitu «something»/kaitu «some animal»/kuitu «somebody»> + <cardinal numeral - 1> (notice that the cardinal numeral used in ordering is actually decremented by one). Example for moso (dog):

the first dog - moso kulke ("kulke" means "first/foremost")
the second dog - moso kaitta (lit. "dog and one dog"; kaitta is the singulative form of kaitu)
the third dog - moso kaitu hike (lit. "dog and two dogs")
the fourth dog - moso kaitu maile ("dog and three dogs")
and so on...

The understanding is that when a dog is, let's say, third, there are two dogs that are before it, so it is "a dog and two dogs".

Extra (Hampeke)

Nominalizing verbs

There are at least four ways to nominalize verbs in Pekseili. We'll take a look at each of them:
  • Making a verb unmarked causes it to become a noun-verb (noun-verb nominalization). Used only as a modifier. Allows direct objects without any prefixes. Has a special meaning of "doing something at an unspecified time". The subject is specified through the modified noun. No way of specifying time.
  • The ending -una turns a verb into a noun that can be used also in non-modifying positions. It requires the possessive so- prefix on direct objects. No way of specifying time or subject.
  • Using the auxiliary noun mulo «state, affair, action» allows whole, unmodified verb phrases to be used as nouns. Allows specifying both time and subject (through the VSO syntax). It is pretty similiar to the Japanese こと (a verb with all its objects directly modifies the auxiliary noun).
  • Using the auxiliary noun moto «time, occurence, condition, situation, point of view». It has quite a lot of possible translations. It behaves the same as mulo but its meaning is different depending on the context. Most of times, it is used in phrases like "I'm thinking whether you want to go" or "I'm doing it the same way as you do it".

And by the way, let me know if you want some Pekseili lessons or something. :P

And, is there something that you want me to explain further? :)
Last edited by Sier on 11 Oct 2015 15:53, edited 20 times in total.
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Re: Pekseili

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Comparison (Sommahete)

Although Pekseili does not have adjectives per se, nouns can function as modifiers and can easily undergo adjective-like comparison. Due to the fact that such comparison is not inflectional, it is hard to tell how many comparison degrees nouns have exactly. But I can tell you: there are at least seven.

Let's explain each of them by the example of puhu /ˈpʉhʉ/ «speed; fast».

The positive degree is just the noun alone. Leissi puhu /ˈlɛɪ̯sːɪ ˈpʉhʉ/ «a fast squirrel». In a non-modifying position: puhu «speed, fastness».
The plus comparative degree is formed by modifying a noun with nene /ˈnɛnɛ/ «increasing, more». Leissi puhu nene «a faster squirrel». In non-modifying positions, one must use the word tite /ˈtɪtɛ/ «numerous, big»: puhu tite nene /ˈpʉhʉ ˈtɪtɛ ˈnɛnɛ/ «more speed». Due to the fact that tite is a frequently used word, the /ɪ/ in the middle is dropped, so the whole phrase is pronounced /ˈpʉhʉ tːɛ ˈnɛnɛ/.
The minus comparative degrees is formed alike the plus comparative degree but instead of nene, manke /ˈmaŋkɛ/ «decreasing, less» is used. Leissi puhu manke /ˈlɛɪ̯sːɪ ˈpʉhʉ ˈmaŋkɛ/ «a less fast squirrel». In a non-modifying position: puhu tite manke /ˈpʉhʉ tːɛ ˈmaŋkɛ/ «less speed».
The plus superlative degree is formed the same way as the the two degrees above. The modifying word is nenkuku /ˈnɛŋkʉkʉ/ (*nen ‹increasing, more› + *kuk ‹utmost, extreme›).
The minus superlative uses the modifying word mankuku /ˈmaŋkʉkʉ/ (*mank ‹decreasing, less› + *kuk ‹utmost, extreme›).
The surfeitive degree describes amounts that are in excess, more than enough or too much. The modifying word is nenkosto /ˈnɛŋkoʂo/ (*nen ‹increasing, more› + *kost ‹problem, bother›).
The deficient degree describes amounts that are in deficit, lacking, insufficient. The modifying word is mankosto /ˈmaŋkoʂo/ (*mank ‹decreasing, less› + *kost ‹problem, bother›).

(X - the noun described; Y - the noun describing or the characteristic)
  • Deficient - X Y mankosto, Y tite mankosto
  • Minus superlative - X Y mankuku, Y tite mankuku
  • Minus comparative - X Y manke, Y tite manke
  • Positive - (no modifier)
  • Plus comparative - X Y nene, Y tite nene
  • Plus superlative - X Y nenkuku, Y tite nenkuku
  • Surfeitive - X Y nenkosto, Y tite nenkosto
Syntax (Tansuiru)

Pekseili grammar is rather primitive, having at least two parts of speech: nouns and verbs. Nouns are the skeleton of every sentence or phrase. The simplest full sentence contains just a noun. Nouns can modify other nouns producing noun phrases. Nouns together with verbs modify the head noun and every noun down the grammar tree.

A squirrel jumped from a tree.
[ˈlɛɪsːʉ ˈhʉa̯laɪ̯la tɛˈtʉːnɪ]
Leissu hualaila tetuuni.
squirrel jump-PSTD.CPL.IND from-PREF+tree.

Tetuuni is a shortening of teta tuuni. Tuuni means «tree» and teta is a verb in the infinitive-present form meaning to come from. Hualaila «jumped, fell down» modifies the noun leissu. Tetuuni (teta tuuni), even though it's a direct object of the verb hualaila does not modify the verb but the noun, so the sentence could be rephrased as Leissu tetuuni hualaila and still make sense (SVO -> SOV). The sentence with the gloss above could as well be translated as A squirrel jumped and came from a tree, which is exactly how Pekseili grammar works.

Subordinate clauses aren't marked in any specific (e.g. the English conjunction "that"), so it resembles more the Japanese-style grammar. Also, there is no need in Pekseili to differentiate between the phrase that concretizes a noun and the phrase that describes it.

The squirrel that jumped from the tree is eating a nut and looking at the people.
[ˈlɛɪ̯sːɪ ˈhʉa̯laɪ̯la tɛˈtʉːnɪ ˈrʉtakam ˈpʉːɪ̯lˠo tʉi̯ˈmʉː ˈrokakaŋ koˈtʉlkɪ]
Leissu hualaila tetuuni rutakan puuilo tuimuu rokakan kotulki.
Leissu hualaila teta tuuni rutakan puuilo tuina mulo rokakan kota tulki. (non-shortened version)
squirrel jump-PSTD.CPL.IND from-PREF tree eat-PRES.IND nut and-PREF state look-PRES.IND at-PREF people

The noun mulo is an auxialiary noun for nominalizing verbs because you can't just stick prefix verbs to other verbs (but you can stick them to nouns modified by verbs, which is exactly what's happening here). A better translation for this sentence could be: Squirrel jumped, came from a tree, eats a nut, goes together with the state: looks, aims at people.
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