FrathWiki - User contributions [en]

Taaluketti

2010-10-09T13:14:44Z

Fofofo5: /* Pronunciation and orthography */ simplify pronunciation of ''n"

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

Taaluketti may be broadly categorised as a highly regular SOV type language which makes use of particles rather than inflexions to indicate such things as case and tense. Like Gaaziketti, it uses parsing markers to enable any sentence to be unambiguously parsed. However, while Gaaziketti took the ''noun'' to be basic, in Taaluketti the basic part of speech is the ''verb''. In some ways Taaluketti is similar to Loglan. However, Taaluketti aims to be more flexible and intuitive than Loglan. Each "verb" (or rather, predicate) in Loglan has associated with it a certain place structure, and it is this place structure, rather than the use of adpositions or case endings, that enables one to know where each noun phrase stands in relation to the verb/predicate. In Taaluketti, however, a verb will come with no fixed place structure. Rather, any number of noun phrases may be coupled with a given verb, and their relation to the verb is indicated by the use of postpositions (such as '''ko''' to indicate the accusative case).

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following 21 Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''s''' is always unvoiced.

'''r''' is rolled.

The other consonants are pronounced as in English. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

Double consonants are pronounced double, as in Italian, Finnish, etc..

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be verbs – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

== Statements [S] ==

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as a phrase which ''says of something that it is the case''.

== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ==

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Pronouns ===

A basic kind of noun phrase is the pronoun. Some common pronouns are as follows.

1st person singular '''qe'''

1st person plural '''quu'''

2nd person singular '''ve'''

2nd person plural '''vuu'''

3rd person animate singular '''taa'''

3rd person inanim. singular '''zo'''

3rd person plural (animate or inanimate) '''dau'''

Like other noun phrases, pronouns take postpositions, such as '''ko'''.

== Verbs [A…A>S] ==

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''verbs''. A verb in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a verb can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a verb will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

== Articles [S>N] ==
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [S>N]. A common article is '''de''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''de'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''de''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''de''', then '''de''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''de''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

== Verbal particles [V>V] ==

Verbal particles are added after a verb, and form an extension of the verb. These are generally used to indicate verbal aspect, tense and mood.

=== Aspect ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after a verb and are used to indicate aspect.

Simple ''(nil)''

Habitual '''baa'''

Continuous '''nii'''

Perfect '''haa'''

Future '''tau'''

=== Tense ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect particle (if there is one), and are used to indicate tense.

Present (usually omitted) '''nee'''

Past (sometimes omitted if context allows) '''co'''

Future (same as aspect marker for future) '''tau'''

=== Mood ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect and tense particles (if there are any), and are used to indicate mood.

Indicative ''(nil)''

Imperative '''vaa'''

Infinitive ''(nil)''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara de''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)de

'''hecci de''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)de

'''heccis haaran de''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)de

'''ko hecci de''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)de

'''Gaazi de ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)de)ko)hecci

'''Haara de hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)de)hecci

'''gaazi de ko hecci de''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)de)ko)hecci)de

'''Haara des gaazi de kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)de.((gaazi)de)ko)hecci

'''gaazi de ko heccis haaran de''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)de)ko)hecci.haara)de

'''kos haara den heccis gaazin de''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)de)hecci.gaazi)de

'''Hecci de haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)de)haara

'''kos hecci den heccis gaazin de''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)de)hecci.gaazi)de

'''kos haara len hecci de''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)de)hecci)de

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti:Lexicon

2010-10-09T13:12:27Z

Fofofo5: /* Articles [F>N] */ definite singular article now "de"

See also:

[[Taaluketti]]

== Articles [S>N] ==

*'''de''' ''definite singular article''

*'''go''' ''definite plural article''

*'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

*'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

== Postpositions [N>A] ==

*'''ko''' ''accusative''
*'''ze''' ''possessive, genitive''

== Verbs [A…A>S] ==
*''' beetu ''' be a garden
*''' booru ''' drown (intrans.)
*''' cainu ''' be mustard
*'''cecca''' be a soldier
*''' ceeza ''' be an army
*'''cooqi''' be silent
*''' cuuku ''' be a wife
*''' daubu ''' be an organ (of body)
*'''deela''' be an enemy
*''' gooma ''' be an referee, umpire
*''' haiga''' be a movie
*''' hauka ''' be a curtain
*'''kaidu''' be a worker
*''' kauna ''' be a populace
*''' kooba ''' be a jacket
*'''kossa''' be a jewel
*'''kuubu''' be a slave
*''' luudi ''' be a goat
*''' luuli ''' be a pan, frying pan
*'''mennu''' be a name
*''' moogi ''' be an ant
*''' motti ''' be an egg
*''' naapa ''' be cotton
*'''nauzu''' be original
*''' paumu''' be a person
*''' pauqa ''' be a sign (as in a streetsign or public notice)
*''' qassi''' have
*''' qeetu ''' be a mirror
*''' qocci ''' be a beard
*''' raalu ''' be an arrow
*'''raazu''' criticise
*''' raucu ''' be wealthy, rich
*''' riigu ''' be a scale (as in measuring device)
*''' sombi ''' run
*''' tiicu ''' be a pig
*''' tuuza ''' be a helmet

[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:General lexica]]

Taaluketti

2010-10-09T13:11:17Z

Fofofo5: /* Example phrases */ changed definite singular article from "le" to "de"

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

Taaluketti may be broadly categorised as a highly regular SOV type language which makes use of particles rather than inflexions to indicate such things as case and tense. Like Gaaziketti, it uses parsing markers to enable any sentence to be unambiguously parsed. However, while Gaaziketti took the ''noun'' to be basic, in Taaluketti the basic part of speech is the ''verb''. In some ways Taaluketti is similar to Loglan. However, Taaluketti aims to be more flexible and intuitive than Loglan. Each "verb" (or rather, predicate) in Loglan has associated with it a certain place structure, and it is this place structure, rather than the use of adpositions or case endings, that enables one to know where each noun phrase stands in relation to the verb/predicate. In Taaluketti, however, a verb will come with no fixed place structure. Rather, any number of noun phrases may be coupled with a given verb, and their relation to the verb is indicated by the use of postpositions (such as '''ko''' to indicate the accusative case).

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following 21 Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''s''' is always unvoiced.

'''r''' is rolled.

The other consonants are pronounced as in English. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

Double consonants are pronounced double, as in Italian, Finnish, etc..

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be verbs – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

== Statements [S] ==

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as a phrase which ''says of something that it is the case''.

== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ==

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Pronouns ===

A basic kind of noun phrase is the pronoun. Some common pronouns are as follows.

1st person singular '''qe'''

1st person plural '''quu'''

2nd person singular '''ve'''

2nd person plural '''vuu'''

3rd person animate singular '''taa'''

3rd person inanim. singular '''zo'''

3rd person plural (animate or inanimate) '''dau'''

Like other noun phrases, pronouns take postpositions, such as '''ko'''.

== Verbs [A…A>S] ==

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''verbs''. A verb in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a verb can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a verb will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

== Articles [S>N] ==
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [S>N]. A common article is '''de''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''de'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''de''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''de''', then '''de''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''de''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

== Verbal particles [V>V] ==

Verbal particles are added after a verb, and form an extension of the verb. These are generally used to indicate verbal aspect, tense and mood.

=== Aspect ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after a verb and are used to indicate aspect.

Simple ''(nil)''

Habitual '''baa'''

Continuous '''nii'''

Perfect '''haa'''

Future '''tau'''

=== Tense ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect particle (if there is one), and are used to indicate tense.

Present (usually omitted) '''nee'''

Past (sometimes omitted if context allows) '''co'''

Future (same as aspect marker for future) '''tau'''

=== Mood ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect and tense particles (if there are any), and are used to indicate mood.

Indicative ''(nil)''

Imperative '''vaa'''

Infinitive ''(nil)''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara de''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)de

'''hecci de''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)de

'''heccis haaran de''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)de

'''ko hecci de''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)de

'''Gaazi de ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)de)ko)hecci

'''Haara de hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)de)hecci

'''gaazi de ko hecci de''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)de)ko)hecci)de

'''Haara des gaazi de kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)de.((gaazi)de)ko)hecci

'''gaazi de ko heccis haaran de''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)de)ko)hecci.haara)de

'''kos haara den heccis gaazin de''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)de)hecci.gaazi)de

'''Hecci de haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)de)haara

'''kos hecci den heccis gaazin de''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)de)hecci.gaazi)de

'''kos haara len hecci de''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)de)hecci)de

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2010-10-09T13:08:12Z

Fofofo5: /* Articles [S>N] */ definite singluer article changed from "le" to "de"

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

Taaluketti may be broadly categorised as a highly regular SOV type language which makes use of particles rather than inflexions to indicate such things as case and tense. Like Gaaziketti, it uses parsing markers to enable any sentence to be unambiguously parsed. However, while Gaaziketti took the ''noun'' to be basic, in Taaluketti the basic part of speech is the ''verb''. In some ways Taaluketti is similar to Loglan. However, Taaluketti aims to be more flexible and intuitive than Loglan. Each "verb" (or rather, predicate) in Loglan has associated with it a certain place structure, and it is this place structure, rather than the use of adpositions or case endings, that enables one to know where each noun phrase stands in relation to the verb/predicate. In Taaluketti, however, a verb will come with no fixed place structure. Rather, any number of noun phrases may be coupled with a given verb, and their relation to the verb is indicated by the use of postpositions (such as '''ko''' to indicate the accusative case).

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following 21 Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''s''' is always unvoiced.

'''r''' is rolled.

The other consonants are pronounced as in English. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

Double consonants are pronounced double, as in Italian, Finnish, etc..

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be verbs – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

== Statements [S] ==

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as a phrase which ''says of something that it is the case''.

== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ==

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Pronouns ===

A basic kind of noun phrase is the pronoun. Some common pronouns are as follows.

1st person singular '''qe'''

1st person plural '''quu'''

2nd person singular '''ve'''

2nd person plural '''vuu'''

3rd person animate singular '''taa'''

3rd person inanim. singular '''zo'''

3rd person plural (animate or inanimate) '''dau'''

Like other noun phrases, pronouns take postpositions, such as '''ko'''.

== Verbs [A…A>S] ==

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''verbs''. A verb in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a verb can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a verb will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

== Articles [S>N] ==
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [S>N]. A common article is '''de''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''de'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''de''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''de''', then '''de''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''de''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

== Verbal particles [V>V] ==

Verbal particles are added after a verb, and form an extension of the verb. These are generally used to indicate verbal aspect, tense and mood.

=== Aspect ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after a verb and are used to indicate aspect.

Simple ''(nil)''

Habitual '''baa'''

Continuous '''nii'''

Perfect '''haa'''

Future '''tau'''

=== Tense ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect particle (if there is one), and are used to indicate tense.

Present (usually omitted) '''nee'''

Past (sometimes omitted if context allows) '''co'''

Future (same as aspect marker for future) '''tau'''

=== Mood ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect and tense particles (if there are any), and are used to indicate mood.

Indicative ''(nil)''

Imperative '''vaa'''

Infinitive ''(nil)''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Gaaziketti

2010-10-09T13:03:06Z

Fofofo5: /* Some illustrative sentences */

See also:

[[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

[[Gaaziketti: Experimental page]]

[[Taaluketti]]

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Sample lexicon =
I have arbitrarily picked the following words for the purposes of illustrating grammar.
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more words.

'''kossakaidu''' jeweller

'''nauzu''' to be original

'''mennu''' name

'''raazu''' to criticise

'''cooqi''' to be silent

'''haiga''' movie

'''kuubu''' slave

'''deelu''' enemy

'''cecca''' soldier

'''paa''' to be (only for linking noun phrases)

= Grammar =
== Basic syntax ==
In Gaaziketti, just about any kind of word can modify (qualify) just about any other kind of word. Verbs, nouns and adjectives fall into essentially a single part of speech.

For example, '''kossakaidu''' means 'jeweller' -- if thought of as a noun.

But consider this one-word sentence: '''Kossakaidu.'''

Here '''kossakaidu''' acts as a verb, meaning: 'There is/are a jeweller/ some jewellers.'

'''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' means 'The jeweller criticises (something).'

But '''raazu''', thought of as a noun, means 'criticising' (n.) or 'criticism'.

Thus " '''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' " can be read as 'There is criticising by the jeweller.'

Adjectives are generally treated as verbs. E.g. '''cooqi''': to be silent. For such an "adjective" (which is really a verb), if you want to treat it as an attributive adjective, e.g. as in 'the silent movie', then you put it like this: 'the movie which is silent'. This isn't particularly unwieldy in Gaaziketti, because there is a concise relative pronoun ('''d'''). Thus '''cooqi de haiga le''' means 'the movie which is silent'/ 'the silent movie'.

The syntax tends to be agglutinative.

=== Parsing markers ===
These markers indicate exactly what qualifies what. One must compulsorily be tacked onto the end of any morpheme ending in a vowel (or diphthong) (noting that one of these parsing markers is a null).

Gather one element, modify next element '''(nil)'''

Gather one element, do not modify next element '''-s'''

Gather two elements, modify next element '''-n'''

Gather two elements, do not modify next element '''-k'''

These markers work in the following way. If you've got a noun phrase, say, and it's modifying the next phrase to appear in the sentence, and its the ''only'' phrase modifying that next phrase, then you don't need to tack on any parsing marker at all - its gets the '''(nil)''' marker. But say you want noun phrase X ''not'' to modify the very next phrase in the sentence. Then you generally would tack on '''-s'''. (Although is some situations, as will be described shortly, you would tack on -k.) Now, suppose the order of phrases is XYZ. Say you want X to modify Z ''and'' you want Y to modify Z. This occurs, for example, when Z is appearing as a verb, and X and Y are its subject and object respectively. Then X gets '''-s''' and Y gets '''-n'''. The '''-s''' stops X from modifying Y; and the '''-n''' gathers two elements, viz. X and Y, and indicates that each of these gathered elements modifies the next element, Z. Suppose you've got WXYZ. You want W, X and Y each to modify Z. Then W gets '''-s''', X gets '''-k''' (which serves to "gather" W and X into a unit containing two phrases, both of which will end up modifying the same unit, ''without'' modifying the very ''next'' unit), and Y gets '''-n'''. Note that Z gets no marker in any of these examples, because it appears at the end of a sentence. Since there is no "next" element that Z could modify, there is no need to append '''-s''' to Z (and indeed it would be incorrect to do so).

=== Word order ===
SOV (usual)

or

OSV

In general, a modifier precedes what it modifies.

== Noun phrases ==
=== Articles ===
These ''follow'' the noun and are, in general, ''compulsory'', for any phrase intended to function as a noun phrase. But pronouns, of course, do not need articles.

(Syntactically speaking, the noun is thought of as "modifying" its article, even though semantically speaking, it seems to be the other way round. This is why the article comes at the end of the noun phrase.)

Articles receive compulsory ''case endings''. (See below.) Nouns aren't inflected at all as such: articles indicate number and case for noun phrases.

Sing. def. '''l'''

Pl. def. '''k'''

Sing. indef. '''s'''

Pl. indef. '''m'''

=== Case endings ===
nominative '''-e'''

accusative/ genitive '''-o'''

dative '''-ai'''

Note that these are added to articles and pronouns, but not to nouns, and not to demonstratives.

== Verbal endings ==
Verbal endings indicate aspect, tense and mood. But there is no passive voice as such; and verbs are not altered for number or person.

=== Mood ===
These come last of all.

Indicative “there is” '''(nil)'''

Imperative (short form) '''-p'''

Imperative (long form) (see below) '''-vaa'''

Infinitive '''-ce'''

The short form of the imperative corresponds to the familiar English imperative. '''Raazup!''' means simply "Criticise!" The long form, however, is better translated as "make there be..." or "let there be...". Thus '''Raazuvaa!''' means "let there be criticising!" It does not imply that the person the speaker is addressing is being commanded to do the criticising themselves. They are being commanded to cause that there is criticising performed by someone.

In fact, the short imperative '''Raazup''' can be regarded as concise form of '''Ve raazuvaa.''' i.e. "Let there be criticising ''by you''."

=== Tense ===
These come just before the mood marker.

Present (usually ommitted) '''-nee-'''

Past (sometimes ommitted if context allows) '''-co-'''

Future '''-tau-'''

=== Aspect ===
These come just before the tense marker.

simple '''(nil)'''

habitual '''-baa-'''

continuous '''-nii-'''

perfect '''-haa-'''

future '''-tau-''' (same as tense)

=== Examples ===
'''raazuco''', ''criticised''

'''raazuhaaco''', ''had criticised''

'''raazutauce''', ''to be going to criticise (in the future)''

'''raazup''', ''criticise!''

'''raazutauco''', ''was going to criticise''

'''raazubaaco''', ''used to criticise''

== Pronouns ==
For demonstratives, see the next section.

=== Personal pronouns ===
These are listed below in order of nom., acc., dat. forms. Possessive (genitive) forms, as attributive, precede the noun phrase, and the noun must still take the article, e.g.: '''qo haiga le''', ''my movie''; '''hos nauzun mennu ke''', ''their original names''.

1st person singular: '''qe, qo, qai'''; plural '''goqe, goqo, goqai'''.

2nd person singular: '''ve, vo, vai'''; plural: '''gove, govo, govai'''.

3rd person animate singular: '''te, to, tai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

3rd person inanim. singular: '''ze, zo, zai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

=== Relative pronouns ===
These are quite frequently used. The relative clause precedes the modified noun.

There are two relative pronouns. There is a concise one, which cannot handle more complicated types of construction; and there is a less concise one, which can handle complex constructions.

''The concise option'': '''d-'''

Declined according to the modified noun's case with respect to the verb in the relative clause.

Placed directly ''after'' the relative clause's verb. The relative clause's verb is in the indicative.

''The flexible option'': '''siim-'''

Declined according to case within relative clause.

Placed within the relative clause itself, i.e. somewhere ''before'' the relative clause's verb.

The relative clause's verb is in put into the infinitive.

== Demonstratives ==
These can serve as adjectives or as pronouns. As an (attributive) adjective, the order is: noun-demonstrative-article. The article is compulsory. As a pronoun, the construction is demonstrative-article. Again the article is compulsory.

'''taa''' that, those

''' nii ''' this, these

E.g.: '''kooba taa le''', ''that jacket'' (nominative); '''nii lo''', ''this'' (as pronoun, accusative); '''taa kai''', ''those'' (dative); '''Kooba nii se''', ''one of these jackets'' (nom.).

== Postpositions ==
These come after the article, which must be in the genitive/accusative case. See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more postpositions.

'''baa''' with, using, via, by means of.

'''bii''' in

'''nuuta''' on

== Some illustrative sentences ==
'''Kuubu lo deelu les cecca sen paa.'''
The slave’s enemy is a soldier.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lo mennu lon raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie’s name.

'''Kossakaidu les siimo mennu lon raazuce haiga le nauzu.'''
The movie whose name the jeweller criticised is original.

'''Haiga lo mennu lo raazu de kossakaidu le cooqi.'''
The jeweller who criticises the movie’s name is silent.

'''Cooqi de kossakaidu les haiga lon raazu.'''
The silent jeweller critises the movie.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lok cooqi den raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie silently.
(Can be read as: "There is some criticising, which is (a) by the jeweller, (b) of the movie, and (c) silent.".)

= Lexicon =
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

= Background =
I invented Gaaziketti for the fun of it. I wanted it - among other things - to have a grammar which parses unambiguously, i.e. so that you always know what qualifies what in a sentence, and furthermore so that (even ignoring the written spaces between words) it is always possible to figure out where the boundaries between morphemes are (say if you are a computer). (Basically, '''i''', '''a''' and '''u''' occur as ''single'' vowels only in the second and subsequent syllables of a morpheme, and no other vowel can occur in such a syllable.) I also wanted the grammar to be flexible and uniform, i.e. to be very ''general'', with few or no exceptions and few "sub-rules". Also it had to be reasonably concise, but while being fairly easily pronounceable, having few consonant clusters, few vowels and diphthongs, and few rare consonants. Also, I wanted to minimise the number of pairs of words in the lexicon that differed only ''slightly'', i.e. I built redundancy into it, as in real languages (although the way I built it in was somewhat artificial and "automatic"). Also I wanted to respect as far as possible the language "universals" that are true of most natural languages. And I wanted easily to be able to make new words by just conjoining two existing ones. On the other hand, I didn't care about resemblance between the Gaaziketti lexicon and that of natural languages.

Trying to reconcile all these goals was something of a challenge, but I think I've got something I'm reasonably happy with.

There is a bit more to it than what is above, incl. a (lazily auto-generated) provisional vocab of 1600 words. But I've yet to finalise a lot of the "small" words like personal pronouns, postpositions, conjunctions, tense-markers and so forth.

I am also (extremely slowly) developing a language called [[Taaluketti]], which shares similar goals as the above, but with a different underlying grammar.

[[Category:Gaaziketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Gaaziketti

2010-10-09T13:01:48Z

Fofofo5: /* Some illustrative sentences */ test

See also:

[[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

[[Gaaziketti: Experimental page]]

[[Taaluketti]]

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Sample lexicon =
I have arbitrarily picked the following words for the purposes of illustrating grammar.
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more words.

'''kossakaidu''' jeweller

'''nauzu''' to be original

'''mennu''' name

'''raazu''' to criticise

'''cooqi''' to be silent

'''haiga''' movie

'''kuubu''' slave

'''deelu''' enemy

'''cecca''' soldier

'''paa''' to be (only for linking noun phrases)

= Grammar =
== Basic syntax ==
In Gaaziketti, just about any kind of word can modify (qualify) just about any other kind of word. Verbs, nouns and adjectives fall into essentially a single part of speech.

For example, '''kossakaidu''' means 'jeweller' -- if thought of as a noun.

But consider this one-word sentence: '''Kossakaidu.'''

Here '''kossakaidu''' acts as a verb, meaning: 'There is/are a jeweller/ some jewellers.'

'''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' means 'The jeweller criticises (something).'

But '''raazu''', thought of as a noun, means 'criticising' (n.) or 'criticism'.

