Paper Thin

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Vowels:

short vowels: a á u o i
long vowels:  â û ü î

a as in cat, â as in father, á as in caught
u as in bull, û as in swoon, ü -gutteral oouh sound, like Bulgaria or the German ü
o as in mow
i as in sit, î ee as in tree

Consonants: (primary pronounciations)

‘ glottal stop
p barely aspirated, like the p in ‘apple’
t as in ‘take’
d as in ‘dam’
dh - a soft d, pronounced where ‘th’ in this is pronounced.
b - as in ‘bread’
c always hard. ‘cat’ or ‘archetype’
q is a glottal as in Arabic
g - as in ‘garden’
gh is a guttural g
f - as in ‘forest’ or ‘fragment’
s - as in ’sew’ or ’sue’
sh - as in ’short’
h - clearly sounded, pronounced a bit to the back of the mouth.
v - as in ‘verse’
z - as in ‘zoo’
th as in thought
kh as in Bach or loch
j - as in ‘just’
zh - z pronounced the way sh is - purse your lips a bit and say z.
w  - as in ‘war’
y - as in ‘young’
r - lightly rolled
rh - heavily rolled, as in Scots English
l - as in ‘leaf’ or ‘leap’
m - as in ‘man’
n - as in ‘nocturne’
ng- as in ‘rolling’ or ‘ring’

Morphology:

Strongly C V or V C, with fairly common C V V. The morphology is based around tri-consonantal roots (though some roots may be two or four consonants), each of which covers a particular concept. For example, the root m-s-r covers the concept of beauty,  Words are created through a variety of vowel and consonants patterns (e.g. adjective describing a state: táCûCîC, applied to the root m-s-r, yields támûsîr, ‘beautiful’). 

Phonological Constraints:

/O/ and /U/ may not be combined with any other vowels.  Á may not be combined with /i/, with a few exceptions.  Two different forms of a vowel (a and á, for example) will be separated by a glottal stop; repeats of the same vowel (aa) are acceptable. /U/ may not end nouns except in plurals.

/Ng/ may not start a root.  Stops and nasals may not immediately precede each other.  Stops may not immediately precede stops, and nasals may not immediately precede nasals. ‘W’ may not end a word; ‘i’ will be added.

Words may not begin or end with a consonant cluster.  ‘i’ will be inserted between incompatible consonants or in consonant clusters of three or more. 

Grammar:

Word order:

Verb-Subject-Object.  Verb and subject are commonly combined into one word through the use of infixes; when pronouns are used, they immediately follow the relevant verb.  Adverbs are commonly expressed in a phrase.  The negative particle immediately precedes whatever term it is meant to negate, and the passive particle immediately precedes the verb it affects.

Tenses:

Unlike many of the Semitic languages, n’Deren does have clear tense distinctions, rather than strictly a perfect/imperfect distinction.  The perfect/imperfect markers are used unless the speaker does not wish to make a statement regarding the completion or lack thereof the action; this is a very deliberate choice, used to heighten the effect of a story, to make it clear they don’t know, etc.

Perfect/imperfect markers:

yá auxiliary verb placed after the main verb. Indicates that the action is expected/known to be incomplete or its completion is unknown.  Used in the past tense to indicate that an action was interrupted or not finished, or that the speaker does not know if it was finished. Used in the present to emphasize that something is still happening, and in the future for actions that are expected to be ongoing or not completed at the time the speaker is referring to.

yâ auxiliary verb placed after the main verb.  Indicates that the action is expected or known to be completed.  Used in the past tense to indicate that something was finished or accomplished, in the present largely to announce that something has been completed (constructs similiar to ‘It is done’ would use this construction), and in the future to indicate that something is expected to be completed.