Thus " '''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' " can be read as 'There is criticising by the jeweller.'

Adjectives are generally treated as verbs. E.g. '''cooqi''': to be silent. For such an "adjective" (which is really a verb), if you want to treat it as an attributive adjective, e.g. as in 'the silent movie', then you put it like this: 'the movie which is silent'. This isn't particularly unwieldy in Gaaziketti, because there is a concise relative pronoun ('''d'''). Thus '''cooqi de haiga le''' means 'the movie which is silent'/ 'the silent movie'.

The syntax tends to be agglutinative.

=== Parsing markers ===
These markers indicate exactly what qualifies what. One must compulsorily be tacked onto the end of any morpheme ending in a vowel (or diphthong) (noting that one of these parsing markers is a null).

Gather one element, modify next element '''(nil)'''

Gather one element, do not modify next element '''-s'''

Gather two elements, modify next element '''-n'''

Gather two elements, do not modify next element '''-k'''

These markers work in the following way. If you've got a noun phrase, say, and it's modifying the next phrase to appear in the sentence, and its the ''only'' phrase modifying that next phrase, then you don't need to tack on any parsing marker at all - its gets the '''(nil)''' marker. But say you want noun phrase X ''not'' to modify the very next phrase in the sentence. Then you generally would tack on '''-s'''. (Although is some situations, as will be described shortly, you would tack on -k.) Now, suppose the order of phrases is XYZ. Say you want X to modify Z ''and'' you want Y to modify Z. This occurs, for example, when Z is appearing as a verb, and X and Y are its subject and object respectively. Then X gets '''-s''' and Y gets '''-n'''. The '''-s''' stops X from modifying Y; and the '''-n''' gathers two elements, viz. X and Y, and indicates that each of these gathered elements modifies the next element, Z. Suppose you've got WXYZ. You want W, X and Y each to modify Z. Then W gets '''-s''', X gets '''-k''' (which serves to "gather" W and X into a unit containing two phrases, both of which will end up modifying the same unit, ''without'' modifying the very ''next'' unit), and Y gets '''-n'''. Note that Z gets no marker in any of these examples, because it appears at the end of a sentence. Since there is no "next" element that Z could modify, there is no need to append '''-s''' to Z (and indeed it would be incorrect to do so).

=== Word order ===
SOV (usual)

or

OSV

In general, a modifier precedes what it modifies.

== Noun phrases ==
=== Articles ===
These ''follow'' the noun and are, in general, ''compulsory'', for any phrase intended to function as a noun phrase. But pronouns, of course, do not need articles.

(Syntactically speaking, the noun is thought of as "modifying" its article, even though semantically speaking, it seems to be the other way round. This is why the article comes at the end of the noun phrase.)

Articles receive compulsory ''case endings''. (See below.) Nouns aren't inflected at all as such: articles indicate number and case for noun phrases.

Sing. def. '''l'''

Pl. def. '''k'''

Sing. indef. '''s'''

Pl. indef. '''m'''

=== Case endings ===
nominative '''-e'''

accusative/ genitive '''-o'''

dative '''-ai'''

Note that these are added to articles and pronouns, but not to nouns, and not to demonstratives.

== Verbal endings ==
Verbal endings indicate aspect, tense and mood. But there is no passive voice as such; and verbs are not altered for number or person.

=== Mood ===
These come last of all.

Indicative “there is” '''(nil)'''

Imperative (short form) '''-p'''

Imperative (long form) (see below) '''-vaa'''

Infinitive '''-ce'''

The short form of the imperative corresponds to the familiar English imperative. '''Raazup!''' means simply "Criticise!" The long form, however, is better translated as "make there be..." or "let there be...". Thus '''Raazuvaa!''' means "let there be criticising!" It does not imply that the person the speaker is addressing is being commanded to do the criticising themselves. They are being commanded to cause that there is criticising performed by someone.

In fact, the short imperative '''Raazup''' can be regarded as concise form of '''Ve raazuvaa.''' i.e. "Let there be criticising ''by you''."

=== Tense ===
These come just before the mood marker.

Present (usually ommitted) '''-nee-'''

Past (sometimes ommitted if context allows) '''-co-'''

Future '''-tau-'''

=== Aspect ===
These come just before the tense marker.

simple '''(nil)'''

habitual '''-baa-'''

continuous '''-nii-'''

perfect '''-haa-'''

future '''-tau-''' (same as tense)

=== Examples ===
'''raazuco''', ''criticised''

'''raazuhaaco''', ''had criticised''

'''raazutauce''', ''to be going to criticise (in the future)''

'''raazup''', ''criticise!''

'''raazutauco''', ''was going to criticise''

'''raazubaaco''', ''used to criticise''

== Pronouns ==
For demonstratives, see the next section.

=== Personal pronouns ===
These are listed below in order of nom., acc., dat. forms. Possessive (genitive) forms, as attributive, precede the noun phrase, and the noun must still take the article, e.g.: '''qo haiga le''', ''my movie''; '''hos nauzun mennu ke''', ''their original names''.

1st person singular: '''qe, qo, qai'''; plural '''goqe, goqo, goqai'''.

2nd person singular: '''ve, vo, vai'''; plural: '''gove, govo, govai'''.

3rd person animate singular: '''te, to, tai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

3rd person inanim. singular: '''ze, zo, zai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

=== Relative pronouns ===
These are quite frequently used. The relative clause precedes the modified noun.

There are two relative pronouns. There is a concise one, which cannot handle more complicated types of construction; and there is a less concise one, which can handle complex constructions.

''The concise option'': '''d-'''

Declined according to the modified noun's case with respect to the verb in the relative clause.

Placed directly ''after'' the relative clause's verb. The relative clause's verb is in the indicative.

''The flexible option'': '''siim-'''

Declined according to case within relative clause.

Placed within the relative clause itself, i.e. somewhere ''before'' the relative clause's verb.

The relative clause's verb is in put into the infinitive.

== Demonstratives ==
These can serve as adjectives or as pronouns. As an (attributive) adjective, the order is: noun-demonstrative-article. The article is compulsory. As a pronoun, the construction is demonstrative-article. Again the article is compulsory.

'''taa''' that, those

''' nii ''' this, these

E.g.: '''kooba taa le''', ''that jacket'' (nominative); '''nii lo''', ''this'' (as pronoun, accusative); '''taa kai''', ''those'' (dative); '''Kooba nii se''', ''one of these jackets'' (nom.).

== Postpositions ==
These come after the article, which must be in the genitive/accusative case. See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more postpositions.

'''baa''' with, using, via, by means of.

'''bii''' in

'''nuuta''' on

== Some illustrative sentences ==
'''Kuubu lo deelu les cecca sen paa.'''
The slave’s enemy is a soldier.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lo mennu lon raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie’s name.

'''Kossakaidu les siimo mennu lon raazuce haiga le nauzu.'''
The movie whose name the jeweller criticised is original.

'''Haiga lo mennu lo raazu de kossakaidu le cooqi.'''
The jeweller who criticises the movie’s name is silent.

'''Cooqi de kossakaidu les haiga lon raazu.'''
The silent jeweller critises the movie.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lok cooqi den raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie silently.
(Can be read as: "There is some criticising, which is (a) by the jeweller, (b) of the movie, and (c) silent.")

'''Kossakaidu lê haiga lò cooqi dë raazu.'''

= Lexicon =
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

= Background =
I invented Gaaziketti for the fun of it. I wanted it - among other things - to have a grammar which parses unambiguously, i.e. so that you always know what qualifies what in a sentence, and furthermore so that (even ignoring the written spaces between words) it is always possible to figure out where the boundaries between morphemes are (say if you are a computer). (Basically, '''i''', '''a''' and '''u''' occur as ''single'' vowels only in the second and subsequent syllables of a morpheme, and no other vowel can occur in such a syllable.) I also wanted the grammar to be flexible and uniform, i.e. to be very ''general'', with few or no exceptions and few "sub-rules". Also it had to be reasonably concise, but while being fairly easily pronounceable, having few consonant clusters, few vowels and diphthongs, and few rare consonants. Also, I wanted to minimise the number of pairs of words in the lexicon that differed only ''slightly'', i.e. I built redundancy into it, as in real languages (although the way I built it in was somewhat artificial and "automatic"). Also I wanted to respect as far as possible the language "universals" that are true of most natural languages. And I wanted easily to be able to make new words by just conjoining two existing ones. On the other hand, I didn't care about resemblance between the Gaaziketti lexicon and that of natural languages.

Trying to reconcile all these goals was something of a challenge, but I think I've got something I'm reasonably happy with.

There is a bit more to it than what is above, incl. a (lazily auto-generated) provisional vocab of 1600 words. But I've yet to finalise a lot of the "small" words like personal pronouns, postpositions, conjunctions, tense-markers and so forth.

I am also (extremely slowly) developing a language called [[Taaluketti]], which shares similar goals as the above, but with a different underlying grammar.

[[Category:Gaaziketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Gaaziketti

2010-10-09T13:00:07Z

Fofofo5: /* Some illustrative sentences */ test

See also:

[[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

[[Gaaziketti: Experimental page]]

[[Taaluketti]]

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Sample lexicon =
I have arbitrarily picked the following words for the purposes of illustrating grammar.
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more words.

'''kossakaidu''' jeweller

'''nauzu''' to be original

'''mennu''' name

'''raazu''' to criticise

'''cooqi''' to be silent

'''haiga''' movie

'''kuubu''' slave

'''deelu''' enemy

'''cecca''' soldier

'''paa''' to be (only for linking noun phrases)

= Grammar =
== Basic syntax ==
In Gaaziketti, just about any kind of word can modify (qualify) just about any other kind of word. Verbs, nouns and adjectives fall into essentially a single part of speech.

For example, '''kossakaidu''' means 'jeweller' -- if thought of as a noun.

But consider this one-word sentence: '''Kossakaidu.'''

Here '''kossakaidu''' acts as a verb, meaning: 'There is/are a jeweller/ some jewellers.'

'''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' means 'The jeweller criticises (something).'

But '''raazu''', thought of as a noun, means 'criticising' (n.) or 'criticism'.

Thus " '''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' " can be read as 'There is criticising by the jeweller.'

Adjectives are generally treated as verbs. E.g. '''cooqi''': to be silent. For such an "adjective" (which is really a verb), if you want to treat it as an attributive adjective, e.g. as in 'the silent movie', then you put it like this: 'the movie which is silent'. This isn't particularly unwieldy in Gaaziketti, because there is a concise relative pronoun ('''d'''). Thus '''cooqi de haiga le''' means 'the movie which is silent'/ 'the silent movie'.

The syntax tends to be agglutinative.

=== Parsing markers ===
These markers indicate exactly what qualifies what. One must compulsorily be tacked onto the end of any morpheme ending in a vowel (or diphthong) (noting that one of these parsing markers is a null).

Gather one element, modify next element '''(nil)'''

Gather one element, do not modify next element '''-s'''

Gather two elements, modify next element '''-n'''

Gather two elements, do not modify next element '''-k'''

These markers work in the following way. If you've got a noun phrase, say, and it's modifying the next phrase to appear in the sentence, and its the ''only'' phrase modifying that next phrase, then you don't need to tack on any parsing marker at all - its gets the '''(nil)''' marker. But say you want noun phrase X ''not'' to modify the very next phrase in the sentence. Then you generally would tack on '''-s'''. (Although is some situations, as will be described shortly, you would tack on -k.) Now, suppose the order of phrases is XYZ. Say you want X to modify Z ''and'' you want Y to modify Z. This occurs, for example, when Z is appearing as a verb, and X and Y are its subject and object respectively. Then X gets '''-s''' and Y gets '''-n'''. The '''-s''' stops X from modifying Y; and the '''-n''' gathers two elements, viz. X and Y, and indicates that each of these gathered elements modifies the next element, Z. Suppose you've got WXYZ. You want W, X and Y each to modify Z. Then W gets '''-s''', X gets '''-k''' (which serves to "gather" W and X into a unit containing two phrases, both of which will end up modifying the same unit, ''without'' modifying the very ''next'' unit), and Y gets '''-n'''. Note that Z gets no marker in any of these examples, because it appears at the end of a sentence. Since there is no "next" element that Z could modify, there is no need to append '''-s''' to Z (and indeed it would be incorrect to do so).

=== Word order ===
SOV (usual)

or

OSV

In general, a modifier precedes what it modifies.

== Noun phrases ==
=== Articles ===
These ''follow'' the noun and are, in general, ''compulsory'', for any phrase intended to function as a noun phrase. But pronouns, of course, do not need articles.

(Syntactically speaking, the noun is thought of as "modifying" its article, even though semantically speaking, it seems to be the other way round. This is why the article comes at the end of the noun phrase.)

Articles receive compulsory ''case endings''. (See below.) Nouns aren't inflected at all as such: articles indicate number and case for noun phrases.

Sing. def. '''l'''

Pl. def. '''k'''

Sing. indef. '''s'''

Pl. indef. '''m'''

=== Case endings ===
nominative '''-e'''

accusative/ genitive '''-o'''

dative '''-ai'''

Note that these are added to articles and pronouns, but not to nouns, and not to demonstratives.

== Verbal endings ==
Verbal endings indicate aspect, tense and mood. But there is no passive voice as such; and verbs are not altered for number or person.

=== Mood ===
These come last of all.

Indicative “there is” '''(nil)'''

Imperative (short form) '''-p'''

Imperative (long form) (see below) '''-vaa'''

Infinitive '''-ce'''

The short form of the imperative corresponds to the familiar English imperative. '''Raazup!''' means simply "Criticise!" The long form, however, is better translated as "make there be..." or "let there be...". Thus '''Raazuvaa!''' means "let there be criticising!" It does not imply that the person the speaker is addressing is being commanded to do the criticising themselves. They are being commanded to cause that there is criticising performed by someone.

In fact, the short imperative '''Raazup''' can be regarded as concise form of '''Ve raazuvaa.''' i.e. "Let there be criticising ''by you''."

=== Tense ===
These come just before the mood marker.

Present (usually ommitted) '''-nee-'''

Past (sometimes ommitted if context allows) '''-co-'''

Future '''-tau-'''

=== Aspect ===
These come just before the tense marker.

simple '''(nil)'''

habitual '''-baa-'''

continuous '''-nii-'''

perfect '''-haa-'''

future '''-tau-''' (same as tense)

=== Examples ===
'''raazuco''', ''criticised''

'''raazuhaaco''', ''had criticised''

'''raazutauce''', ''to be going to criticise (in the future)''

'''raazup''', ''criticise!''

'''raazutauco''', ''was going to criticise''

'''raazubaaco''', ''used to criticise''

== Pronouns ==
For demonstratives, see the next section.

=== Personal pronouns ===
These are listed below in order of nom., acc., dat. forms. Possessive (genitive) forms, as attributive, precede the noun phrase, and the noun must still take the article, e.g.: '''qo haiga le''', ''my movie''; '''hos nauzun mennu ke''', ''their original names''.

1st person singular: '''qe, qo, qai'''; plural '''goqe, goqo, goqai'''.

2nd person singular: '''ve, vo, vai'''; plural: '''gove, govo, govai'''.

3rd person animate singular: '''te, to, tai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

3rd person inanim. singular: '''ze, zo, zai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

=== Relative pronouns ===
These are quite frequently used. The relative clause precedes the modified noun.

There are two relative pronouns. There is a concise one, which cannot handle more complicated types of construction; and there is a less concise one, which can handle complex constructions.

''The concise option'': '''d-'''

Declined according to the modified noun's case with respect to the verb in the relative clause.

Placed directly ''after'' the relative clause's verb. The relative clause's verb is in the indicative.

''The flexible option'': '''siim-'''

Declined according to case within relative clause.

Placed within the relative clause itself, i.e. somewhere ''before'' the relative clause's verb.

The relative clause's verb is in put into the infinitive.

== Demonstratives ==
These can serve as adjectives or as pronouns. As an (attributive) adjective, the order is: noun-demonstrative-article. The article is compulsory. As a pronoun, the construction is demonstrative-article. Again the article is compulsory.

'''taa''' that, those

''' nii ''' this, these

E.g.: '''kooba taa le''', ''that jacket'' (nominative); '''nii lo''', ''this'' (as pronoun, accusative); '''taa kai''', ''those'' (dative); '''Kooba nii se''', ''one of these jackets'' (nom.).

== Postpositions ==
These come after the article, which must be in the genitive/accusative case. See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more postpositions.

'''baa''' with, using, via, by means of.

'''bii''' in

'''nuuta''' on

== Some illustrative sentences ==
'''Kuubu lo deelu les cecca sen paa.'''
The slave’s enemy is a soldier.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lo mennu lon raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie’s name.

'''Kossakaidu les siimo mennu lon raazuce haiga le nauzu.'''
The movie whose name the jeweller criticised is original.

'''Haiga lo mennu lo raazu de kossakaidu le cooqi.'''
The jeweller who criticises the movie’s name is silent.

'''Cooqi de kossakaidu les haiga lon raazu.'''
The silent jeweller critises the movie.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lok cooqi den raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie silently.
(Can be read as: "There is some criticising, which is (a) by the jeweller, (b) of the movie, and (c) silent.")

'''Kossakaidu lê haiga ló cooqi d◌̃e raazu.'''

= Lexicon =
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

= Background =
I invented Gaaziketti for the fun of it. I wanted it - among other things - to have a grammar which parses unambiguously, i.e. so that you always know what qualifies what in a sentence, and furthermore so that (even ignoring the written spaces between words) it is always possible to figure out where the boundaries between morphemes are (say if you are a computer). (Basically, '''i''', '''a''' and '''u''' occur as ''single'' vowels only in the second and subsequent syllables of a morpheme, and no other vowel can occur in such a syllable.) I also wanted the grammar to be flexible and uniform, i.e. to be very ''general'', with few or no exceptions and few "sub-rules". Also it had to be reasonably concise, but while being fairly easily pronounceable, having few consonant clusters, few vowels and diphthongs, and few rare consonants. Also, I wanted to minimise the number of pairs of words in the lexicon that differed only ''slightly'', i.e. I built redundancy into it, as in real languages (although the way I built it in was somewhat artificial and "automatic"). Also I wanted to respect as far as possible the language "universals" that are true of most natural languages. And I wanted easily to be able to make new words by just conjoining two existing ones. On the other hand, I didn't care about resemblance between the Gaaziketti lexicon and that of natural languages.

Trying to reconcile all these goals was something of a challenge, but I think I've got something I'm reasonably happy with.

There is a bit more to it than what is above, incl. a (lazily auto-generated) provisional vocab of 1600 words. But I've yet to finalise a lot of the "small" words like personal pronouns, postpositions, conjunctions, tense-markers and so forth.

I am also (extremely slowly) developing a language called [[Taaluketti]], which shares similar goals as the above, but with a different underlying grammar.

[[Category:Gaaziketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Gaaziketti

2010-10-09T12:47:00Z

Fofofo5: /* Mood */

See also:

[[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

[[Gaaziketti: Experimental page]]

[[Taaluketti]]

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Sample lexicon =
I have arbitrarily picked the following words for the purposes of illustrating grammar.
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more words.

'''kossakaidu''' jeweller

'''nauzu''' to be original

'''mennu''' name

'''raazu''' to criticise

'''cooqi''' to be silent

'''haiga''' movie

'''kuubu''' slave

'''deelu''' enemy

'''cecca''' soldier

'''paa''' to be (only for linking noun phrases)

= Grammar =
== Basic syntax ==
In Gaaziketti, just about any kind of word can modify (qualify) just about any other kind of word. Verbs, nouns and adjectives fall into essentially a single part of speech.

For example, '''kossakaidu''' means 'jeweller' -- if thought of as a noun.

But consider this one-word sentence: '''Kossakaidu.'''

Here '''kossakaidu''' acts as a verb, meaning: 'There is/are a jeweller/ some jewellers.'

'''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' means 'The jeweller criticises (something).'

But '''raazu''', thought of as a noun, means 'criticising' (n.) or 'criticism'.

Thus " '''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' " can be read as 'There is criticising by the jeweller.'

Adjectives are generally treated as verbs. E.g. '''cooqi''': to be silent. For such an "adjective" (which is really a verb), if you want to treat it as an attributive adjective, e.g. as in 'the silent movie', then you put it like this: 'the movie which is silent'. This isn't particularly unwieldy in Gaaziketti, because there is a concise relative pronoun ('''d'''). Thus '''cooqi de haiga le''' means 'the movie which is silent'/ 'the silent movie'.

The syntax tends to be agglutinative.

=== Parsing markers ===
These markers indicate exactly what qualifies what. One must compulsorily be tacked onto the end of any morpheme ending in a vowel (or diphthong) (noting that one of these parsing markers is a null).

Gather one element, modify next element '''(nil)'''

Gather one element, do not modify next element '''-s'''

Gather two elements, modify next element '''-n'''

Gather two elements, do not modify next element '''-k'''

These markers work in the following way. If you've got a noun phrase, say, and it's modifying the next phrase to appear in the sentence, and its the ''only'' phrase modifying that next phrase, then you don't need to tack on any parsing marker at all - its gets the '''(nil)''' marker. But say you want noun phrase X ''not'' to modify the very next phrase in the sentence. Then you generally would tack on '''-s'''. (Although is some situations, as will be described shortly, you would tack on -k.) Now, suppose the order of phrases is XYZ. Say you want X to modify Z ''and'' you want Y to modify Z. This occurs, for example, when Z is appearing as a verb, and X and Y are its subject and object respectively. Then X gets '''-s''' and Y gets '''-n'''. The '''-s''' stops X from modifying Y; and the '''-n''' gathers two elements, viz. X and Y, and indicates that each of these gathered elements modifies the next element, Z. Suppose you've got WXYZ. You want W, X and Y each to modify Z. Then W gets '''-s''', X gets '''-k''' (which serves to "gather" W and X into a unit containing two phrases, both of which will end up modifying the same unit, ''without'' modifying the very ''next'' unit), and Y gets '''-n'''. Note that Z gets no marker in any of these examples, because it appears at the end of a sentence. Since there is no "next" element that Z could modify, there is no need to append '''-s''' to Z (and indeed it would be incorrect to do so).

=== Word order ===
SOV (usual)

or

OSV

In general, a modifier precedes what it modifies.

== Noun phrases ==
=== Articles ===
These ''follow'' the noun and are, in general, ''compulsory'', for any phrase intended to function as a noun phrase. But pronouns, of course, do not need articles.

(Syntactically speaking, the noun is thought of as "modifying" its article, even though semantically speaking, it seems to be the other way round. This is why the article comes at the end of the noun phrase.)

Articles receive compulsory ''case endings''. (See below.) Nouns aren't inflected at all as such: articles indicate number and case for noun phrases.

Sing. def. '''l'''

Pl. def. '''k'''

Sing. indef. '''s'''

Pl. indef. '''m'''

=== Case endings ===
nominative '''-e'''

accusative/ genitive '''-o'''

dative '''-ai'''

Note that these are added to articles and pronouns, but not to nouns, and not to demonstratives.

== Verbal endings ==
Verbal endings indicate aspect, tense and mood. But there is no passive voice as such; and verbs are not altered for number or person.

=== Mood ===
These come last of all.

Indicative “there is” '''(nil)'''

Imperative (short form) '''-p'''

Imperative (long form) (see below) '''-vaa'''

Infinitive '''-ce'''

The short form of the imperative corresponds to the familiar English imperative. '''Raazup!''' means simply "Criticise!" The long form, however, is better translated as "make there be..." or "let there be...". Thus '''Raazuvaa!''' means "let there be criticising!" It does not imply that the person the speaker is addressing is being commanded to do the criticising themselves. They are being commanded to cause that there is criticising performed by someone.

In fact, the short imperative '''Raazup''' can be regarded as concise form of '''Ve raazuvaa.''' i.e. "Let there be criticising ''by you''."

=== Tense ===
These come just before the mood marker.

Present (usually ommitted) '''-nee-'''

Past (sometimes ommitted if context allows) '''-co-'''

Future '''-tau-'''

=== Aspect ===
These come just before the tense marker.

simple '''(nil)'''

habitual '''-baa-'''

continuous '''-nii-'''

perfect '''-haa-'''

future '''-tau-''' (same as tense)

=== Examples ===
'''raazuco''', ''criticised''

'''raazuhaaco''', ''had criticised''

'''raazutauce''', ''to be going to criticise (in the future)''

'''raazup''', ''criticise!''

'''raazutauco''', ''was going to criticise''

'''raazubaaco''', ''used to criticise''

== Pronouns ==
For demonstratives, see the next section.

=== Personal pronouns ===
These are listed below in order of nom., acc., dat. forms. Possessive (genitive) forms, as attributive, precede the noun phrase, and the noun must still take the article, e.g.: '''qo haiga le''', ''my movie''; '''hos nauzun mennu ke''', ''their original names''.

1st person singular: '''qe, qo, qai'''; plural '''goqe, goqo, goqai'''.

2nd person singular: '''ve, vo, vai'''; plural: '''gove, govo, govai'''.

3rd person animate singular: '''te, to, tai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

3rd person inanim. singular: '''ze, zo, zai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

=== Relative pronouns ===
These are quite frequently used. The relative clause precedes the modified noun.

There are two relative pronouns. There is a concise one, which cannot handle more complicated types of construction; and there is a less concise one, which can handle complex constructions.

''The concise option'': '''d-'''

Declined according to the modified noun's case with respect to the verb in the relative clause.

Placed directly ''after'' the relative clause's verb. The relative clause's verb is in the indicative.

''The flexible option'': '''siim-'''

Declined according to case within relative clause.

Placed within the relative clause itself, i.e. somewhere ''before'' the relative clause's verb.

The relative clause's verb is in put into the infinitive.

== Demonstratives ==
These can serve as adjectives or as pronouns. As an (attributive) adjective, the order is: noun-demonstrative-article. The article is compulsory. As a pronoun, the construction is demonstrative-article. Again the article is compulsory.

'''taa''' that, those

''' nii ''' this, these

E.g.: '''kooba taa le''', ''that jacket'' (nominative); '''nii lo''', ''this'' (as pronoun, accusative); '''taa kai''', ''those'' (dative); '''Kooba nii se''', ''one of these jackets'' (nom.).

== Postpositions ==
These come after the article, which must be in the genitive/accusative case. See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more postpositions.

'''baa''' with, using, via, by means of.

'''bii''' in

'''nuuta''' on

== Some illustrative sentences ==
'''Kuubu lo deelu les cecca sen paa.'''
The slave’s enemy is a soldier.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lo mennu lon raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie’s name.

'''Kossakaidu les siimo mennu lon raazuce haiga le nauzu.'''
The movie whose name the jeweller criticised is original.

'''Haiga lo mennu lo raazu de kossakaidu le cooqi.'''
The jeweller who criticises the movie’s name is silent.

'''Cooqi de kossakaidu les haiga lon raazu.'''
The silent jeweller critises the movie.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lok cooqi den raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie silently.
(Can be read as: "There is some criticising, which is (a) by the jeweller, (b) of the movie, and (c) silent.")

= Lexicon =
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

= Background =
I invented Gaaziketti for the fun of it. I wanted it - among other things - to have a grammar which parses unambiguously, i.e. so that you always know what qualifies what in a sentence, and furthermore so that (even ignoring the written spaces between words) it is always possible to figure out where the boundaries between morphemes are (say if you are a computer). (Basically, '''i''', '''a''' and '''u''' occur as ''single'' vowels only in the second and subsequent syllables of a morpheme, and no other vowel can occur in such a syllable.) I also wanted the grammar to be flexible and uniform, i.e. to be very ''general'', with few or no exceptions and few "sub-rules". Also it had to be reasonably concise, but while being fairly easily pronounceable, having few consonant clusters, few vowels and diphthongs, and few rare consonants. Also, I wanted to minimise the number of pairs of words in the lexicon that differed only ''slightly'', i.e. I built redundancy into it, as in real languages (although the way I built it in was somewhat artificial and "automatic"). Also I wanted to respect as far as possible the language "universals" that are true of most natural languages. And I wanted easily to be able to make new words by just conjoining two existing ones. On the other hand, I didn't care about resemblance between the Gaaziketti lexicon and that of natural languages.

Trying to reconcile all these goals was something of a challenge, but I think I've got something I'm reasonably happy with.

There is a bit more to it than what is above, incl. a (lazily auto-generated) provisional vocab of 1600 words. But I've yet to finalise a lot of the "small" words like personal pronouns, postpositions, conjunctions, tense-markers and so forth.

I am also (extremely slowly) developing a language called [[Taaluketti]], which shares similar goals as the above, but with a different underlying grammar.

[[Category:Gaaziketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Gaaziketti

2010-10-09T12:45:54Z

Fofofo5: /* Mood */ Explain imperative construction.

See also:

[[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

[[Gaaziketti: Experimental page]]

[[Taaluketti]]

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Sample lexicon =
I have arbitrarily picked the following words for the purposes of illustrating grammar.
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more words.

'''kossakaidu''' jeweller

'''nauzu''' to be original

'''mennu''' name

'''raazu''' to criticise

'''cooqi''' to be silent

'''haiga''' movie

'''kuubu''' slave

'''deelu''' enemy

'''cecca''' soldier

'''paa''' to be (only for linking noun phrases)

= Grammar =
== Basic syntax ==
In Gaaziketti, just about any kind of word can modify (qualify) just about any other kind of word. Verbs, nouns and adjectives fall into essentially a single part of speech.

For example, '''kossakaidu''' means 'jeweller' -- if thought of as a noun.

But consider this one-word sentence: '''Kossakaidu.'''

Here '''kossakaidu''' acts as a verb, meaning: 'There is/are a jeweller/ some jewellers.'

'''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' means 'The jeweller criticises (something).'

But '''raazu''', thought of as a noun, means 'criticising' (n.) or 'criticism'.

Thus " '''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' " can be read as 'There is criticising by the jeweller.'

Adjectives are generally treated as verbs. E.g. '''cooqi''': to be silent. For such an "adjective" (which is really a verb), if you want to treat it as an attributive adjective, e.g. as in 'the silent movie', then you put it like this: 'the movie which is silent'. This isn't particularly unwieldy in Gaaziketti, because there is a concise relative pronoun ('''d'''). Thus '''cooqi de haiga le''' means 'the movie which is silent'/ 'the silent movie'.

The syntax tends to be agglutinative.

=== Parsing markers ===
These markers indicate exactly what qualifies what. One must compulsorily be tacked onto the end of any morpheme ending in a vowel (or diphthong) (noting that one of these parsing markers is a null).

Gather one element, modify next element '''(nil)'''

Gather one element, do not modify next element '''-s'''

Gather two elements, modify next element '''-n'''

Gather two elements, do not modify next element '''-k'''

These markers work in the following way. If you've got a noun phrase, say, and it's modifying the next phrase to appear in the sentence, and its the ''only'' phrase modifying that next phrase, then you don't need to tack on any parsing marker at all - its gets the '''(nil)''' marker. But say you want noun phrase X ''not'' to modify the very next phrase in the sentence. Then you generally would tack on '''-s'''. (Although is some situations, as will be described shortly, you would tack on -k.) Now, suppose the order of phrases is XYZ. Say you want X to modify Z ''and'' you want Y to modify Z. This occurs, for example, when Z is appearing as a verb, and X and Y are its subject and object respectively. Then X gets '''-s''' and Y gets '''-n'''. The '''-s''' stops X from modifying Y; and the '''-n''' gathers two elements, viz. X and Y, and indicates that each of these gathered elements modifies the next element, Z. Suppose you've got WXYZ. You want W, X and Y each to modify Z. Then W gets '''-s''', X gets '''-k''' (which serves to "gather" W and X into a unit containing two phrases, both of which will end up modifying the same unit, ''without'' modifying the very ''next'' unit), and Y gets '''-n'''. Note that Z gets no marker in any of these examples, because it appears at the end of a sentence. Since there is no "next" element that Z could modify, there is no need to append '''-s''' to Z (and indeed it would be incorrect to do so).

=== Word order ===
SOV (usual)

or

OSV

In general, a modifier precedes what it modifies.

== Noun phrases ==
=== Articles ===
These ''follow'' the noun and are, in general, ''compulsory'', for any phrase intended to function as a noun phrase. But pronouns, of course, do not need articles.

(Syntactically speaking, the noun is thought of as "modifying" its article, even though semantically speaking, it seems to be the other way round. This is why the article comes at the end of the noun phrase.)

Articles receive compulsory ''case endings''. (See below.) Nouns aren't inflected at all as such: articles indicate number and case for noun phrases.

Sing. def. '''l'''

Pl. def. '''k'''

Sing. indef. '''s'''

Pl. indef. '''m'''

=== Case endings ===
nominative '''-e'''

accusative/ genitive '''-o'''

dative '''-ai'''

Note that these are added to articles and pronouns, but not to nouns, and not to demonstratives.

== Verbal endings ==
Verbal endings indicate aspect, tense and mood. But there is no passive voice as such; and verbs are not altered for number or person.

=== Mood ===
These come last of all.

Indicative “there is” '''(nil)'''

Imperative (short form) '''-p'''

Imperative (long form) (see below) '''-vaa'''

Infinitive '''-ce''

The short form of the imperative corresponds to the familiar English imperative. '''Raazup!''' means simply "Criticise!" The long form, however, is better translated as "make there be..." or "let there be...". Thus '''Raazuvaa!''' means "let there be criticising!" It does not imply that the person the speaker is addressing is being commanded to do the criticising themselves. They are being commanded to cause that there is criticising performed by someone.

In fact, the short imperative '''Raazup''' can be regarded as concise form of '''Ve raazuvaa.''' i.e. "Let there be criticising ''by you''."

=== Tense ===
These come just before the mood marker.

Present (usually ommitted) '''-nee-'''

Past (sometimes ommitted if context allows) '''-co-'''

Future '''-tau-'''

=== Aspect ===
These come just before the tense marker.

simple '''(nil)'''

habitual '''-baa-'''

continuous '''-nii-'''

perfect '''-haa-'''

future '''-tau-''' (same as tense)

=== Examples ===
'''raazuco''', ''criticised''

'''raazuhaaco''', ''had criticised''

'''raazutauce''', ''to be going to criticise (in the future)''

'''raazup''', ''criticise!''

'''raazutauco''', ''was going to criticise''

'''raazubaaco''', ''used to criticise''

== Pronouns ==
For demonstratives, see the next section.

=== Personal pronouns ===
These are listed below in order of nom., acc., dat. forms. Possessive (genitive) forms, as attributive, precede the noun phrase, and the noun must still take the article, e.g.: '''qo haiga le''', ''my movie''; '''hos nauzun mennu ke''', ''their original names''.

1st person singular: '''qe, qo, qai'''; plural '''goqe, goqo, goqai'''.

2nd person singular: '''ve, vo, vai'''; plural: '''gove, govo, govai'''.

3rd person animate singular: '''te, to, tai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

3rd person inanim. singular: '''ze, zo, zai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

=== Relative pronouns ===
These are quite frequently used. The relative clause precedes the modified noun.

There are two relative pronouns. There is a concise one, which cannot handle more complicated types of construction; and there is a less concise one, which can handle complex constructions.

''The concise option'': '''d-'''

Declined according to the modified noun's case with respect to the verb in the relative clause.

Placed directly ''after'' the relative clause's verb. The relative clause's verb is in the indicative.

''The flexible option'': '''siim-'''

Declined according to case within relative clause.

Placed within the relative clause itself, i.e. somewhere ''before'' the relative clause's verb.

The relative clause's verb is in put into the infinitive.

== Demonstratives ==
These can serve as adjectives or as pronouns. As an (attributive) adjective, the order is: noun-demonstrative-article. The article is compulsory. As a pronoun, the construction is demonstrative-article. Again the article is compulsory.

'''taa''' that, those

''' nii ''' this, these

E.g.: '''kooba taa le''', ''that jacket'' (nominative); '''nii lo''', ''this'' (as pronoun, accusative); '''taa kai''', ''those'' (dative); '''Kooba nii se''', ''one of these jackets'' (nom.).

== Postpositions ==
These come after the article, which must be in the genitive/accusative case. See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more postpositions.

'''baa''' with, using, via, by means of.

'''bii''' in

'''nuuta''' on

== Some illustrative sentences ==
'''Kuubu lo deelu les cecca sen paa.'''
The slave’s enemy is a soldier.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lo mennu lon raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie’s name.

'''Kossakaidu les siimo mennu lon raazuce haiga le nauzu.'''
The movie whose name the jeweller criticised is original.

'''Haiga lo mennu lo raazu de kossakaidu le cooqi.'''
The jeweller who criticises the movie’s name is silent.

'''Cooqi de kossakaidu les haiga lon raazu.'''
The silent jeweller critises the movie.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lok cooqi den raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie silently.
(Can be read as: "There is some criticising, which is (a) by the jeweller, (b) of the movie, and (c) silent.")

= Lexicon =
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

= Background =
I invented Gaaziketti for the fun of it. I wanted it - among other things - to have a grammar which parses unambiguously, i.e. so that you always know what qualifies what in a sentence, and furthermore so that (even ignoring the written spaces between words) it is always possible to figure out where the boundaries between morphemes are (say if you are a computer). (Basically, '''i''', '''a''' and '''u''' occur as ''single'' vowels only in the second and subsequent syllables of a morpheme, and no other vowel can occur in such a syllable.) I also wanted the grammar to be flexible and uniform, i.e. to be very ''general'', with few or no exceptions and few "sub-rules". Also it had to be reasonably concise, but while being fairly easily pronounceable, having few consonant clusters, few vowels and diphthongs, and few rare consonants. Also, I wanted to minimise the number of pairs of words in the lexicon that differed only ''slightly'', i.e. I built redundancy into it, as in real languages (although the way I built it in was somewhat artificial and "automatic"). Also I wanted to respect as far as possible the language "universals" that are true of most natural languages. And I wanted easily to be able to make new words by just conjoining two existing ones. On the other hand, I didn't care about resemblance between the Gaaziketti lexicon and that of natural languages.

Trying to reconcile all these goals was something of a challenge, but I think I've got something I'm reasonably happy with.

There is a bit more to it than what is above, incl. a (lazily auto-generated) provisional vocab of 1600 words. But I've yet to finalise a lot of the "small" words like personal pronouns, postpositions, conjunctions, tense-markers and so forth.

I am also (extremely slowly) developing a language called [[Taaluketti]], which shares similar goals as the above, but with a different underlying grammar.

[[Category:Gaaziketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Gaaziketti

2010-10-09T12:38:16Z

Fofofo5: /* Examples */ modify imperative

See also:

[[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

[[Gaaziketti: Experimental page]]

[[Taaluketti]]

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Sample lexicon =
I have arbitrarily picked the following words for the purposes of illustrating grammar.
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more words.

'''kossakaidu''' jeweller

'''nauzu''' to be original

'''mennu''' name

'''raazu''' to criticise

'''cooqi''' to be silent

'''haiga''' movie

'''kuubu''' slave

'''deelu''' enemy

'''cecca''' soldier

'''paa''' to be (only for linking noun phrases)

= Grammar =
== Basic syntax ==
In Gaaziketti, just about any kind of word can modify (qualify) just about any other kind of word. Verbs, nouns and adjectives fall into essentially a single part of speech.

For example, '''kossakaidu''' means 'jeweller' -- if thought of as a noun.

But consider this one-word sentence: '''Kossakaidu.'''

Here '''kossakaidu''' acts as a verb, meaning: 'There is/are a jeweller/ some jewellers.'

'''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' means 'The jeweller criticises (something).'

But '''raazu''', thought of as a noun, means 'criticising' (n.) or 'criticism'.

Thus " '''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' " can be read as 'There is criticising by the jeweller.'

Adjectives are generally treated as verbs. E.g. '''cooqi''': to be silent. For such an "adjective" (which is really a verb), if you want to treat it as an attributive adjective, e.g. as in 'the silent movie', then you put it like this: 'the movie which is silent'. This isn't particularly unwieldy in Gaaziketti, because there is a concise relative pronoun ('''d'''). Thus '''cooqi de haiga le''' means 'the movie which is silent'/ 'the silent movie'.

The syntax tends to be agglutinative.

=== Parsing markers ===
These markers indicate exactly what qualifies what. One must compulsorily be tacked onto the end of any morpheme ending in a vowel (or diphthong) (noting that one of these parsing markers is a null).

Gather one element, modify next element '''(nil)'''

Gather one element, do not modify next element '''-s'''

Gather two elements, modify next element '''-n'''

Gather two elements, do not modify next element '''-k'''

These markers work in the following way. If you've got a noun phrase, say, and it's modifying the next phrase to appear in the sentence, and its the ''only'' phrase modifying that next phrase, then you don't need to tack on any parsing marker at all - its gets the '''(nil)''' marker. But say you want noun phrase X ''not'' to modify the very next phrase in the sentence. Then you generally would tack on '''-s'''. (Although is some situations, as will be described shortly, you would tack on -k.) Now, suppose the order of phrases is XYZ. Say you want X to modify Z ''and'' you want Y to modify Z. This occurs, for example, when Z is appearing as a verb, and X and Y are its subject and object respectively. Then X gets '''-s''' and Y gets '''-n'''. The '''-s''' stops X from modifying Y; and the '''-n''' gathers two elements, viz. X and Y, and indicates that each of these gathered elements modifies the next element, Z. Suppose you've got WXYZ. You want W, X and Y each to modify Z. Then W gets '''-s''', X gets '''-k''' (which serves to "gather" W and X into a unit containing two phrases, both of which will end up modifying the same unit, ''without'' modifying the very ''next'' unit), and Y gets '''-n'''. Note that Z gets no marker in any of these examples, because it appears at the end of a sentence. Since there is no "next" element that Z could modify, there is no need to append '''-s''' to Z (and indeed it would be incorrect to do so).

=== Word order ===
SOV (usual)

or

OSV

In general, a modifier precedes what it modifies.

== Noun phrases ==
=== Articles ===
These ''follow'' the noun and are, in general, ''compulsory'', for any phrase intended to function as a noun phrase. But pronouns, of course, do not need articles.

(Syntactically speaking, the noun is thought of as "modifying" its article, even though semantically speaking, it seems to be the other way round. This is why the article comes at the end of the noun phrase.)

Articles receive compulsory ''case endings''. (See below.) Nouns aren't inflected at all as such: articles indicate number and case for noun phrases.

Sing. def. '''l'''

Pl. def. '''k'''

Sing. indef. '''s'''

Pl. indef. '''m'''

=== Case endings ===
nominative '''-e'''

accusative/ genitive '''-o'''

dative '''-ai'''

Note that these are added to articles and pronouns, but not to nouns, and not to demonstratives.

== Verbal endings ==
Verbal endings indicate aspect, tense and mood. But there is no passive voice as such; and verbs are not altered for number or person.

=== Mood ===
These come last of all.

Indicative “there is” '''(nil)'''

Imperative (informal) '''-p'''

Imperative (formal) (see below) '''-vaa'''

Infinitive '''-ce'''

''The imperative and infinitive constructions are currently under review. See [[Gaaziketti: Experimental page]].''

=== Tense ===
These come just before the mood marker.

Present (usually ommitted) '''-nee-'''

Past (sometimes ommitted if context allows) '''-co-'''

Future '''-tau-'''

=== Aspect ===
These come just before the tense marker.

simple '''(nil)'''

habitual '''-baa-'''

continuous '''-nii-'''

perfect '''-haa-'''

future '''-tau-''' (same as tense)

=== Examples ===
'''raazuco''', ''criticised''

'''raazuhaaco''', ''had criticised''

'''raazutauce''', ''to be going to criticise (in the future)''

'''raazup''', ''criticise!''

'''raazutauco''', ''was going to criticise''

'''raazubaaco''', ''used to criticise''

== Pronouns ==
For demonstratives, see the next section.

=== Personal pronouns ===
These are listed below in order of nom., acc., dat. forms. Possessive (genitive) forms, as attributive, precede the noun phrase, and the noun must still take the article, e.g.: '''qo haiga le''', ''my movie''; '''hos nauzun mennu ke''', ''their original names''.