Auxiliary verbs/verb phrases:

yáîna auxiliary verb indicating that an event has not occurred but is desired to do so. Placed after the verb.  Gender and number refer to the speaker or the person(s) the speaker is referring to.  (I would like, we would like, they would like…) yáîno in the masculine, but as with the pronouns, yáînin rather than yáînoyin in the plural and yáînû in the dual.

mâ’â  yáîna auxiliary verb phrase indicating that an event has not occurred and is not desired to do so.   Placed after the verb.

yâîna auxiliary verb indicating that an event has occurred and was desired to do so. Placed after the verb.

mâ’â  yâîna auxiliary verb phrase indicating that an event has occurred and was not desired to do so.   Placed after the verb.

Tense markers:

-taa This infix, when used without other tense markers, denotes present tense. Used with pronouns and tense markers to indicate that the action was/is being performed.

-âtî, past tense suffix.  Indicates that an action occurred in the past with no statement as to the completeness or incompleteness of the action.

-âkhî , future tense suffix. Indicates that the action is expected to occur but makes no statement as to its completeness or incompleteness.

Case:

Possessives are indicated by the proclitic n’ (d’ before n), e.g. talok n’Rimonah, Rimonah’s book.
The thing possessed is always followed immediately by the possessor.

Nominative: dictionary form

Accusative:  ‘Îrâ(f), ‘îro(m), ‘îrî(n,i). Indicates direct objects

Oblique(?): ‘ârâ(f), ‘âro(m), ‘ârî(n,i). Indicates indirect objects and prepositional?

Imperative: Always the second person plural indeterminate formal future with ‘rî suffix and yáîna.  Uses the pronoun instead of the infix, or the pronoun and the infix for particular emphasis.  The imperative is used only from social superiors to social inferiors;  the reverse, or use between social equals is considered remarkably insulting.  Yáîna is preferred as a mild imperative, somewhat similar in principle to the English practice of asking someone to do something rather than commanding.

Voice

Passive voice is indicated by placing the passive particle before the verb.  The particle must agree in gender, but does not have number.  The particle is tí’á in the feminine, tí’o in the masculine, tí’í in the neuter.

Negation

There are two negative particles, one for verbs, nouns and adjectives, and one for quantity; they must agree in gender.  At-türozh mâ’o zhaîyulîn would be “The spear is not black.”  The first particle is mâ’â in he feminine, mâ’o in the masculine, and mâ’î in the neuter.  The second particle is mâ, mo or mî; Mo türozhin is ‘no spears’.

Gender

Masculine, feminine and neuter/undetermined.  Masculine gender is noted by ending in a voiced fricative, a stop, or /o/.  Feminine is denoted by ending in any of the /a/ sounds, liquids, or unvoiced fricatives.

Neuter/indeterminate gender is indicated by ending in -î, with the exception of -aî (see below).

Plurals

There is a dual and a general plural.

For the masculine dual, -û is added to a consonantal ending and -yû to an ‘o’ ending.  For the masculine plural, add -in to a consonantal ending, and -yin to an ‘o’ ending.

Feminine nouns add -aî to a consonantal ending, and -î to a vowel ending to create the dual, except in the case of á, where it is -yî. For the plural, a and â add y to lengthen the vowel, except for á, which adds -yâ.  Consonants also add -yâ.

Neuter/inanimate nouns add -îî in the dual and -î in the plural.  For the animate mixed/undefined dual, -nî to a vowel ending or -anî to a consonant ending; to create a mixed/undefined gender plural, add -unî to a consonant or -yunî to a vowel.

Articles:

There is no indefinite article.

The definite article, al-, is used for days, months, places and idioms, as well as proper nouns other than names and specific concepts (Socialism, etc.), and for indicating a specific rather than a generic item.  Al- is attached at the beginning of the term (Ar-Râmat, al-hadhîhi, etc.)

Al- transforms when the word it is attached to begins with t, th, d, dh, r, rh, z, s, sh, zh or n.  It becomes at-t, ath-th, etc.  These letters are referred to as Falcon letters, and the other consonants are Dove letters; the Falcon consumes the Dove.

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