1st person singular: '''qe, qo, qai'''; plural '''goqe, goqo, goqai'''.

2nd person singular: '''ve, vo, vai'''; plural: '''gove, govo, govai'''.

3rd person animate singular: '''te, to, tai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

3rd person inanim. singular: '''ze, zo, zai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

=== Relative pronouns ===
These are quite frequently used. The relative clause precedes the modified noun.

There are two relative pronouns. There is a concise one, which cannot handle more complicated types of construction; and there is a less concise one, which can handle complex constructions.

''The concise option'': '''d-'''

Declined according to the modified noun's case with respect to the verb in the relative clause.

Placed directly ''after'' the relative clause's verb. The relative clause's verb is in the indicative.

''The flexible option'': '''siim-'''

Declined according to case within relative clause.

Placed within the relative clause itself, i.e. somewhere ''before'' the relative clause's verb.

The relative clause's verb is in put into the infinitive.

== Demonstratives ==
These can serve as adjectives or as pronouns. As an (attributive) adjective, the order is: noun-demonstrative-article. The article is compulsory. As a pronoun, the construction is demonstrative-article. Again the article is compulsory.

'''taa''' that, those

''' nii ''' this, these

E.g.: '''kooba taa le''', ''that jacket'' (nominative); '''nii lo''', ''this'' (as pronoun, accusative); '''taa kai''', ''those'' (dative); '''Kooba nii se''', ''one of these jackets'' (nom.).

== Postpositions ==
These come after the article, which must be in the genitive/accusative case. See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more postpositions.

'''baa''' with, using, via, by means of.

'''bii''' in

'''nuuta''' on

== Some illustrative sentences ==
'''Kuubu lo deelu les cecca sen paa.'''
The slave’s enemy is a soldier.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lo mennu lon raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie’s name.

'''Kossakaidu les siimo mennu lon raazuce haiga le nauzu.'''
The movie whose name the jeweller criticised is original.

'''Haiga lo mennu lo raazu de kossakaidu le cooqi.'''
The jeweller who criticises the movie’s name is silent.

'''Cooqi de kossakaidu les haiga lon raazu.'''
The silent jeweller critises the movie.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lok cooqi den raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie silently.
(Can be read as: "There is some criticising, which is (a) by the jeweller, (b) of the movie, and (c) silent.")

= Lexicon =
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

= Background =
I invented Gaaziketti for the fun of it. I wanted it - among other things - to have a grammar which parses unambiguously, i.e. so that you always know what qualifies what in a sentence, and furthermore so that (even ignoring the written spaces between words) it is always possible to figure out where the boundaries between morphemes are (say if you are a computer). (Basically, '''i''', '''a''' and '''u''' occur as ''single'' vowels only in the second and subsequent syllables of a morpheme, and no other vowel can occur in such a syllable.) I also wanted the grammar to be flexible and uniform, i.e. to be very ''general'', with few or no exceptions and few "sub-rules". Also it had to be reasonably concise, but while being fairly easily pronounceable, having few consonant clusters, few vowels and diphthongs, and few rare consonants. Also, I wanted to minimise the number of pairs of words in the lexicon that differed only ''slightly'', i.e. I built redundancy into it, as in real languages (although the way I built it in was somewhat artificial and "automatic"). Also I wanted to respect as far as possible the language "universals" that are true of most natural languages. And I wanted easily to be able to make new words by just conjoining two existing ones. On the other hand, I didn't care about resemblance between the Gaaziketti lexicon and that of natural languages.

Trying to reconcile all these goals was something of a challenge, but I think I've got something I'm reasonably happy with.

There is a bit more to it than what is above, incl. a (lazily auto-generated) provisional vocab of 1600 words. But I've yet to finalise a lot of the "small" words like personal pronouns, postpositions, conjunctions, tense-markers and so forth.

I am also (extremely slowly) developing a language called [[Taaluketti]], which shares similar goals as the above, but with a different underlying grammar.

[[Category:Gaaziketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Category:Gaaziketti

2010-10-09T12:34:14Z

Fofofo5:

[[Gaaziketti]] is a conlang developed by [[User:Fofofo]] (=[[User:Fofofo5]]). It is closely related to [[Taaluketti]].

[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Gaaziketti

2010-10-09T12:32:41Z

Fofofo5:

See also:

[[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

[[Gaaziketti: Experimental page]]

[[Taaluketti]]

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Sample lexicon =
I have arbitrarily picked the following words for the purposes of illustrating grammar.
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more words.

'''kossakaidu''' jeweller

'''nauzu''' to be original

'''mennu''' name

'''raazu''' to criticise

'''cooqi''' to be silent

'''haiga''' movie

'''kuubu''' slave

'''deelu''' enemy

'''cecca''' soldier

'''paa''' to be (only for linking noun phrases)

= Grammar =
== Basic syntax ==
In Gaaziketti, just about any kind of word can modify (qualify) just about any other kind of word. Verbs, nouns and adjectives fall into essentially a single part of speech.

For example, '''kossakaidu''' means 'jeweller' -- if thought of as a noun.

But consider this one-word sentence: '''Kossakaidu.'''

Here '''kossakaidu''' acts as a verb, meaning: 'There is/are a jeweller/ some jewellers.'

'''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' means 'The jeweller criticises (something).'

But '''raazu''', thought of as a noun, means 'criticising' (n.) or 'criticism'.

Thus " '''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' " can be read as 'There is criticising by the jeweller.'

Adjectives are generally treated as verbs. E.g. '''cooqi''': to be silent. For such an "adjective" (which is really a verb), if you want to treat it as an attributive adjective, e.g. as in 'the silent movie', then you put it like this: 'the movie which is silent'. This isn't particularly unwieldy in Gaaziketti, because there is a concise relative pronoun ('''d'''). Thus '''cooqi de haiga le''' means 'the movie which is silent'/ 'the silent movie'.

The syntax tends to be agglutinative.

=== Parsing markers ===
These markers indicate exactly what qualifies what. One must compulsorily be tacked onto the end of any morpheme ending in a vowel (or diphthong) (noting that one of these parsing markers is a null).

Gather one element, modify next element '''(nil)'''

Gather one element, do not modify next element '''-s'''

Gather two elements, modify next element '''-n'''

Gather two elements, do not modify next element '''-k'''

These markers work in the following way. If you've got a noun phrase, say, and it's modifying the next phrase to appear in the sentence, and its the ''only'' phrase modifying that next phrase, then you don't need to tack on any parsing marker at all - its gets the '''(nil)''' marker. But say you want noun phrase X ''not'' to modify the very next phrase in the sentence. Then you generally would tack on '''-s'''. (Although is some situations, as will be described shortly, you would tack on -k.) Now, suppose the order of phrases is XYZ. Say you want X to modify Z ''and'' you want Y to modify Z. This occurs, for example, when Z is appearing as a verb, and X and Y are its subject and object respectively. Then X gets '''-s''' and Y gets '''-n'''. The '''-s''' stops X from modifying Y; and the '''-n''' gathers two elements, viz. X and Y, and indicates that each of these gathered elements modifies the next element, Z. Suppose you've got WXYZ. You want W, X and Y each to modify Z. Then W gets '''-s''', X gets '''-k''' (which serves to "gather" W and X into a unit containing two phrases, both of which will end up modifying the same unit, ''without'' modifying the very ''next'' unit), and Y gets '''-n'''. Note that Z gets no marker in any of these examples, because it appears at the end of a sentence. Since there is no "next" element that Z could modify, there is no need to append '''-s''' to Z (and indeed it would be incorrect to do so).

=== Word order ===
SOV (usual)

or

OSV

In general, a modifier precedes what it modifies.

== Noun phrases ==
=== Articles ===
These ''follow'' the noun and are, in general, ''compulsory'', for any phrase intended to function as a noun phrase. But pronouns, of course, do not need articles.

(Syntactically speaking, the noun is thought of as "modifying" its article, even though semantically speaking, it seems to be the other way round. This is why the article comes at the end of the noun phrase.)

Articles receive compulsory ''case endings''. (See below.) Nouns aren't inflected at all as such: articles indicate number and case for noun phrases.

Sing. def. '''l'''

Pl. def. '''k'''

Sing. indef. '''s'''

Pl. indef. '''m'''

=== Case endings ===
nominative '''-e'''

accusative/ genitive '''-o'''

dative '''-ai'''

Note that these are added to articles and pronouns, but not to nouns, and not to demonstratives.

== Verbal endings ==
Verbal endings indicate aspect, tense and mood. But there is no passive voice as such; and verbs are not altered for number or person.

=== Mood ===
These come last of all.

Indicative “there is” '''(nil)'''

Imperative (informal) '''-p'''

Imperative (formal) (see below) '''-vaa'''

Infinitive '''-ce'''

''The imperative and infinitive constructions are currently under review. See [[Gaaziketti: Experimental page]].''

=== Tense ===
These come just before the mood marker.

Present (usually ommitted) '''-nee-'''

Past (sometimes ommitted if context allows) '''-co-'''

Future '''-tau-'''

=== Aspect ===
These come just before the tense marker.

simple '''(nil)'''

habitual '''-baa-'''

continuous '''-nii-'''

perfect '''-haa-'''

future '''-tau-''' (same as tense)

=== Examples ===
'''raazuco''', ''criticised''

'''raazuhaaco''', ''had criticised''

'''raazutauce''', ''to be going to criticise (in the future)''

'''raazuvaa''', ''please criticise''

'''raazutauco''', ''was going to criticise''

'''raazubaaco''', ''used to criticise''

== Pronouns ==
For demonstratives, see the next section.

=== Personal pronouns ===
These are listed below in order of nom., acc., dat. forms. Possessive (genitive) forms, as attributive, precede the noun phrase, and the noun must still take the article, e.g.: '''qo haiga le''', ''my movie''; '''hos nauzun mennu ke''', ''their original names''.

1st person singular: '''qe, qo, qai'''; plural '''goqe, goqo, goqai'''.

2nd person singular: '''ve, vo, vai'''; plural: '''gove, govo, govai'''.

3rd person animate singular: '''te, to, tai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

3rd person inanim. singular: '''ze, zo, zai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

=== Relative pronouns ===
These are quite frequently used. The relative clause precedes the modified noun.

There are two relative pronouns. There is a concise one, which cannot handle more complicated types of construction; and there is a less concise one, which can handle complex constructions.

''The concise option'': '''d-'''

Declined according to the modified noun's case with respect to the verb in the relative clause.

Placed directly ''after'' the relative clause's verb. The relative clause's verb is in the indicative.

''The flexible option'': '''siim-'''

Declined according to case within relative clause.

Placed within the relative clause itself, i.e. somewhere ''before'' the relative clause's verb.

The relative clause's verb is in put into the infinitive.

== Demonstratives ==
These can serve as adjectives or as pronouns. As an (attributive) adjective, the order is: noun-demonstrative-article. The article is compulsory. As a pronoun, the construction is demonstrative-article. Again the article is compulsory.

'''taa''' that, those

''' nii ''' this, these

E.g.: '''kooba taa le''', ''that jacket'' (nominative); '''nii lo''', ''this'' (as pronoun, accusative); '''taa kai''', ''those'' (dative); '''Kooba nii se''', ''one of these jackets'' (nom.).

== Postpositions ==
These come after the article, which must be in the genitive/accusative case. See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more postpositions.

'''baa''' with, using, via, by means of.

'''bii''' in

'''nuuta''' on

== Some illustrative sentences ==
'''Kuubu lo deelu les cecca sen paa.'''
The slave’s enemy is a soldier.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lo mennu lon raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie’s name.

'''Kossakaidu les siimo mennu lon raazuce haiga le nauzu.'''
The movie whose name the jeweller criticised is original.

'''Haiga lo mennu lo raazu de kossakaidu le cooqi.'''
The jeweller who criticises the movie’s name is silent.

'''Cooqi de kossakaidu les haiga lon raazu.'''
The silent jeweller critises the movie.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lok cooqi den raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie silently.
(Can be read as: "There is some criticising, which is (a) by the jeweller, (b) of the movie, and (c) silent.")

= Lexicon =
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

= Background =
I invented Gaaziketti for the fun of it. I wanted it - among other things - to have a grammar which parses unambiguously, i.e. so that you always know what qualifies what in a sentence, and furthermore so that (even ignoring the written spaces between words) it is always possible to figure out where the boundaries between morphemes are (say if you are a computer). (Basically, '''i''', '''a''' and '''u''' occur as ''single'' vowels only in the second and subsequent syllables of a morpheme, and no other vowel can occur in such a syllable.) I also wanted the grammar to be flexible and uniform, i.e. to be very ''general'', with few or no exceptions and few "sub-rules". Also it had to be reasonably concise, but while being fairly easily pronounceable, having few consonant clusters, few vowels and diphthongs, and few rare consonants. Also, I wanted to minimise the number of pairs of words in the lexicon that differed only ''slightly'', i.e. I built redundancy into it, as in real languages (although the way I built it in was somewhat artificial and "automatic"). Also I wanted to respect as far as possible the language "universals" that are true of most natural languages. And I wanted easily to be able to make new words by just conjoining two existing ones. On the other hand, I didn't care about resemblance between the Gaaziketti lexicon and that of natural languages.

Trying to reconcile all these goals was something of a challenge, but I think I've got something I'm reasonably happy with.

There is a bit more to it than what is above, incl. a (lazily auto-generated) provisional vocab of 1600 words. But I've yet to finalise a lot of the "small" words like personal pronouns, postpositions, conjunctions, tense-markers and so forth.

I am also (extremely slowly) developing a language called [[Taaluketti]], which shares similar goals as the above, but with a different underlying grammar.

[[Category:Gaaziketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Gaaziketti: Experimental page

2010-09-26T01:52:08Z

Fofofo5: /* Taaluketti */

This page is for experimenting with changes to the grammar of [[Gaaziketti]].

===Infinitive and imperative constructions===
The role of the inf. and imp. moods is not clear, given that verbs are supposed to be essentially verbal nouns. Does '''raazup!''' mean ''criticise!'' or does it mean ''make there be some criticising (by someone, not nec. you)''. If it meant the second thing, one could say '''Ve raazup''' to mean ''criticise!''

Similar questions surround the infinitive.

Probably a solution is to have a short inflexible form, & a less compact, but more flexible alternative form (as with the relative pronoun).

Gaaziketti

2010-09-26T01:48:46Z

Fofofo5: /* Background */ Change Background section to reflect that I haven't necessarily abandoned Gaaziketti.

See also:

[[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

[[Gaaziketti: Experimental page]]

[[Taaluketti]]

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Sample lexicon =
I have arbitrarily picked the following words for the purposes of illustrating grammar.
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more words.

'''kossakaidu''' jeweller

'''nauzu''' to be original

'''mennu''' name

'''raazu''' to criticise

'''cooqi''' to be silent

'''haiga''' movie

'''kuubu''' slave

'''deelu''' enemy

'''cecca''' soldier

'''paa''' to be (only for linking noun phrases)

= Grammar =
== Basic syntax ==
In Gaaziketti, just about any kind of word can modify (qualify) just about any other kind of word. Verbs, nouns and adjectives fall into essentially a single part of speech.

For example, '''kossakaidu''' means 'jeweller' -- if thought of as a noun.

But consider this one-word sentence: '''Kossakaidu.'''

Here '''kossakaidu''' acts as a verb, meaning: 'There is/are a jeweller/ some jewellers.'

'''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' means 'The jeweller criticises (something).'

But '''raazu''', thought of as a noun, means 'criticising' (n.) or 'criticism'.

Thus " '''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' " can be read as 'There is criticising by the jeweller.'

Adjectives are generally treated as verbs. E.g. '''cooqi''': to be silent. For such an "adjective" (which is really a verb), if you want to treat it as an attributive adjective, e.g. as in 'the silent movie', then you put it like this: 'the movie which is silent'. This isn't particularly unwieldy in Gaaziketti, because there is a concise relative pronoun ('''d'''). Thus '''cooqi de haiga le''' means 'the movie which is silent'/ 'the silent movie'.

The syntax tends to be agglutinative.

=== Parsing markers ===
These markers indicate exactly what qualifies what. One must compulsorily be tacked onto the end of any morpheme ending in a vowel (or diphthong) (noting that one of these parsing markers is a null).

Gather one element, modify next element '''(nil)'''

Gather one element, do not modify next element '''-s'''

Gather two elements, modify next element '''-n'''

Gather two elements, do not modify next element '''-k'''

These markers work in the following way. If you've got a noun phrase, say, and it's modifying the next phrase to appear in the sentence, and its the ''only'' phrase modifying that next phrase, then you don't need to tack on any parsing marker at all - its gets the '''(nil)''' marker. But say you want noun phrase X ''not'' to modify the very next phrase in the sentence. Then you generally would tack on '''-s'''. (Although is some situations, as will be described shortly, you would tack on -k.) Now, suppose the order of phrases is XYZ. Say you want X to modify Z ''and'' you want Y to modify Z. This occurs, for example, when Z is appearing as a verb, and X and Y are its subject and object respectively. Then X gets '''-s''' and Y gets '''-n'''. The '''-s''' stops X from modifying Y; and the '''-n''' gathers two elements, viz. X and Y, and indicates that each of these gathered elements modifies the next element, Z. Suppose you've got WXYZ. You want W, X and Y each to modify Z. Then W gets '''-s''', X gets '''-k''' (which serves to "gather" W and X into a unit containing two phrases, both of which will end up modifying the same unit, ''without'' modifying the very ''next'' unit), and Y gets '''-n'''. Note that Z gets no marker in any of these examples, because it appears at the end of a sentence. Since there is no "next" element that Z could modify, there is no need to append '''-s''' to Z (and indeed it would be incorrect to do so).

=== Word order ===
SOV (usual)

or

OSV

In general, a modifier precedes what it modifies.

== Noun phrases ==
=== Articles ===
These ''follow'' the noun and are, in general, ''compulsory'', for any phrase intended to function as a noun phrase. But pronouns, of course, do not need articles.

(Syntactically speaking, the noun is thought of as "modifying" its article, even though semantically speaking, it seems to be the other way round. This is why the article comes at the end of the noun phrase.)

Articles receive compulsory ''case endings''. (See below.) Nouns aren't inflected at all as such: articles indicate number and case for noun phrases.

Sing. def. '''l'''

Pl. def. '''k'''

Sing. indef. '''s'''

Pl. indef. '''m'''

=== Case endings ===
nominative '''-e'''

accusative/ genitive '''-o'''

dative '''-ai'''

Note that these are added to articles and pronouns, but not to nouns, and not to demonstratives.

== Verbal endings ==
Verbal endings indicate aspect, tense and mood. But there is no passive voice as such; and verbs are not altered for number or person.

=== Mood ===
These come last of all.

Indicative “there is” '''(nil)'''

Imperative (informal) '''-p'''

Imperative (formal) (see below) '''-vaa'''

Infinitive '''-ce'''

''The imperative and infinitive constructions are currently under review. See [[Gaaziketti: Experimental page]].''

=== Tense ===
These come just before the mood marker.

Present (usually ommitted) '''-nee-'''

Past (sometimes ommitted if context allows) '''-co-'''

Future '''-tau-'''

=== Aspect ===
These come just before the tense marker.

simple '''(nil)'''

habitual '''-baa-'''

continuous '''-nii-'''

perfect '''-haa-'''

future '''-tau-''' (same as tense)

=== Examples ===
'''raazuco''', ''criticised''

'''raazuhaaco''', ''had criticised''

'''raazutauce''', ''to be going to criticise (in the future)''

'''raazuvaa''', ''please criticise''

'''raazutauco''', ''was going to criticise''

'''raazubaaco''', ''used to criticise''

== Pronouns ==
For demonstratives, see the next section.

=== Personal pronouns ===
These are listed below in order of nom., acc., dat. forms. Possessive (genitive) forms, as attributive, precede the noun phrase, and the noun must still take the article, e.g.: '''qo haiga le''', ''my movie''; '''hos nauzun mennu ke''', ''their original names''.

1st person singular: '''qe, qo, qai'''; plural '''goqe, goqo, goqai'''.

2nd person singular: '''ve, vo, vai'''; plural: '''gove, govo, govai'''.

3rd person animate singular: '''te, to, tai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

3rd person inanim. singular: '''ze, zo, zai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

=== Relative pronouns ===
These are quite frequently used. The relative clause precedes the modified noun.

There are two relative pronouns. There is a concise one, which cannot handle more complicated types of construction; and there is a less concise one, which can handle complex constructions.

''The concise option'': '''d-'''

Declined according to the modified noun's case with respect to the verb in the relative clause.

Placed directly ''after'' the relative clause's verb. The relative clause's verb is in the indicative.

''The flexible option'': '''siim-'''

Declined according to case within relative clause.

Placed within the relative clause itself, i.e. somewhere ''before'' the relative clause's verb.

The relative clause's verb is in put into the infinitive.

== Demonstratives ==
These can serve as adjectives or as pronouns. As an (attributive) adjective, the order is: noun-demonstrative-article. The article is compulsory. As a pronoun, the construction is demonstrative-article. Again the article is compulsory.

'''taa''' that, those

''' nii ''' this, these

E.g.: '''kooba taa le''', ''that jacket'' (nominative); '''nii lo''', ''this'' (as pronoun, accusative); '''taa kai''', ''those'' (dative); '''Kooba nii se''', ''one of these jackets'' (nom.).

== Postpositions ==
These come after the article, which must be in the genitive/accusative case. See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more postpositions.

'''baa''' with, using, via, by means of.

'''bii''' in

'''nuuta''' on

== Some illustrative sentences ==
'''Kuubu lo deelu les cecca sen paa.'''
The slave’s enemy is a soldier.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lo mennu lon raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie’s name.

'''Kossakaidu les siimo mennu lon raazuce haiga le nauzu.'''
The movie whose name the jeweller criticised is original.

'''Haiga lo mennu lo raazu de kossakaidu le cooqi.'''
The jeweller who criticises the movie’s name is silent.

'''Cooqi de kossakaidu les haiga lon raazu.'''
The silent jeweller critises the movie.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lok cooqi den raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie silently.
(Can be read as: "There is some criticising, which is (a) by the jeweller, (b) of the movie, and (c) silent.")

= Lexicon =
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

= Background =
I invented Gaaziketti for the fun of it. I wanted it - among other things - to have a grammar which parses unambiguously, i.e. so that you always know what qualifies what in a sentence, and furthermore so that (even ignoring the written spaces between words) it is always possible to figure out where the boundaries between morphemes are (say if you are a computer). (Basically, '''i''', '''a''' and '''u''' occur as ''single'' vowels only in the second and subsequent syllables of a morpheme, and no other vowel can occur in such a syllable.) I also wanted the grammar to be flexible and uniform, i.e. to be very ''general'', with few or no exceptions and few "sub-rules". Also it had to be reasonably concise, but while being fairly easily pronounceable, having few consonant clusters, few vowels and diphthongs, and few rare consonants. Also, I wanted to minimise the number of pairs of words in the lexicon that differed only ''slightly'', i.e. I built redundancy into it, as in real languages (although the way I built it in was somewhat artificial and "automatic"). Also I wanted to respect as far as possible the language "universals" that are true of most natural languages. And I wanted easily to be able to make new words by just conjoining two existing ones. On the other hand, I didn't care about resemblance between the Gaaziketti lexicon and that of natural languages.

Trying to reconcile all these goals was something of a challenge, but I think I've got something I'm reasonably happy with.

There is a bit more to it than what is above, incl. a (lazily auto-generated) provisional vocab of 1600 words. But I've yet to finalise a lot of the "small" words like personal pronouns, postpositions, conjunctions, tense-markers and so forth.

I am also (extremely slowly) developing a language called [[Taaluketti]], which shares similar goals as the above, but with a different underlying grammar.

[[Category:Gaaziketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Gaaziketti

2010-09-26T01:42:16Z

Fofofo5: Maybe I will develop it. I don't know.

See also:

[[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

[[Gaaziketti: Experimental page]]

[[Taaluketti]]

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Sample lexicon =
I have arbitrarily picked the following words for the purposes of illustrating grammar.
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more words.

'''kossakaidu''' jeweller

'''nauzu''' to be original

'''mennu''' name

'''raazu''' to criticise

'''cooqi''' to be silent

'''haiga''' movie

'''kuubu''' slave

'''deelu''' enemy

'''cecca''' soldier

'''paa''' to be (only for linking noun phrases)

= Grammar =
== Basic syntax ==
In Gaaziketti, just about any kind of word can modify (qualify) just about any other kind of word. Verbs, nouns and adjectives fall into essentially a single part of speech.

For example, '''kossakaidu''' means 'jeweller' -- if thought of as a noun.

But consider this one-word sentence: '''Kossakaidu.'''

Here '''kossakaidu''' acts as a verb, meaning: 'There is/are a jeweller/ some jewellers.'

'''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' means 'The jeweller criticises (something).'

But '''raazu''', thought of as a noun, means 'criticising' (n.) or 'criticism'.

Thus " '''Kossakaidu le raazu.''' " can be read as 'There is criticising by the jeweller.'

Adjectives are generally treated as verbs. E.g. '''cooqi''': to be silent. For such an "adjective" (which is really a verb), if you want to treat it as an attributive adjective, e.g. as in 'the silent movie', then you put it like this: 'the movie which is silent'. This isn't particularly unwieldy in Gaaziketti, because there is a concise relative pronoun ('''d'''). Thus '''cooqi de haiga le''' means 'the movie which is silent'/ 'the silent movie'.

The syntax tends to be agglutinative.

=== Parsing markers ===
These markers indicate exactly what qualifies what. One must compulsorily be tacked onto the end of any morpheme ending in a vowel (or diphthong) (noting that one of these parsing markers is a null).

Gather one element, modify next element '''(nil)'''

Gather one element, do not modify next element '''-s'''

Gather two elements, modify next element '''-n'''

Gather two elements, do not modify next element '''-k'''

These markers work in the following way. If you've got a noun phrase, say, and it's modifying the next phrase to appear in the sentence, and its the ''only'' phrase modifying that next phrase, then you don't need to tack on any parsing marker at all - its gets the '''(nil)''' marker. But say you want noun phrase X ''not'' to modify the very next phrase in the sentence. Then you generally would tack on '''-s'''. (Although is some situations, as will be described shortly, you would tack on -k.) Now, suppose the order of phrases is XYZ. Say you want X to modify Z ''and'' you want Y to modify Z. This occurs, for example, when Z is appearing as a verb, and X and Y are its subject and object respectively. Then X gets '''-s''' and Y gets '''-n'''. The '''-s''' stops X from modifying Y; and the '''-n''' gathers two elements, viz. X and Y, and indicates that each of these gathered elements modifies the next element, Z. Suppose you've got WXYZ. You want W, X and Y each to modify Z. Then W gets '''-s''', X gets '''-k''' (which serves to "gather" W and X into a unit containing two phrases, both of which will end up modifying the same unit, ''without'' modifying the very ''next'' unit), and Y gets '''-n'''. Note that Z gets no marker in any of these examples, because it appears at the end of a sentence. Since there is no "next" element that Z could modify, there is no need to append '''-s''' to Z (and indeed it would be incorrect to do so).

=== Word order ===
SOV (usual)

or

OSV

In general, a modifier precedes what it modifies.

== Noun phrases ==
=== Articles ===
These ''follow'' the noun and are, in general, ''compulsory'', for any phrase intended to function as a noun phrase. But pronouns, of course, do not need articles.

(Syntactically speaking, the noun is thought of as "modifying" its article, even though semantically speaking, it seems to be the other way round. This is why the article comes at the end of the noun phrase.)

Articles receive compulsory ''case endings''. (See below.) Nouns aren't inflected at all as such: articles indicate number and case for noun phrases.

Sing. def. '''l'''

Pl. def. '''k'''

Sing. indef. '''s'''

Pl. indef. '''m'''

=== Case endings ===
nominative '''-e'''

accusative/ genitive '''-o'''

dative '''-ai'''

Note that these are added to articles and pronouns, but not to nouns, and not to demonstratives.

== Verbal endings ==
Verbal endings indicate aspect, tense and mood. But there is no passive voice as such; and verbs are not altered for number or person.

=== Mood ===
These come last of all.

Indicative “there is” '''(nil)'''

Imperative (informal) '''-p'''

Imperative (formal) (see below) '''-vaa'''

Infinitive '''-ce'''

''The imperative and infinitive constructions are currently under review. See [[Gaaziketti: Experimental page]].''

=== Tense ===
These come just before the mood marker.

Present (usually ommitted) '''-nee-'''

Past (sometimes ommitted if context allows) '''-co-'''

Future '''-tau-'''

=== Aspect ===
These come just before the tense marker.

simple '''(nil)'''

habitual '''-baa-'''

continuous '''-nii-'''

perfect '''-haa-'''

future '''-tau-''' (same as tense)

=== Examples ===
'''raazuco''', ''criticised''

'''raazuhaaco''', ''had criticised''

'''raazutauce''', ''to be going to criticise (in the future)''

'''raazuvaa''', ''please criticise''

'''raazutauco''', ''was going to criticise''

'''raazubaaco''', ''used to criticise''

== Pronouns ==
For demonstratives, see the next section.

=== Personal pronouns ===
These are listed below in order of nom., acc., dat. forms. Possessive (genitive) forms, as attributive, precede the noun phrase, and the noun must still take the article, e.g.: '''qo haiga le''', ''my movie''; '''hos nauzun mennu ke''', ''their original names''.

1st person singular: '''qe, qo, qai'''; plural '''goqe, goqo, goqai'''.

2nd person singular: '''ve, vo, vai'''; plural: '''gove, govo, govai'''.

3rd person animate singular: '''te, to, tai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

3rd person inanim. singular: '''ze, zo, zai'''; plural: '''he, ho, hai'''.

=== Relative pronouns ===
These are quite frequently used. The relative clause precedes the modified noun.

There are two relative pronouns. There is a concise one, which cannot handle more complicated types of construction; and there is a less concise one, which can handle complex constructions.

''The concise option'': '''d-'''

Declined according to the modified noun's case with respect to the verb in the relative clause.

Placed directly ''after'' the relative clause's verb. The relative clause's verb is in the indicative.

''The flexible option'': '''siim-'''

Declined according to case within relative clause.

Placed within the relative clause itself, i.e. somewhere ''before'' the relative clause's verb.

The relative clause's verb is in put into the infinitive.

== Demonstratives ==
These can serve as adjectives or as pronouns. As an (attributive) adjective, the order is: noun-demonstrative-article. The article is compulsory. As a pronoun, the construction is demonstrative-article. Again the article is compulsory.

'''taa''' that, those

''' nii ''' this, these

E.g.: '''kooba taa le''', ''that jacket'' (nominative); '''nii lo''', ''this'' (as pronoun, accusative); '''taa kai''', ''those'' (dative); '''Kooba nii se''', ''one of these jackets'' (nom.).

== Postpositions ==
These come after the article, which must be in the genitive/accusative case. See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]] for more postpositions.

'''baa''' with, using, via, by means of.

'''bii''' in

'''nuuta''' on

== Some illustrative sentences ==
'''Kuubu lo deelu les cecca sen paa.'''
The slave’s enemy is a soldier.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lo mennu lon raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie’s name.

'''Kossakaidu les siimo mennu lon raazuce haiga le nauzu.'''
The movie whose name the jeweller criticised is original.

'''Haiga lo mennu lo raazu de kossakaidu le cooqi.'''
The jeweller who criticises the movie’s name is silent.

'''Cooqi de kossakaidu les haiga lon raazu.'''
The silent jeweller critises the movie.

'''Kossakaidu les haiga lok cooqi den raazu.'''
The jeweller criticises the movie silently.
(Can be read as: "There is some criticising, which is (a) by the jeweller, (b) of the movie, and (c) silent.")

= Lexicon =
See [[Gaaziketti: Lexicon]]

= Background =
I invented Gaaziketti for the fun of it. I wanted it - among other things - to have a grammar which parses unambiguously, i.e. so that you always know what qualifies what in a sentence, and furthermore so that (even ignoring the written spaces between words) it is always possible to figure out where the boundaries between morphemes are (say if you are a computer). (Basically, '''i''', '''a''' and '''u''' occur as ''single'' vowels only in the second and subsequent syllables of a morpheme, and no other vowel can occur in such a syllable.) I also wanted the grammar to be flexible and uniform, i.e. to be very ''general'', with few or no exceptions and few "sub-rules". Also it had to be reasonably concise, but while being fairly easily pronounceable, having few consonant clusters, few vowels and diphthongs, and few rare consonants. Also, I wanted to minimise the number of pairs of words in the lexicon that differed only ''slightly'', i.e. I built redundancy into it, as in real languages (although the way I built it in was somewhat artificial and "automatic"). Also I wanted to respect as far as possible the language "universals" that are true of most natural languages. And I wanted easily to be able to make new words by just conjoining two existing ones. On the other hand, I didn't care about resemblance between the Gaaziketti lexicon and that of natural languages.

Trying to reconcile all these goals was something of a challenge, but I think I've got something I'm reasonably happy with.

There is a bit more to it than what is above, incl. a (lazily auto-generated) provisional vocab of 1600 words. But I've yet to finalise a lot of the "small" words like personal pronouns, postpositions, conjunctions, tense-markers and so forth.

I now regard [[Taaluketti]] as satisfying the above goals better than Gaaziketti did, mainly in virtue of [[Taaluketti]]'s seemingly more elegant and flexible syntactical structure. Having said this, [[Taaluketti]] is still in a pretty early stage of development.

[[Category:Gaaziketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2010-09-26T01:38:32Z

Fofofo5: /* Articles [F>S] */ Corrected type

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

Taaluketti may be broadly categorised as a highly regular SOV type language which makes use of particles rather than inflexions to indicate such things as case and tense. Like Gaaziketti, it uses parsing markers to enable any sentence to be unambiguously parsed. However, while Gaaziketti took the ''noun'' to be basic, in Taaluketti the basic part of speech is the ''verb''. In some ways Taaluketti is similar to Loglan. However, Taaluketti aims to be more flexible and intuitive than Loglan. Each "verb" (or rather, predicate) in Loglan has associated with it a certain place structure, and it is this place structure, rather than the use of adpositions or case endings, that enables one to know where each noun phrase stands in relation to the verb/predicate. In Taaluketti, however, a verb will come with no fixed place structure. Rather, any number of noun phrases may be coupled with a given verb, and their relation to the verb is indicated by the use of postpositions (such as '''ko''' to indicate the accusative case).

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following 21 Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''s''' is always unvoiced.

'''r''' is rolled.

The other consonants are pronounced as in English. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

Double consonants are pronounced double, as in Italian, Finnish, etc..

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be verbs – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

== Statements [S] ==

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as a phrase which ''says of something that it is the case''.

== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ==

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Pronouns ===

A basic kind of noun phrase is the pronoun. Some common pronouns are as follows.

1st person singular '''qe'''

1st person plural '''quu'''

2nd person singular '''ve'''

2nd person plural '''vuu'''

3rd person animate singular '''taa'''

3rd person inanim. singular '''zo'''

3rd person plural (animate or inanimate) '''dau'''

Like other noun phrases, pronouns take postpositions, such as '''ko'''.

== Verbs [A…A>S] ==

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''verbs''. A verb in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a verb can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a verb will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

== Articles [S>N] ==
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [S>N]. A common article is '''le''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

== Verbal particles [V>V] ==

Verbal particles are added after a verb, and form an extension of the verb. These are generally used to indicate verbal aspect, tense and mood.

=== Aspect ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after a verb and are used to indicate aspect.

Simple ''(nil)''

Habitual '''baa'''

Continuous '''nii'''

Perfect '''haa'''

Future '''tau'''

=== Tense ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect particle (if there is one), and are used to indicate tense.

Present (usually omitted) '''nee'''

Past (sometimes omitted if context allows) '''co'''

Future (same as aspect marker for future) '''tau'''

=== Mood ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect and tense particles (if there are any), and are used to indicate mood.

Indicative ''(nil)''

Imperative '''vaa'''

Infinitive ''(nil)''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Talk:Gaaziketti: Lexicon

2009-08-21T13:46:16Z

Fofofo5:

Below is a list of words that I once generated for a language called Huumăketti. This was a precursor to Gaaziketti.

The words in this list need to undergo certain transformations to make them permissible Gaaziketti words, viz:

final '''ă''' -> a

'''ăă''' -> au

'''a''' + [two consonants, or a double consonant] -> '''ai''' +[only the second of those two consonants / only a single consonant]

The words were generated according to a formula that ensured that no two words are too similar sounding.

toocă
gaagă
tăănu
remmu
recci
saabi
leedu
nonnă
paccu
kaaqi
tuukă
tessu
baadu
handi
tommu
cokki
nannu
peekă
kambă
piită
meepi
daaqi
pennă
haabă
nuută
dongu
lonnu
rombă
bokku
daanu
qeqqă
tooqu
pambi
dootă
koolu
ruumă
qaccă
marră
qassi
goodă
rocci
păămu
kooci
needă
nombu
nossi
berră
geeri
bommu
gombu
liigă
qoobu
lassu
kiidi
paaqu
coodă
dessă
lăăpă
huucu
huunu
piiră
happă
nuulu
căăpi
ciici
năădu
haară
hottă
kăămi
doopi
gangu
raaci
kandu
daati
cuuku
noonu
kengu
kaapu
dăăcă
siipă
hessu
halli
memmă
cassă
koodu
cooză
kuubu
ceccă
ruucu
kaagu
giiră
deelu
loobă
qeeki
qeppi
dăătu
geebi
loozu
pammă
kuumi
nuumu
meeni
kăănă
hellu
găăqă
riikă
bessu
tooli
miigă
qocci
sooci
cossi
ceeri
heegă
becci
muuki
kăăki
lăăki
kollă
ruudă
motti
soobă
mombi
băăqi
ruupu
seedu
maapu
puuni
geeză
puuqă
buuri
dăăzi
laari
gerru
lăămi
koozu
daacu
booki
liili
tengi
heqqă
nongă
gooti
beezi
bengi
neenu
ciigi
tambu
săăgă
teecă
tandi
naadi
hollu
luupă
haapi
dăăbu
booli
doccu
tăăkă
kotti
pottu
riinu
muuli
heeru
măăpă
tooki
bemmu
kuuzi
cuură
guugi
miimi
mooră
diimi
meemu
kuuqu
boogă
koomu
mooci
luubu
taagi
daakă
saază
cuuqă
baaci
deemu
ruuti
taabă
morri
baaku
baani
meeci
makku
peeză
luucă
nerru
qooqu
qeezi
nelli
ruulă
qeequ
pangu
lorri
balli
haalu
băăpu
sengu
haccă
pappu
qeebu
meedu
beenă
tăăti
muupă
sootă
hecci
băări
membi
deeqă
duupă
leeqă
booru
soccu
tootu
saanu
nakkă
lăăzi
qoqqă
taqqu
tăămă
găăbă
căăni
ponnă
tuucu
sombi
ciibă
baapi
căămu
hassi
dossă
ceenu
rooru
kellă
nondi
păătă
koopi
condi
kaari
qoppi
leeni
coocu
moogi
rokku
qăăză
leeră
tiiqi
raadu
paadi
diiqu
tiinu
cuulu
nekki
huupu
lăăru
saapu
roomi
cettu
ceelă
luudi
hăănu
quupu
caccu
lotti
kondă
qakki
bandi
puuku
goccă
henni
beegă
tiicu
mandu
ceedă
taamu
naacă
qeepă
bongi
keemu
semmă
boozi
sondă
huudă
paqqi
rondu
huuză
puubă
biinu
săăcă
hambu
liizi
cappu
horră
connă
naapă
nuuci
reedi
poogu
goopu
kuupă
lommă
liipă
passă
săăzi
gaaki
paali
muuzi
roodi
năăci
răănu
riilă
tăăcu
cannu
taaqă
lallu
honni
naaqu
maanu
răări
gongă
reegă
sommă
pondi
gengă
hiinu
kaamă
roozi
kaabi
lattă
quuti
păăbă
caadi
qokku
gaccu
nuugi
rattu
tăăgu
kuuki
beetu
ceecu
bekku
beepă
sacci
coqqu
baagi
rassi
luuki
paabu
lambă
qiinu
mallu
letti
kăăgă
kiibu
qaapi
ciiku
kakku
gaazi
puugi
kammu
naaki
diiki
rottă
măăzi
ciiră
siină
bellu
gettu
ciipi
hăăqi
qambu
taazu
mooku
laadă
gokki
boopă
garri
diizi
qellu
merri
noopu
boonă
neppă
băăcu
raalu
laamă
beppi
qongi
răălă
qăălă
goori
teebu
hiikă
năălu
kuudi
hettă
huugu
qattu
loccu
pendi
seeku
kongu
suudi
răădă
teetu
poori
huuti
piiku
mammu
cambi
bonni
dooci
kanni
leemu
heppi
borră
deeku
muumi
tendu
dammu
duucă
maagu
serri
hăăkă
noppă
poonu
lacci
bondu
muudi
sollă
caqqi
meeră
coogu
hoqqă
parri
commi
torră
pooqi
doogi
bossu
puumu
qommu
qoonă
qossu
guută
tăăbi
hemmu
doppu
teezi
combu
biiri
piiqă
hoppi
tiiti
googu
kăădi
taaku
peepu
nennă
cooti
qeetu
tondu
geenu
caazi
buukă
duuli
răăkă
seetă
luuli
qembă
găăzu
sanni
caapă
bangă
seeră
nuupi
meccu
norru
hakki
naazi
giiqă
mekkă
săăqu
kiică
lossă
toqqă
kuună
lollă
keeni
nemmi
dorri
dăăgă
peegu
riigu
peemă
kaacu
guudu
păăqă
băănu
maamă
siitu
duuqu
keeku
qăăkă
piici
sassu
heeki
roocă
păălu
cuudu
qăădă
soogi
tiimă
băădă
caaru
hiiqi
guumu
hengi
kennu
siidi
moodu
kappi
qeeru
lăăbu
găăku
demmă
buugu
darră
baară
heecă
hombă
tettă
geqqu
siigă
saadă
boqqă
keeci
kooqă
tuuză
koobă
moomu
caaki
mooni
duuki
boocă
măăqu
qorră
teeki
baazu
quuri
kaanu
saacu
larră
tăălă
cakkă
deqqi
nooqi
qondu
suuqu
paazi
cennă
laanu
rannă
kiină
gossi
miiqu
diiru
geppă
piibă
hoocă
reemi
qoodi
lessă
luutu
dăăki
lappi
miiki
buupu
păără
nookă
dăăpă
biiză
ceeză
duudi
quubi
păădu
tăări
biilă
koogi
keebă
siimi
guubă
qaată
soppu
paami
gaacă
meebă
tannă
leeci
daapu
buucu
niită
caabu
diipă
qăăqi
lemmă
cuugi
qonni
păăku
dekkă
biipu
quucu
găăni
sossă
muucă
qarru
soqqi
maari
meezu
reezi
teenă
toppi
niiqă
puuzu
qeenă
guuqă
derri
săăru
lăăli
geekă
cuuci
căătă
kaală
diidi
goppă
năăpi
tuuri
kendă
noomă
hăăză
măăgă
cengă
biicu
coonu
qoopă
poomă
heenă
biigu
teeli
cekki
quulă
temmu
saari
giipi
looku
roogă
giilu
qettă
caaqu
răăcu
bootu
piimu
kaakă
peppă
gatti
găără
hannă
căădu
rongi
huulă
piilu
tiiză
luumi
neelă
teegă
qiiri
leebă
gaabu
giigi
rootu
bappă
rooli
quugu
peelă
hooli
lakku
biiti
rorră
suuki
miică
heedi
niibă
huuqi
tooru
looqă
doomu
congă
păăzu
biidă
deegi
dondă
noolă
dooni
reeli
tonni
măăki
laakă
reepă
qenni
gaaru
maabi
qaagi
tangă
naqqi
cembu
măădi
tuunu
toobu
deppu
hokku
buunu
doodu
laacu
naali
qooru
diigă
gaadi
suuzi
peebi
dăăli
riiri
maală
taani
căălu
callă
sooni
goobi
laază
caami
ruuqi
riiqi
cuuni
qaazu
puură
muugă
dendă
peeqi
tattu
kacci
sotti
toonă
coppă
luuzi
gemmi
candă
dengu
ralli
ressu
suună
kemmă
boobu
siiki
raccă
saamă
kiipă
băălă
sambă
keetă
leezu
haqqu
piizu
găămu
nuudu
dangi
pombu
riidă
nandă
riipu
rommu
duugă
longu
geelă
monnu
giini
golli
diină
kerri
niidu
leepi
neeză
qiicu
bollu
lăăqu
daamă
hăădă
kăăcă
ciizu
leccu
carri
miitu
muună
haadu
mooqă
keedu
niici
rooki
laagu
pembu
tuubi
raazu
sonnu
deedu
hăăbi
căără
duubu
hăări
kassu
booqu
lăătu
seelu
tuuqi
cuupi
loqqi
dommă
hossu
soomu
roonă
ketti
puulu
qăănu
buuqi
deeră
laală
cangu
qiidă
tollu
hangă
mennu
ceppă
luugă
moqqi
naagă
taaci
beecă
ciită
raaku
raqqu
moopi
poocu
lekkă
beebu
kokkă
rammi
qăăgu
hoodi
qecci
looni
gakkă
dooqă
neemă
qombă
nottu
heezi
loopi
guuni
qappă
băăză
qemmu
qăămă
qiipu
quunu
suutu
piidu
bakki
goomă
pannu
miipă
gelli
hammi
ruubi
polli
bembă
keeqă
lendă
dallu
kangi
hoopă
piini
baalu
taalu
tassi
tongi
takki
sellă
năăzu
naccu
deeci
celli
dăăqu
găălu
liiru
qendu
seppu
tuumă
niimu
kăăpă
kaati
heebu
baamu
tarru
gannu
siili
suumi
maadă
mossă
kallu
giiku
riimă
boodi
geemă
goocu
paagă
roopă
patti
gembu
nangu
rendu
raabă
caană
haaku
rossu
ceegu
soopi
taapi
băămă
qooli
kiiru
gaami
rappă
gallă
kiimi
goonu
tăăză
bassi
sorri
ronni
buulă
ceepu
daază
poccă
laabi
dăădi
leetă
qeeli
sooqă
qannă
duună
miină
nommi
mondă
qoozi
sokkă
quumă
qoomi
caagă
rambu
păăpi
bocci
căăqă
liimi
bombă
bambu
pemmi
lăănă
tuupu
qottă
boppi
keezu
bannă
liitu
hooru
răăti
luună
teemi
geegu
căăci
hiilă
messă
roobu
coori
qiigu
qaamu
nengă
căăgi
baaqă
pooză
qaalu
langi
haamu
păăni
qeegă
liină
lootă
maacu
beeki
diică
buudă
săănă
heemi
seeci
cottu
ciini
baabă
poopu
bammi
kăăli
huumă
liiqu
dandu
laati
răăgu
cessi
reecă
miibu
heeli
renni
soolu
mollă
sakku
kattă
kiitu
buuză
muuru
keepi
poodă
giibă
mendă
buuti
raagi
kuugă
neepu
cammă
londă
moccu
looci
gammă
kiiqu
caacă
paapă
qaaqă
peecu
peccă
konnu
lellă
keppu
tecci
qootu
kooră
tiiri
nooti
gendi
soozu
teedi
coobi
gooză
roqqă
gandă
ceebi
guupi
qekku
tembă
benni
năăni
dellă
dennu
loolu
coccă
saati
qeecă
nappu
beemi
sandu
nooză
giimu
seeni
maaqi
paacă
mongu
dollă
neecu
dambă
narri
qalli
taccă
pessi
hăăpu
pakkă
raaqă
noori
teqqă
lembi
suubu
meeku
sattă
qoogă
dappi
tokku
huuri
reqqă
qaqqu
harru
niilu
hăălă
tammi
lăăgă
reebu
tiidă
soodu
hăăcu
donnu
tăăpu
măăru
kaază
băăgu
hiiză
niizu
nammă
cuuzu
doolu
pommi
liică
rerră
cuută
suuru
hăăgu
niiră
raară
battu
gaaqu
caali
qammi
coolă
leegi
geeti
kooni
keeră
toozi
niini
buubi
năăgi
mambă
niipi
gennă
saagu
hembă
teeru
rellu
qiiti
păăci
kombi
tuuti
hoobu
gaapă
qerră
taadu
lokkă
nambi
kaqqă
hommu
meqqi
căăzu
raamu
landu
nembu
giită
qiikă
răăqi
kăăru
reeki
qollu
peedă
lăăcă
mommă
kiili
nuuqă
miiru
măămi
hiiti
kiizi
reequ
loppu
mangi
deccu
possi
seemu
paaki
massu
săămi
kossă
teepă
luuru
qengi
ruukă
muutu
detti
măăli
tiikă
neebi
săăpă
biiqi
riibi
geecu
songu
năăku
haată
pettu
doozu
tottă
dăăru
meppu
rangă
găătă
rembă
randi
suuli
gekki
gorru
băăbi
heetu
heequ
mokkă
nuură
năără
quukă
gaană
hăămă
năămu
cuubă
toopă
nassă
neqqu
noocu
maakă
pallă
herră
qăăpu
sooku
guuci
gambi
săătu
hoomi
geccă
reppi
loodu
duuzi
kiiki
miidi
căăbă
leppu
heepă
geepu
săădi
taată
saală
hoozi
reenă
tiilă
peenu
nessi
poobi
tuugu
tombă
liiki
găădu
hoonă
găăpi
kăăqu
guulu
riiză
nallă
giizu
rooqu
ruuri
hekku
ceqqu
dakku
gookă
hiibi
hocci
loogi
qaară
hiimă
hiicu
neegu
beeru
mappi
qooki
toomi
băăkă
sarră
siiru
naami
meetă
laqqă
nendi
tocci
sendă
qeemi
nuuni
poppă
qaaci
meelu
kuuru
qiiqi
lammu
ciilu
hattu
haagi
tenni
qăări
săăbu
raani
raapi
pengă
qiiză
muuqu
beequ
quudă
sekkă
tappă
meegi
noccă
poqqu
korri
daadă
bendu
kăăzi
peeti
măăcă
răăpu
haaqă
lanni
diili
hendu
barru
saqqă
seegi
lengu
maati
răăză
huukă
keqqi
năăbă
goolă
qoocă
maază
kuuli
tăăqi
săăki
găăgi
neccă
qaabă
lennu
dombi
giici
coopu
nolli
tellu
beeli
ruugu
baqqu
leelu
kootă
setti
hiidă
piipi
dassu
hiiri
qeedi
peeri
săăli
puudu
moobă
hoogă
sallu
dăămi
hooqu
liidi
nuuzu
qăăcu
dacci
koqqi
kuucă
gaali
sammu
reeru
qiibi
cerru
kessă
seepi
rengi
tuulă
hondu
lăădi
seeqă
mootă
tuudă
seccu
rakki
daari
taară
qiilă
suugă
ceeti
tăădă
naană
reetu
saaqi
puuci
quuqi
haazu
pookă
gondi
riiti
năătă
keccu
geeqi
natti
beedi
maqqă
terră
hongi
dooră
poolă
tekku
nuubă
dokkă
ceeqi
seqqi
deetă
meeqă
kaadă
kiigă
seezu
ceekă
nuuku
sessă
loomu
qiimă
siică
ceemă
qăăti
buumă
deeni
măăbu
macci
suupă
kekkă
roppi
geedă
duuru
cooqi
noqqu
tiigu
naabu
bettă
lombi
diibu
măănă
noobi
gassă
tiibi
naatu
muubu
cendi
catti
gaqqi
deebă
rarru
pongă
haaci
perru
coomă
răăbi
cookă
siiqu
niiku
peqqu
hootu
looră
sooră
leqqi
teequ
noogu
qessu
kăătu
dăănă
koccu
ciimu
laapu
sembi
haani
luuqu
căăku
cemmi
naaru
moolu
hooki
pooti
păăgi
puupi
moozu
leeku
tossu
neeti
niigi
paană
guuku
raată
bottă
suucă
biibi
pelli
nettu
gaatu
sangi
biikă
kăăbu
băăti
laaqi
riicu
qaani
hăăti
toogă
karră
baccă
porru
moppu
kuutu
piigi
hiipu
talli
neeri
giidu
gommi
guură
măătu
miili
gottu
deezu
gessi
ciiqă
daabi
qangă
dembi
doobă
koppu
cuumu
nokki
teppi
rollu
colli
gooqi
siibu
găăci
puută
pandă
mellă
paatu
pekki
beqqă
dooku
daqqă
caatu
keegi
saakă
sappi
tiipu
quuză
rekku
doqqi
baată
liibu
năăqă
pokki
seebă
neeqi
noodă
dattă
corru
boomi
paaru

Talk:Gaaziketti: Lexicon

2009-08-21T13:45:48Z

Fofofo5:

Below is a list of words that I once generated for a language called Huumăketti. This was a precursor to Gaaziketti.

The words in this list need to undergo certain transformations to make them permissible Gaaziketti words, viz:

final '''ă''' -> a
'''ăă''' -> au
'''a''' + [two consonants, or a double consonant] -> '''ai''' +[only the second of those two consonants / only a single consonant]

The words were generated according to a formula that ensured that no two words are too similar sounding.

toocă
gaagă
tăănu
remmu
recci
saabi
leedu
nonnă
paccu
kaaqi
tuukă
tessu
baadu
handi
tommu
cokki
nannu
peekă
kambă
piită
meepi
daaqi
pennă
haabă
nuută
dongu
lonnu
rombă
bokku
daanu
qeqqă
tooqu
pambi
dootă
koolu
ruumă
qaccă
marră
qassi
goodă
rocci
păămu
kooci
needă
nombu
nossi
berră
geeri
bommu
gombu
liigă
qoobu
lassu
kiidi
paaqu
coodă
dessă
lăăpă
huucu
huunu
piiră
happă
nuulu
căăpi
ciici
năădu
haară
hottă
kăămi
doopi
gangu
raaci
kandu
daati
cuuku
noonu
kengu
kaapu
dăăcă
siipă
hessu
halli
memmă
cassă
koodu
cooză
kuubu
ceccă
ruucu
kaagu
giiră
deelu
loobă
qeeki
qeppi
dăătu
geebi
loozu
pammă
kuumi
nuumu
meeni
kăănă
hellu
găăqă
riikă
bessu
tooli
miigă
qocci
sooci
cossi
ceeri
heegă
becci
muuki
kăăki
lăăki
kollă
ruudă
motti
soobă
mombi
băăqi
ruupu
seedu
maapu
puuni
geeză
puuqă
buuri
dăăzi
laari
gerru
lăămi
koozu
daacu
booki
liili
tengi
heqqă
nongă
gooti
beezi
bengi
neenu
ciigi
tambu
săăgă
teecă
tandi
naadi
hollu
luupă
haapi
dăăbu
booli
doccu
tăăkă
kotti
pottu
riinu
muuli
heeru
măăpă
tooki
bemmu
kuuzi
cuură
guugi
miimi
mooră
diimi
meemu
kuuqu
boogă
koomu
mooci
luubu
taagi
daakă
saază
cuuqă
baaci
deemu
ruuti
taabă
morri
baaku
baani
meeci
makku
peeză
luucă
nerru
qooqu
qeezi
nelli
ruulă
qeequ
pangu
lorri
balli
haalu
băăpu
sengu
haccă
pappu
qeebu
meedu
beenă
tăăti
muupă
sootă
hecci
băări
membi
deeqă
duupă
leeqă
booru
soccu
tootu
saanu
nakkă
lăăzi
qoqqă
taqqu
tăămă
găăbă
căăni
ponnă
tuucu
sombi
ciibă
baapi
căămu
hassi
dossă
ceenu
rooru
kellă
nondi
păătă
koopi
condi
kaari
qoppi
leeni
coocu
moogi
rokku
qăăză
leeră
tiiqi
raadu
paadi
diiqu
tiinu
cuulu
nekki
huupu
lăăru
saapu
roomi
cettu
ceelă
luudi
hăănu
quupu
caccu
lotti
kondă
qakki
bandi
puuku
goccă
henni
beegă
tiicu
mandu
ceedă
taamu
naacă
qeepă
bongi
keemu
semmă
boozi
sondă
huudă
paqqi
rondu
huuză
puubă
biinu
săăcă
hambu
liizi
cappu
horră
connă
naapă
nuuci
reedi
poogu
goopu
kuupă
lommă
liipă
passă
săăzi
gaaki
paali
muuzi
roodi
năăci
răănu
riilă
tăăcu
cannu
taaqă
lallu
honni
naaqu
maanu
răări
gongă
reegă
sommă
pondi
gengă
hiinu
kaamă
roozi
kaabi
lattă
quuti
păăbă
caadi
qokku
gaccu
nuugi
rattu
tăăgu
kuuki
beetu
ceecu
bekku
beepă
sacci
coqqu
baagi
rassi
luuki
paabu
lambă
qiinu
mallu
letti
kăăgă
kiibu
qaapi
ciiku
kakku
gaazi
puugi
kammu
naaki
diiki
rottă
măăzi
ciiră
siină
bellu
gettu
ciipi
hăăqi
qambu
taazu
mooku
laadă
gokki
boopă
garri
diizi
qellu
merri
noopu
boonă
neppă
băăcu
raalu
laamă
beppi
qongi
răălă
qăălă
goori
teebu
hiikă
năălu
kuudi
hettă
huugu
qattu
loccu
pendi
seeku
kongu
suudi
răădă
teetu
poori
huuti
piiku
mammu
cambi
bonni
dooci
kanni
leemu
heppi
borră
deeku
muumi
tendu
dammu
duucă
maagu
serri
hăăkă
noppă
poonu
lacci
bondu
muudi
sollă
caqqi
meeră
coogu
hoqqă
parri
commi
torră
pooqi
doogi
bossu
puumu
qommu
qoonă
qossu
guută
tăăbi
hemmu
doppu
teezi
combu
biiri
piiqă
hoppi
tiiti
googu
kăădi
taaku
peepu
nennă
cooti
qeetu
tondu
geenu
caazi
buukă
duuli
răăkă
seetă
luuli
qembă
găăzu
sanni
caapă
bangă
seeră
nuupi
meccu
norru
hakki
naazi
giiqă
mekkă
săăqu
kiică
lossă
toqqă
kuună
lollă
keeni
nemmi
dorri
dăăgă
peegu
riigu
peemă
kaacu
guudu
păăqă
băănu
maamă
siitu
duuqu
keeku
qăăkă
piici
sassu
heeki
roocă
păălu
cuudu
qăădă
soogi
tiimă
băădă
caaru
hiiqi
guumu
hengi
kennu
siidi
moodu
kappi
qeeru
lăăbu
găăku
demmă
buugu
darră
baară
heecă
hombă
tettă
geqqu
siigă
saadă
boqqă
keeci
kooqă
tuuză
koobă
moomu
caaki
mooni
duuki
boocă
măăqu
qorră
teeki
baazu
quuri
kaanu
saacu
larră
tăălă
cakkă
deqqi
nooqi
qondu
suuqu
paazi
cennă
laanu
rannă
kiină
gossi
miiqu
diiru
geppă
piibă
hoocă
reemi
qoodi
lessă
luutu
dăăki
lappi
miiki
buupu
păără
nookă
dăăpă
biiză
ceeză
duudi
quubi
păădu
tăări
biilă
koogi
keebă
siimi
guubă
qaată
soppu
paami
gaacă
meebă
tannă
leeci
daapu
buucu
niită
caabu
diipă
qăăqi
lemmă
cuugi
qonni
păăku
dekkă
biipu
quucu
găăni
sossă
muucă
qarru
soqqi
maari
meezu
reezi
teenă
toppi
niiqă
puuzu
qeenă
guuqă
derri
săăru
lăăli
geekă
cuuci
căătă
kaală
diidi
goppă
năăpi
tuuri
kendă
noomă
hăăză
măăgă
cengă
biicu
coonu
qoopă
poomă
heenă
biigu
teeli
cekki
quulă
temmu
saari
giipi
looku
roogă
giilu
qettă
caaqu
răăcu
bootu
piimu
kaakă
peppă
gatti
găără
hannă
căădu
rongi
huulă
piilu
tiiză
luumi
neelă
teegă
qiiri
leebă
gaabu
giigi
rootu
bappă
rooli
quugu
peelă
hooli
lakku
biiti
rorră
suuki
miică
heedi
niibă
huuqi
tooru
looqă
doomu
congă
păăzu
biidă
deegi
dondă
noolă
dooni
reeli
tonni
măăki
laakă
reepă
qenni
gaaru
maabi
qaagi
tangă
naqqi
cembu
măădi
tuunu
toobu
deppu
hokku
buunu
doodu
laacu
naali
qooru
diigă
gaadi
suuzi
peebi
dăăli
riiri
maală
taani
căălu
callă
sooni
goobi
laază
caami
ruuqi
riiqi
cuuni
qaazu
puură
muugă
dendă
peeqi
tattu
kacci
sotti
toonă
coppă
luuzi
gemmi
candă
dengu
ralli
ressu
suună
kemmă
boobu
siiki
raccă
saamă
kiipă
băălă
sambă
keetă
leezu
haqqu
piizu
găămu
nuudu
dangi
pombu
riidă
nandă
riipu
rommu
duugă
longu
geelă
monnu
giini
golli
diină
kerri
niidu
leepi
neeză
qiicu
bollu
lăăqu
daamă
hăădă
kăăcă
ciizu
leccu
carri
miitu
muună
haadu
mooqă
keedu
niici
rooki
laagu
pembu
tuubi
raazu
sonnu
deedu
hăăbi
căără
duubu
hăări
kassu
booqu
lăătu
seelu
tuuqi
cuupi
loqqi
dommă
hossu
soomu
roonă
ketti
puulu
qăănu
buuqi
deeră
laală
cangu
qiidă
tollu
hangă
mennu
ceppă
luugă
moqqi
naagă
taaci
beecă
ciită
raaku
raqqu
moopi
poocu
lekkă
beebu
kokkă
rammi
qăăgu
hoodi
qecci
looni
gakkă
dooqă
neemă
qombă
nottu
heezi
loopi
guuni
qappă
băăză
qemmu
qăămă
qiipu
quunu
suutu
piidu
bakki
goomă
pannu
miipă
gelli
hammi
ruubi
polli
bembă
keeqă
lendă
dallu
kangi
hoopă
piini
baalu
taalu
tassi
tongi
takki
sellă
năăzu
naccu
deeci
celli
dăăqu
găălu
liiru
qendu
seppu
tuumă
niimu
kăăpă
kaati
heebu
baamu
tarru
gannu
siili
suumi
maadă
mossă
kallu
giiku
riimă
boodi
geemă
goocu
paagă
roopă
patti
gembu
nangu
rendu
raabă
caană
haaku
rossu
ceegu
soopi
taapi
băămă
qooli
kiiru
gaami
rappă
gallă
kiimi
goonu
tăăză
bassi
sorri
ronni
buulă
ceepu
daază
poccă
laabi
dăădi
leetă
qeeli
sooqă
qannă
duună
miină
nommi
mondă
qoozi
sokkă
quumă
qoomi
caagă
rambu
păăpi
bocci
căăqă
liimi
bombă
bambu
pemmi
lăănă
tuupu
qottă
boppi
keezu
bannă
liitu
hooru
răăti
luună
teemi
geegu
căăci
hiilă
messă
roobu
coori
qiigu
qaamu
nengă
căăgi
baaqă
pooză
qaalu
langi
haamu
păăni
qeegă
liină
lootă
maacu
beeki
diică
buudă
săănă
heemi
seeci
cottu
ciini
baabă
poopu
bammi
kăăli
huumă
liiqu
dandu
laati
răăgu
cessi
reecă
miibu
heeli
renni
soolu
mollă
sakku
kattă
kiitu
buuză
muuru
keepi
poodă
giibă
mendă
buuti
raagi
kuugă
neepu
cammă
londă
moccu
looci
gammă
kiiqu
caacă
paapă
qaaqă
peecu
peccă
konnu
lellă
keppu
tecci
qootu
kooră
tiiri
nooti
gendi
soozu
teedi
coobi
gooză
roqqă
gandă
ceebi
guupi
qekku
tembă
benni
năăni
dellă
dennu
loolu
coccă
saati
qeecă
nappu
beemi
sandu
nooză
giimu
seeni
maaqi
paacă
mongu
dollă
neecu
dambă
narri
qalli
taccă
pessi
hăăpu
pakkă
raaqă
noori
teqqă
lembi
suubu
meeku
sattă
qoogă
dappi
tokku
huuri
reqqă
qaqqu
harru
niilu
hăălă
tammi
lăăgă
reebu
tiidă
soodu
hăăcu
donnu
tăăpu
măăru
kaază
băăgu
hiiză
niizu
nammă
cuuzu
doolu
pommi
liică
rerră
cuută
suuru
hăăgu
niiră
raară
battu
gaaqu
caali
qammi
coolă
leegi
geeti
kooni
keeră
toozi
niini
buubi
năăgi
mambă
niipi
gennă
saagu
hembă
teeru
rellu
qiiti
păăci
kombi
tuuti
hoobu
gaapă
qerră
taadu
lokkă
nambi
kaqqă
hommu
meqqi
căăzu
raamu
landu
nembu
giită
qiikă
răăqi
kăăru
reeki
qollu
peedă
lăăcă
mommă
kiili
nuuqă
miiru
măămi
hiiti
kiizi
reequ
loppu
mangi
deccu
possi
seemu
paaki
massu
săămi
kossă
teepă
luuru
qengi
ruukă
muutu
detti
măăli
tiikă
neebi
săăpă
biiqi
riibi
geecu
songu
năăku
haată
pettu
doozu
tottă
dăăru
meppu
rangă
găătă
rembă
randi
suuli
gekki
gorru
băăbi
heetu
heequ
mokkă
nuură
năără
quukă
gaană
hăămă
năămu
cuubă
toopă
nassă
neqqu
noocu
maakă
pallă
herră
qăăpu
sooku
guuci
gambi
săătu
hoomi
geccă
reppi
loodu
duuzi
kiiki
miidi
căăbă
leppu
heepă
geepu
săădi
taată
saală
hoozi
reenă
tiilă
peenu
nessi
poobi
tuugu
tombă
liiki
găădu
hoonă
găăpi
kăăqu
guulu
riiză
nallă
giizu
rooqu
ruuri
hekku
ceqqu
dakku
gookă
hiibi
hocci
loogi
qaară
hiimă
hiicu
neegu
beeru
mappi
qooki
toomi
băăkă
sarră
siiru
naami
meetă
laqqă
nendi
tocci
sendă
qeemi
nuuni
poppă
qaaci
meelu
kuuru
qiiqi
lammu
ciilu
hattu
haagi
tenni
qăări
săăbu
raani
raapi
pengă
qiiză
muuqu
beequ
quudă
sekkă
tappă
meegi
noccă
poqqu
korri
daadă
bendu
kăăzi
peeti
măăcă
răăpu
haaqă
lanni
diili
hendu
barru
saqqă
seegi
lengu
maati
răăză
huukă
keqqi
năăbă
goolă
qoocă
maază
kuuli
tăăqi
săăki
găăgi
neccă
qaabă
lennu
dombi
giici
coopu
nolli
tellu
beeli
ruugu
baqqu
leelu
kootă
setti
hiidă
piipi
dassu
hiiri
qeedi
peeri
săăli
puudu
moobă
hoogă
sallu
dăămi
hooqu
liidi
nuuzu
qăăcu
dacci
koqqi
kuucă
gaali
sammu
reeru
qiibi
cerru
kessă
seepi
rengi
tuulă
hondu
lăădi
seeqă
mootă
tuudă
seccu
rakki
daari
taară
qiilă
suugă
ceeti
tăădă
naană
reetu
saaqi
puuci
quuqi
haazu
pookă
gondi
riiti
năătă
keccu
geeqi
natti
beedi
maqqă
terră
hongi
dooră
poolă
tekku
nuubă
dokkă
ceeqi
seqqi
deetă
meeqă
kaadă
kiigă
seezu
ceekă
nuuku
sessă
loomu
qiimă
siică
ceemă
qăăti
buumă
deeni
măăbu
macci
suupă
kekkă
roppi
geedă
duuru
cooqi
noqqu
tiigu
naabu
bettă
lombi
diibu
măănă
noobi
gassă
tiibi
naatu
muubu
cendi
catti
gaqqi
deebă
rarru
pongă
haaci
perru
coomă
răăbi
cookă
siiqu
niiku
peqqu
hootu
looră
sooră
leqqi
teequ
noogu
qessu
kăătu
dăănă
koccu
ciimu
laapu
sembi
haani
luuqu
căăku
cemmi
naaru
moolu
hooki
pooti
păăgi
puupi
moozu
leeku
tossu
neeti
niigi
paană
guuku
raată
bottă
suucă
biibi
pelli
nettu
gaatu
sangi
biikă
kăăbu
băăti
laaqi
riicu
qaani
hăăti
toogă
karră
baccă
porru
moppu
kuutu
piigi
hiipu
talli
neeri
giidu
gommi
guură
măătu
miili
gottu
deezu
gessi
ciiqă
daabi
qangă
dembi
doobă
koppu
cuumu
nokki
teppi
rollu
colli
gooqi
siibu
găăci
puută
pandă
mellă
paatu
pekki
beqqă
dooku
daqqă
caatu
keegi
saakă
sappi
tiipu
quuză
rekku
doqqi
baată
liibu
năăqă
pokki
seebă
neeqi
noodă
dattă
corru
boomi
paaru

Taaluketti

2009-08-16T08:22:36Z

Fofofo5: /* Pronunciation and orthography */

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

Taaluketti may be broadly categorised as a highly regular SOV type language which makes use of particles rather than inflexions to indicate such things as case and tense. Like Gaaziketti, it uses parsing markers to enable any sentence to be unambiguously parsed. However, while Gaaziketti took the ''noun'' to be basic, in Taaluketti the basic part of speech is the ''verb''. In some ways Taaluketti is similar to Loglan. However, Taaluketti aims to be more flexible and intuitive than Loglan. Each "verb" (or rather, predicate) in Loglan has associated with it a certain place structure, and it is this place structure, rather than the use of adpositions or case endings, that enables one to know where each noun phrase stands in relation to the verb/predicate. In Taaluketti, however, a verb will come with no fixed place structure. Rather, any number of noun phrases may be coupled with a given verb, and their relation to the verb is indicated by the use of postpositions (such as '''ko''' to indicate the accusative case).

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following 21 Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''s''' is always unvoiced.

'''r''' is rolled.

The other consonants are pronounced as in English. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

Double consonants are pronounced double, as in Italian, Finnish, etc..

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be verbs – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

== Statements [S] ==

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as a phrase which ''says of something that it is the case''.

== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ==

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Pronouns ===

A basic kind of noun phrase is the pronoun. Some common pronouns are as follows.

1st person singular '''qe'''

1st person plural '''quu'''

2nd person singular '''ve'''

2nd person plural '''vuu'''

3rd person animate singular '''taa'''

3rd person inanim. singular '''zo'''

3rd person plural (animate or inanimate) '''dau'''

Like other noun phrases, pronouns take postpositions, such as '''ko'''.

== Verbs [A…A>S] ==

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''verbs''. A verb in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a verb can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a verb will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

== Articles [F>S] ==
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [F>S]. A common article is '''le''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

== Verbal particles [V>V] ==

Verbal particles are added after a verb, and form an extension of the verb. These are generally used to indicate verbal aspect, tense and mood.

=== Aspect ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after a verb and are used to indicate aspect.

Simple ''(nil)''

Habitual '''baa'''

Continuous '''nii'''

Perfect '''haa'''

Future '''tau'''

=== Tense ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect particle (if there is one), and are used to indicate tense.

Present (usually omitted) '''nee'''

Past (sometimes omitted if context allows) '''co'''

Future (same as aspect marker for future) '''tau'''

=== Mood ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect and tense particles (if there are any), and are used to indicate mood.

Indicative ''(nil)''

Imperative '''vaa'''

Infinitive ''(nil)''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-16T08:18:14Z

Fofofo5: /* Background */

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

Taaluketti may be broadly categorised as a highly regular SOV type language which makes use of particles rather than inflexions to indicate such things as case and tense. Like Gaaziketti, it uses parsing markers to enable any sentence to be unambiguously parsed. However, while Gaaziketti took the ''noun'' to be basic, in Taaluketti the basic part of speech is the ''verb''. In some ways Taaluketti is similar to Loglan. However, Taaluketti aims to be more flexible and intuitive than Loglan. Each "verb" (or rather, predicate) in Loglan has associated with it a certain place structure, and it is this place structure, rather than the use of adpositions or case endings, that enables one to know where each noun phrase stands in relation to the verb/predicate. In Taaluketti, however, a verb will come with no fixed place structure. Rather, any number of noun phrases may be coupled with a given verb, and their relation to the verb is indicated by the use of postpositions (such as '''ko''' to indicate the accusative case).

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following 21 Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be verbs – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

== Statements [S] ==

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as a phrase which ''says of something that it is the case''.

== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ==

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Pronouns ===

A basic kind of noun phrase is the pronoun. Some common pronouns are as follows.

1st person singular '''qe'''

1st person plural '''quu'''

2nd person singular '''ve'''

2nd person plural '''vuu'''

3rd person animate singular '''taa'''

3rd person inanim. singular '''zo'''

3rd person plural (animate or inanimate) '''dau'''

Like other noun phrases, pronouns take postpositions, such as '''ko'''.

== Verbs [A…A>S] ==

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''verbs''. A verb in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a verb can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a verb will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

== Articles [F>S] ==
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [F>S]. A common article is '''le''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

== Verbal particles [V>V] ==

Verbal particles are added after a verb, and form an extension of the verb. These are generally used to indicate verbal aspect, tense and mood.

=== Aspect ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after a verb and are used to indicate aspect.

Simple ''(nil)''

Habitual '''baa'''

Continuous '''nii'''

Perfect '''haa'''

Future '''tau'''

=== Tense ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect particle (if there is one), and are used to indicate tense.

Present (usually omitted) '''nee'''

Past (sometimes omitted if context allows) '''co'''

Future (same as aspect marker for future) '''tau'''

=== Mood ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect and tense particles (if there are any), and are used to indicate mood.

Indicative ''(nil)''

Imperative '''vaa'''

Infinitive ''(nil)''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-16T08:16:51Z

Fofofo5: /* Pronunciation and orthography */

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

Taaluketti may be broadly categorised as a highly regular SOV which makes use of particles rather than inflexions to indicate such things as case and tense. Like Gaaziketti, it uses parsing markers to enable any sentence to be unambiguously parsed. However, while Gaaziketti took the ''noun'' to be basic, in Taaluketti the basic part of speech is the ''verb''. In some ways Taaluketti is similar to Loglan. However, Taaluketti aims to be more flexible and intuitive than Loglan. Each "verb" (or rather, predicate) in Loglan has associated with it a certain place structure, and it is this place structure, rather than the use of adpositions or case endings, that enables one to know where each noun phrase stands in relation to the verb/predicate. In Taaluketti, however, a verb will come with no fixed place structure. Rather, any number of noun phrases may be coupled with a given verb, and their relation to the verb is indicated by the use of postpositions (such as '''ko''' to indicate the accusative case).

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following 21 Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be verbs – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

== Statements [S] ==

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as a phrase which ''says of something that it is the case''.

== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ==

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Pronouns ===

A basic kind of noun phrase is the pronoun. Some common pronouns are as follows.

1st person singular '''qe'''

1st person plural '''quu'''

2nd person singular '''ve'''

2nd person plural '''vuu'''

3rd person animate singular '''taa'''

3rd person inanim. singular '''zo'''

3rd person plural (animate or inanimate) '''dau'''

Like other noun phrases, pronouns take postpositions, such as '''ko'''.

== Verbs [A…A>S] ==

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''verbs''. A verb in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a verb can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a verb will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

== Articles [F>S] ==
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [F>S]. A common article is '''le''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

== Verbal particles [V>V] ==

Verbal particles are added after a verb, and form an extension of the verb. These are generally used to indicate verbal aspect, tense and mood.

=== Aspect ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after a verb and are used to indicate aspect.

Simple ''(nil)''

Habitual '''baa'''

Continuous '''nii'''

Perfect '''haa'''

Future '''tau'''

=== Tense ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect particle (if there is one), and are used to indicate tense.

Present (usually omitted) '''nee'''

Past (sometimes omitted if context allows) '''co'''

Future (same as aspect marker for future) '''tau'''

=== Mood ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect and tense particles (if there are any), and are used to indicate mood.

Indicative ''(nil)''

Imperative '''vaa'''

Infinitive ''(nil)''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-16T08:15:06Z

Fofofo5: /* Background */

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

Taaluketti may be broadly categorised as a highly regular SOV which makes use of particles rather than inflexions to indicate such things as case and tense. Like Gaaziketti, it uses parsing markers to enable any sentence to be unambiguously parsed. However, while Gaaziketti took the ''noun'' to be basic, in Taaluketti the basic part of speech is the ''verb''. In some ways Taaluketti is similar to Loglan. However, Taaluketti aims to be more flexible and intuitive than Loglan. Each "verb" (or rather, predicate) in Loglan has associated with it a certain place structure, and it is this place structure, rather than the use of adpositions or case endings, that enables one to know where each noun phrase stands in relation to the verb/predicate. In Taaluketti, however, a verb will come with no fixed place structure. Rather, any number of noun phrases may be coupled with a given verb, and their relation to the verb is indicated by the use of postpositions (such as '''ko''' to indicate the accusative case).

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be verbs – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

== Statements [S] ==

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as a phrase which ''says of something that it is the case''.

== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ==

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Pronouns ===

A basic kind of noun phrase is the pronoun. Some common pronouns are as follows.

1st person singular '''qe'''

1st person plural '''quu'''

2nd person singular '''ve'''

2nd person plural '''vuu'''

3rd person animate singular '''taa'''

3rd person inanim. singular '''zo'''

3rd person plural (animate or inanimate) '''dau'''

Like other noun phrases, pronouns take postpositions, such as '''ko'''.

== Verbs [A…A>S] ==

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''verbs''. A verb in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a verb can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a verb will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

== Articles [F>S] ==
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [F>S]. A common article is '''le''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

== Verbal particles [V>V] ==

Verbal particles are added after a verb, and form an extension of the verb. These are generally used to indicate verbal aspect, tense and mood.

=== Aspect ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after a verb and are used to indicate aspect.

Simple ''(nil)''

Habitual '''baa'''

Continuous '''nii'''

Perfect '''haa'''

Future '''tau'''

=== Tense ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect particle (if there is one), and are used to indicate tense.

Present (usually omitted) '''nee'''

Past (sometimes omitted if context allows) '''co'''

Future (same as aspect marker for future) '''tau'''

=== Mood ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect and tense particles (if there are any), and are used to indicate mood.

Indicative ''(nil)''

Imperative '''vaa'''

Infinitive ''(nil)''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-16T08:14:23Z

Fofofo5:

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

Taaluketti may be broadly categorised as a highly regular SOV which makes use of particles rather than inflexions to indicate such things as case and tense. Like Gaaziketti, it uses parsing markers to enable any sentence to be unambiguously parsed. In this respect it is similar to Gaaziketti. However, while Gaaziketti took the ''noun'' to be basic, in Taaluketti the basic part of speech is the ''verb''. In some ways Taaluketti is similar to Loglan. However, Taaluketti aims to be more flexible and intuitive than Loglan. Each "verb" (or rather, predicate) in Loglan has associated with it a certain place structure, and it is this place structure, rather than the use of adpositions or case endings, that enables one to know where each noun phrase stands in relation to the verb/predicate. In Taaluketti, however, a verb will come with no fixed place structure. Rather, any number of noun phrases may be coupled with a given verb, and their relation to the verb is indicated by the use of postpositions (such as '''ko''' to indicate the accusative case).

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be verbs – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

== Statements [S] ==

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as a phrase which ''says of something that it is the case''.

== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ==

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Pronouns ===

A basic kind of noun phrase is the pronoun. Some common pronouns are as follows.

1st person singular '''qe'''

1st person plural '''quu'''

2nd person singular '''ve'''

2nd person plural '''vuu'''

3rd person animate singular '''taa'''

3rd person inanim. singular '''zo'''

3rd person plural (animate or inanimate) '''dau'''

Like other noun phrases, pronouns take postpositions, such as '''ko'''.

== Verbs [A…A>S] ==

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''verbs''. A verb in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a verb can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a verb will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

== Articles [F>S] ==
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [F>S]. A common article is '''le''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

== Verbal particles [V>V] ==

Verbal particles are added after a verb, and form an extension of the verb. These are generally used to indicate verbal aspect, tense and mood.

=== Aspect ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after a verb and are used to indicate aspect.

Simple ''(nil)''

Habitual '''baa'''

Continuous '''nii'''

Perfect '''haa'''

Future '''tau'''

=== Tense ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect particle (if there is one), and are used to indicate tense.

Present (usually omitted) '''nee'''

Past (sometimes omitted if context allows) '''co'''

Future (same as aspect marker for future) '''tau'''

=== Mood ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect and tense particles (if there are any), and are used to indicate mood.

Indicative ''(nil)''

Imperative '''vaa'''

Infinitive ''(nil)''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-16T08:00:29Z

Fofofo5: Personal pronouns

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be verbs – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

== Statements [S] ==

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as a phrase which ''says of something that it is the case''.

== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ==

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Pronouns ===

A basic kind of noun phrase is the pronoun. Some common pronouns are as follows.

1st person singular '''qe'''

1st person plural '''quu'''

2nd person singular '''ve'''

2nd person plural '''vuu'''

3rd person animate singular '''taa'''

3rd person inanim. singular '''zo'''

3rd person plural (animate or inanimate) '''dau'''

Like other noun phrases, pronouns take postpositions, such as '''ko'''.

== Verbs [A…A>S] ==

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''verbs''. A verb in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a verb can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a verb will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

== Articles [F>S] ==
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [F>S]. A common article is '''le''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

== Verbal particles [V>V] ==

Verbal particles are added after a verb, and form an extension of the verb. These are generally used to indicate verbal aspect, tense and mood.

=== Aspect ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after a verb and are used to indicate aspect.

Simple ''(nil)''

Habitual '''baa'''

Continuous '''nii'''

Perfect '''haa'''

Future '''tau'''

=== Tense ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect particle (if there is one), and are used to indicate tense.

Present (usually omitted) '''nee'''

Past (sometimes omitted if context allows) '''co'''

Future (same as aspect marker for future) '''tau'''

=== Mood ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect and tense particles (if there are any), and are used to indicate mood.

Indicative ''(nil)''

Imperative '''vaa'''

Infinitive ''(nil)''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-16T07:51:33Z

Fofofo5: Minor restructure of article sections

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be verbs – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

== Statements [S] ==

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as a phrase which ''says of something that it is the case''.

== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ==

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

== Verbs [A…A>S] ==

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''verbs''. A verb in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a verb can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a verb will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

== Articles [F>S] ==
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [F>S]. A common article is '''le''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

== Verbal particles [V>V] ==

Verbal particles are added after a verb, and form an extension of the verb. These are generally used to indicate verbal aspect, tense and mood.

=== Aspect ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after a verb and are used to indicate aspect.

Simple ''(nil)''

Habitual '''baa'''

Continuous '''nii'''

Perfect '''haa'''

Future '''tau'''

=== Tense ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect particle (if there is one), and are used to indicate tense.

Present (usually omitted) '''nee'''

Past (sometimes omitted if context allows) '''co'''

Future (same as aspect marker for future) '''tau'''

=== Mood ===

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect and tense particles (if there are any), and are used to indicate mood.

Indicative ''(nil)''

Imperative '''vaa'''

Infinitive ''(nil)''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-16T07:48:34Z

Fofofo5: Verbal particles, tense, aspect and mood

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be verbs – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

=== Phrases [F] ===

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as a phrase which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Verbs [A…A>S] ===

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''verbs''. A verb in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a verb can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a verb will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

=== Articles [F>S] ===
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [F>S]. A common article is '''le''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

=== Verbal particles [V>V] ===

Verbal particles are added after a verb, and form an extension of the verb. These are generally used to indicate verbal aspect, tense and mood.

==== Aspect ====

The following verbal particles come immediately after a verb and are used to indicate aspect.

Simple ''(nil)''

Habitual '''baa'''

Continuous '''nii'''

Perfect '''haa'''

Future '''tau'''

==== Tense ====

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect particle (if there is one), and are used to indicate tense.

Present (usually omitted) '''nee'''

Past (sometimes omitted if context allows) '''co'''

Future (same as aspect marker for future) '''tau'''

==== Mood ====

The following verbal particles come immediately after the aspect and tense particles (if there are any), and are used to indicate mood.

Indicative ''(nil)''

Imperative '''vaa'''

Infinitive ''(nil)''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-16T07:32:44Z

Fofofo5: /* Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases */

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be verbs – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

=== Phrases [F] ===

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as a phrase which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Verbs [A…A>S] ===

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''verbs''. A verb in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a verb can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a verb will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

=== Articles [F>S] ===
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [F>S]. A common article is '''le''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Talk:Gaaziketti

2009-08-16T07:31:00Z

Fofofo5:

I notice this was removed from the category "Conlangs". Is this because it is described as being no longer actively developed? [[User:Fofofo5]]

Talk:Gaaziketti

2009-08-16T07:30:33Z

Fofofo5:

I notice this was removed from the category "Conlangs". Is this because it is described as being no longer actively developed? [[Fofofo5]]

Taaluketti:Lexicon

2009-08-16T07:29:54Z

Fofofo5: Change terminology. "Predicate-cores" are now called "verbs". This is less misleading and more intuitive.

See also:

[[Taaluketti]]

== Articles [F>N] ==

*'''le''' ''definite singular article''

*'''go''' ''definite plural article''

*'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

*'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

== Postpositions [N>A] ==

*'''ko''' ''accusative''
*'''ze''' ''possessive, genitive''

== Verbs [A…A>S] ==
*''' beetu ''' be a garden
*''' booru ''' drown (intrans.)
*''' cainu ''' be mustard
*'''cecca''' be a soldier
*''' ceeza ''' be an army
*'''cooqi''' be silent
*''' cuuku ''' be a wife
*''' daubu ''' be an organ (of body)
*'''deela''' be an enemy
*''' gooma ''' be an referee, umpire
*''' haiga''' be a movie
*''' hauka ''' be a curtain
*'''kaidu''' be a worker
*''' kauna ''' be a populace
*''' kooba ''' be a jacket
*'''kossa''' be a jewel
*'''kuubu''' be a slave
*''' luudi ''' be a goat
*''' luuli ''' be a pan, frying pan
*'''mennu''' be a name
*''' moogi ''' be an ant
*''' motti ''' be an egg
*''' naapa ''' be cotton
*'''nauzu''' be original
*''' paumu''' be a person
*''' pauqa ''' be a sign (as in a streetsign or public notice)
*''' qassi''' have
*''' qeetu ''' be a mirror
*''' qocci ''' be a beard
*''' raalu ''' be an arrow
*'''raazu''' criticise
*''' raucu ''' be wealthy, rich
*''' riigu ''' be a scale (as in measuring device)
*''' sombi ''' run
*''' tiicu ''' be a pig
*''' tuuza ''' be a helmet

[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:General lexica]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-16T07:29:17Z

Fofofo5: Change terminology. "Predicates" are now called "verbs". This is less misleading and more intuitive.

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be words of type [Pc] – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

=== Phrases [F] ===

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as a phrase which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Verbs [A…A>S] ===

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''verbs''. A verb in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a verb can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a verb will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

=== Articles [F>S] ===
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [F>S]. A common article is '''le''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-15T14:16:17Z

Fofofo5: /* Statements [S] */

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be words of type [Pc] – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

=== Phrases [F] ===

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as a phrase which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Predicates [A…A>S] ===

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''predicates''. A predicate in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a predicate can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a predicate will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

=== Articles [F>S] ===
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [F>S]. A common article is '''le''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti:Lexicon

2009-08-15T14:14:07Z

Fofofo5: /* Articles [F>N] */

See also:

[[Taaluketti]]

== Articles [F>N] ==

*'''le''' ''definite singular article''

*'''go''' ''definite plural article''

*'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

*'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

== Postpositions [N>A] ==

*'''ko''' ''accusative''
*'''ze''' ''possessive, genitive''

== Predicate-cores [A…A>S] ==
*''' beetu ''' be a garden
*''' booru ''' drown (intrans.)
*''' cainu ''' be mustard
*'''cecca''' be a soldier
*''' ceeza ''' be an army
*'''cooqi''' be silent
*''' cuuku ''' be a wife
*''' daubu ''' be an organ (of body)
*'''deela''' be an enemy
*''' gooma ''' be an referee, umpire
*''' haiga''' be a movie
*''' hauka ''' be a curtain
*'''kaidu''' be a worker
*''' kauna ''' be a populace
*''' kooba ''' be a jacket
*'''kossa''' be a jewel
*'''kuubu''' be a slave
*''' luudi ''' be a goat
*''' luuli ''' be a pan, frying pan
*'''mennu''' be a name
*''' moogi ''' be an ant
*''' motti ''' be an egg
*''' naapa ''' be cotton
*'''nauzu''' be original
*''' paumu''' be a person
*''' pauqa ''' be a sign (as in a streetsign or public notice)
*''' qassi''' have
*''' qeetu ''' be a mirror
*''' qocci ''' be a beard
*''' raalu ''' be an arrow
*'''raazu''' criticise
*''' raucu ''' be wealthy, rich
*''' riigu ''' be a scale (as in measuring device)
*''' sombi ''' run
*''' tiicu ''' be a pig
*''' tuuza ''' be a helmet

[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:General lexica]]

Taaluketti:Lexicon

2009-08-15T14:12:39Z

Fofofo5: /* Predicate-cores [Pc] [Ap…Ap>S] */

See also:

[[Taaluketti]]

== Articles [F>N] ==
*'''le''' the ''A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.
''

== Postpositions [N>A] ==

*'''ko''' ''accusative''
*'''ze''' ''possessive, genitive''

== Predicate-cores [A…A>S] ==
*''' beetu ''' be a garden
*''' booru ''' drown (intrans.)
*''' cainu ''' be mustard
*'''cecca''' be a soldier
*''' ceeza ''' be an army
*'''cooqi''' be silent
*''' cuuku ''' be a wife
*''' daubu ''' be an organ (of body)
*'''deela''' be an enemy
*''' gooma ''' be an referee, umpire
*''' haiga''' be a movie
*''' hauka ''' be a curtain
*'''kaidu''' be a worker
*''' kauna ''' be a populace
*''' kooba ''' be a jacket
*'''kossa''' be a jewel
*'''kuubu''' be a slave
*''' luudi ''' be a goat
*''' luuli ''' be a pan, frying pan
*'''mennu''' be a name
*''' moogi ''' be an ant
*''' motti ''' be an egg
*''' naapa ''' be cotton
*'''nauzu''' be original
*''' paumu''' be a person
*''' pauqa ''' be a sign (as in a streetsign or public notice)
*''' qassi''' have
*''' qeetu ''' be a mirror
*''' qocci ''' be a beard
*''' raalu ''' be an arrow
*'''raazu''' criticise
*''' raucu ''' be wealthy, rich
*''' riigu ''' be a scale (as in measuring device)
*''' sombi ''' run
*''' tiicu ''' be a pig
*''' tuuza ''' be a helmet

[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:General lexica]]

Taaluketti:Lexicon

2009-08-15T14:12:20Z

Fofofo5: /* Postpositions [Np>Ap] */

See also:

[[Taaluketti]]

== Articles [F>N] ==
*'''le''' the ''A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.
''

== Postpositions [N>A] ==

*'''ko''' ''accusative''
*'''ze''' ''possessive, genitive''

== Predicate-cores [Pc] [Ap…Ap>S] ==
*''' beetu ''' be a garden
*''' booru ''' drown (intrans.)
*''' cainu ''' be mustard
*'''cecca''' be a soldier
*''' ceeza ''' be an army
*'''cooqi''' be silent
*''' cuuku ''' be a wife
*''' daubu ''' be an organ (of body)
*'''deela''' be an enemy
*''' gooma ''' be an referee, umpire
*''' haiga''' be a movie
*''' hauka ''' be a curtain
*'''kaidu''' be a worker
*''' kauna ''' be a populace
*''' kooba ''' be a jacket
*'''kossa''' be a jewel
*'''kuubu''' be a slave
*''' luudi ''' be a goat
*''' luuli ''' be a pan, frying pan
*'''mennu''' be a name
*''' moogi ''' be an ant
*''' motti ''' be an egg
*''' naapa ''' be cotton
*'''nauzu''' be original
*''' paumu''' be a person
*''' pauqa ''' be a sign (as in a streetsign or public notice)
*''' qassi''' have
*''' qeetu ''' be a mirror
*''' qocci ''' be a beard
*''' raalu ''' be an arrow
*'''raazu''' criticise
*''' raucu ''' be wealthy, rich
*''' riigu ''' be a scale (as in measuring device)
*''' sombi ''' run
*''' tiicu ''' be a pig
*''' tuuza ''' be a helmet

[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:General lexica]]

Taaluketti:Lexicon

2009-08-15T14:11:51Z

Fofofo5: /* Noun-heads [Nh] [...>Np] */

See also:

[[Taaluketti]]

== Articles [F>N] ==
*'''le''' the ''A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.
''

== Postpositions [Np>Ap] ==

*'''ko''' ''accusative''
*'''ze''' ''possessive, genitive''

== Predicate-cores [Pc] [Ap…Ap>S] ==
*''' beetu ''' be a garden
*''' booru ''' drown (intrans.)
*''' cainu ''' be mustard
*'''cecca''' be a soldier
*''' ceeza ''' be an army
*'''cooqi''' be silent
*''' cuuku ''' be a wife
*''' daubu ''' be an organ (of body)
*'''deela''' be an enemy
*''' gooma ''' be an referee, umpire
*''' haiga''' be a movie
*''' hauka ''' be a curtain
*'''kaidu''' be a worker
*''' kauna ''' be a populace
*''' kooba ''' be a jacket
*'''kossa''' be a jewel
*'''kuubu''' be a slave
*''' luudi ''' be a goat
*''' luuli ''' be a pan, frying pan
*'''mennu''' be a name
*''' moogi ''' be an ant
*''' motti ''' be an egg
*''' naapa ''' be cotton
*'''nauzu''' be original
*''' paumu''' be a person
*''' pauqa ''' be a sign (as in a streetsign or public notice)
*''' qassi''' have
*''' qeetu ''' be a mirror
*''' qocci ''' be a beard
*''' raalu ''' be an arrow
*'''raazu''' criticise
*''' raucu ''' be wealthy, rich
*''' riigu ''' be a scale (as in measuring device)
*''' sombi ''' run
*''' tiicu ''' be a pig
*''' tuuza ''' be a helmet

[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:General lexica]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-15T14:09:32Z

Fofofo5: /* Phrase types */

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be words of type [Pc] – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

=== Phrases [F] ===

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as something which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Predicates [A…A>S] ===

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''predicates''. A predicate in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a predicate can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a predicate will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

=== Articles [F>S] ===
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [F>S]. A common article is '''le''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-15T14:08:56Z

Fofofo5: /* Articles [R] */

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be words of type [Pc] – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as something which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Predicates [A…A>S] ===

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''predicates''. A predicate in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a predicate can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a predicate will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

=== Articles [F>S] ===
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [F>S]. A common article is '''le''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-15T14:07:35Z

Fofofo5: Introduce the catch-all type [F]

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be words of type [Pc] – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

The most general class is simply the ''phrase'' [F]. All phrases belong to type [F].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as something which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Predicates [A…A>S] ===

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''predicates''. A predicate in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a predicate can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a predicate will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

=== Articles [R] ===
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [R]. A common article is '''le''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-15T14:03:59Z

Fofofo5: Simplify terminology

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be words of type [Pc] – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as something which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [A], noun phrases [N] and postpositions [N>A] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [N]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [N] and form a phrase of class [A], i.e. postpositions are of class [N>A].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Predicates [A…A>S] ===

Words of the class [A…A>S] are called ''predicates''. A predicate in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a predicate can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a predicate will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

=== Articles [R] ===
To make a noun-phrase [N], you need an ''article'' [R]. A common article is '''le''', which, roughly speaking, corresponds to the definite singular article. A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [N], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common articles are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-15T13:59:14Z

Fofofo5: Simplify nomenclature for predicate(core)s

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be words of type [Pc] – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as something which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [A] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

=== Predicates [A…A>S] ===

Words of the class [Ap…Ap>S] are called ''predicates''. A predicate in Taaluketti is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a predicate can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a predicate will be an adverbial phrase [A]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

=== Adverbial phrases [Ap], noun phrases [Np] and postpositions [Np>Ap] ===

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase [Ap]. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [Np]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [Np] and form a phrase of class [Ap], i.e. postpositions are of class [Np>Ap].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Noun-heads [Nh] ===
To make noun-phrases [Np], you’ve got a bunch of what are called noun-heads [Nh]. A common noun-head is '''le''', meaning – roughly – "the". A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [Np], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common noun-heads are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-15T13:57:28Z

Fofofo5: Simplify abbreviation

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be words of type [Pc] – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as something which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [A] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [A].

=== Predicate-cores [Ap…Ap>S] [Pc] ===

Words of the class [Ap…Ap>S] are called “predicate-cores”. We can use the symbol "[Pc]" as an abbreviation for "[Ap…Ap>S]". A predicate-core is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a predicate-core can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a predicate-core will be an adverbial phrase [Ap]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

=== Adverbial phrases [Ap], noun phrases [Np] and postpositions [Np>Ap] ===

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase [Ap]. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [Np]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [Np] and form a phrase of class [Ap], i.e. postpositions are of class [Np>Ap].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Noun-heads [Nh] ===
To make noun-phrases [Np], you’ve got a bunch of what are called noun-heads [Nh]. A common noun-head is '''le''', meaning – roughly – "the". A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [Np], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common noun-heads are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-15T13:55:46Z

Fofofo5: /* Noun-heads [Nh] */

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be words of type [Pc] – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as something which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [Ap] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [Ap].

=== Predicate-cores [Ap…Ap>S] [Pc] ===

Words of the class [Ap…Ap>S] are called “predicate-cores”. We can use the symbol "[Pc]" as an abbreviation for "[Ap…Ap>S]". A predicate-core is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a predicate-core can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a predicate-core will be an adverbial phrase [Ap]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

=== Adverbial phrases [Ap], noun phrases [Np] and postpositions [Np>Ap] ===

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase [Ap]. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [Np]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [Np] and form a phrase of class [Ap], i.e. postpositions are of class [Np>Ap].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Noun-heads [Nh] ===
To make noun-phrases [Np], you’ve got a bunch of what are called noun-heads [Nh]. A common noun-head is '''le''', meaning – roughly – "the". A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [Np], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common noun-heads are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go''' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-15T13:55:26Z

Fofofo5: /* Noun-heads [Nh] */

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be words of type [Pc] – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as something which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [Ap] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [Ap].

=== Predicate-cores [Ap…Ap>S] [Pc] ===

Words of the class [Ap…Ap>S] are called “predicate-cores”. We can use the symbol "[Pc]" as an abbreviation for "[Ap…Ap>S]". A predicate-core is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a predicate-core can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a predicate-core will be an adverbial phrase [Ap]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

=== Adverbial phrases [Ap], noun phrases [Np] and postpositions [Np>Ap] ===

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase [Ap]. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [Np]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [Np] and form a phrase of class [Ap], i.e. postpositions are of class [Np>Ap].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

=== Noun-heads [Nh] ===
To make noun-phrases [Np], you’ve got a bunch of what are called noun-heads [Nh]. A common noun-head is '''le''', meaning – roughly – "the". A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [Np], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common noun-heads are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go'' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-15T13:54:03Z

Fofofo5: /* Adverbial phrases [Ap], noun phrases [Np] and postpositions [Np>Ap] */

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be words of type [Pc] – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as something which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [Ap] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [Ap].

=== Predicate-cores [Ap…Ap>S] [Pc] ===

Words of the class [Ap…Ap>S] are called “predicate-cores”. We can use the symbol "[Pc]" as an abbreviation for "[Ap…Ap>S]". A predicate-core is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a predicate-core can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a predicate-core will be an adverbial phrase [Ap]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

=== Adverbial phrases [Ap], noun phrases [Np] and postpositions [Np>Ap] ===

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase [Ap]. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [Np]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [Np] and form a phrase of class [Ap], i.e. postpositions are of class [Np>Ap].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

== Noun-heads [Nh] ==
To make noun-phrases [Np], you’ve got a bunch of what are called noun-heads [Nh]. A common noun-head is '''le''', meaning – roughly – "the". A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [Np], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common noun-heads are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go'' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-15T13:53:00Z

Fofofo5: /* Noun phrases and noun-heads */

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be words of type [Pc] – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as something which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [Ap] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [Ap].

=== Predicate-cores [Ap…Ap>S] [Pc] ===

Words of the class [Ap…Ap>S] are called “predicate-cores”. We can use the symbol "[Pc]" as an abbreviation for "[Ap…Ap>S]". A predicate-core is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a predicate-core can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a predicate-core will be an adverbial phrase [Ap]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

== Adverbial phrases [Ap], noun phrases [Np] and postpositions [Np>Ap] ==

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase [Ap]. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [Np]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [Np] and form a phrase of class [Ap], i.e. postpositions are of class [Np>Ap].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

== Noun-heads [Nh] ==
To make noun-phrases [Np], you’ve got a bunch of what are called noun-heads [Nh]. A common noun-head is '''le''', meaning – roughly – "the". A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [Np], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

The four most common noun-heads are the following.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''

'''go'' ''definite plural article''

'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''

'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-15T13:51:06Z

Fofofo5: /* = Predicate-cores [Ap…Ap>S], abbrev. [Pc] */

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be words of type [Pc] – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as something which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [Ap] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [Ap].

=== Predicate-cores [Ap…Ap>S] [Pc] ===

Words of the class [Ap…Ap>S] are called “predicate-cores”. We can use the symbol "[Pc]" as an abbreviation for "[Ap…Ap>S]". A predicate-core is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a predicate-core can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a predicate-core will be an adverbial phrase [Ap]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

== Adverbial phrases [Ap], noun phrases [Np] and postpositions [Np>Ap] ==

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase [Ap]. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [Np]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [Np] and form a phrase of class [Ap], i.e. postpositions are of class [Np>Ap].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

== Noun phrases and noun-heads ==
To make noun-phrases [Np], you’ve got a bunch of what are called noun-heads [Nh]. A common noun-head is '''le''', meaning – roughly – "the". A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [Np], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''
'''go'' ''definite plural article''
'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''
'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-15T13:50:33Z

Fofofo5: /* Adverbial phrases [Ap], noun phrases and postpositions [Np>Ap] */

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be words of type [Pc] – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as something which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [Ap] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [Ap].

=== Predicate-cores [Ap…Ap>S], abbrev. [Pc] ==

Words of the class [Ap…Ap>S] are called “predicate-cores”. We can use the symbol "[Pc]" as an abbreviation for "[Ap…Ap>S]". A predicate-core is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a predicate-core can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a predicate-core will be an adverbial phrase [Ap]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

== Adverbial phrases [Ap], noun phrases [Np] and postpositions [Np>Ap] ==

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase [Ap]. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [Np]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [Np] and form a phrase of class [Ap], i.e. postpositions are of class [Np>Ap].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

== Noun phrases and noun-heads ==
To make noun-phrases [Np], you’ve got a bunch of what are called noun-heads [Nh]. A common noun-head is '''le''', meaning – roughly – "the". A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [Np], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''
'''go'' ''definite plural article''
'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''
'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-15T13:50:10Z

Fofofo5: /* Noun phrases and noun-heads */

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be words of type [Pc] – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as something which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [Ap] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [Ap].

=== Predicate-cores [Ap…Ap>S], abbrev. [Pc] ==

Words of the class [Ap…Ap>S] are called “predicate-cores”. We can use the symbol "[Pc]" as an abbreviation for "[Ap…Ap>S]". A predicate-core is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a predicate-core can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a predicate-core will be an adverbial phrase [Ap]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

== Adverbial phrases [Ap], noun phrases and postpositions [Np>Ap] ==

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase [Ap]. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [Np]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [Np] and form a phrase of class [Ap], i.e. postpositions are of class [Np>Ap].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

== Noun phrases and noun-heads ==
To make noun-phrases [Np], you’ve got a bunch of what are called noun-heads [Nh]. A common noun-head is '''le''', meaning – roughly – "the". A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [Np], meaning "the (single) person/object x (in a given context) such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''
'''go'' ''definite plural article''
'''so''' ''indefinite singular article''
'''ve''' ''indefinite plural article''

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]

Taaluketti

2009-08-15T13:47:51Z

Fofofo5: Restructure and expand explanation of various phrases types

See also

[[Taaluketti:Lexicon]]

= Background =

'''Taaluketti''' developed from [[Gaaziketti]]. It is considered by its creator to be better than Gaaziketti at fulfilling the goals of grammatical generality and flexibility. The below is an outline of the structure of this language at its most general level. It remains to generate a lexicon of morphemes that would enable this structure to be applied to achieving the expressive capabilities of natural language.

= Pronunciation and orthography =

The following Roman letters are used.

'''a b c d e g h i k l m n o p q r s t u v z'''

The vowels are read approximately as in Spanish. But double vowels are pronounced long. Double consonants are pronounced double. Like Finnish.

'''q''' is pronounced like the 'ni' in 'onion'.

'''c''' is pronounced like the 'ch' is 'chair'.

'''n''' when at the ''end'' of a word (or medially immediately before 'g' or 'k') is pronounced like the 'ng' is 'song', or else is assimilated to the following consonant, as in Japanese. Elsewhere, it is pronounced like the 'n' in 'sonnet'.

'''r''' is rolled

'''ng''' is pronounced as in 'finger', not as in 'singer'.

'''ai''' is pronounced like 'eye' in 'eye'.

'''au''' is pronounced like the 'ow' in 'cow'.

Other sounds are pretty much pronounced as one would expect. But unvoiced stops are not aspirated. E.g. '''p''' is pronounced always as in 'spot', never as in 'pack'.

In a word with more than one syllable, the first syllable takes the stress.

= Syntax =

== Parsing markers, modification, functors and phrases ==

Every word-token (i.e. individual occurrence of a word in a sentence) will take one of four ''parsing markers'':

(null) "leftmost and only argument of its phrase"

'''-s''' "leftmost argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-n''' "final argument, but not only argument, of its phrase"

'''-k''' "neither the first argument, not the last argument, of its phrase"

Parsing markers are not treated as words – they are “spoken punctuation”. All other morphemes are treated as words except those which are sub-elements of a compound-word. (Compound words are treated as words. Compounds words are strings of morphemes which morphemes, if they were words, would be words of type [Pc] – see below.)

Parsing markers clarify the structure of ''modification'' relations within a sentence. ''Modification'' is a relationship between one individual word-token, and another.

Each word-token is modified by some number (possibly zero) of other word-tokens. No word-token modifies more than one word-token. No word-token modifies a word-token in another sentence. No word-token modifies itself. No word-token modifies a word-token to its left.

Each word-token is in fact a ''functor'', and the words that modify it are the heads of the phrases which are its ''arguments''.

As functors, word-token always pick up their arguments from their left (the opposite of standard mathematical notation). So suppose you’ve got a chain of word-tokens each (except the first) being modified just by its predecessor. (The only parsing marker punctuating such a chain would be the ''null'' marker.) Then you would assume a “((wx)y)z” type of phrasal pattern - ''i.e.'' the default is that brackets cluster to the left.

A functor ''f'' together with its arguments forms a phrase, and ''f'' is said to be the ''head'' of that phrase. When a functor modifies some other functor, this means that the phrase of which the modifying functor is the head is an argument of that other functor.

The use of parsing markers to show what modifies what is perhaps best explained as follows. Parsing markers are shown in bold.

The structure of a phrase is like this: (x1, x2, ... xn)y.

Here y is the head of the phrase, and x1, x2, ..., xn are the n different arguments of y.

Suppose n=0. Then we have a phrase of this form: "y".

Suppose n=1. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1 y".

Suppose n=2. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''n''' y".

Suppose n=3. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''n''' y".

Suppose n=4. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''n''' y".

Suppose n=5. Then we have a phrase of this form: "x1'''s''' x2'''k''' x3'''k''' x4'''k''' x5'''n''' y".

== Phrase types ==

=== Notation ===

Phrases (including word-tokens, which are themselves phrases) may be classified into ''types'' (also called ''classes'').

The notation “[x…x>y]” means that an item of the type [x...x>y] is a functor which takes any number of arguments of class x and, together with these arguments, forms a phrase of class y. So the class of the functor itself is [x…x>y]. In other words, if a functor ''f'' belongs to the class [x...x>y], any phrase of which it is the head is of the class [y]; and each of its arguments is of the class [x].

=== Statements [S] ===

A very basic type is the ''statement'' [S]. Semantically, a statement may be thought of as something which ''says of something that it is the case''.

=== Adverbial phrases [Ap] ===

Another basic type is the adverbial phrase [Ap].

=== Predicate-cores [Ap…Ap>S], abbrev. [Pc] ==

Words of the class [Ap…Ap>S] are called “predicate-cores”. We can use the symbol "[Pc]" as an abbreviation for "[Ap…Ap>S]". A predicate-core is a bit like a predicate in Loglan; ''however'', it doesn’t have an order-based place-structure; and it doesn't have a fixed number of arguments. Syntactically speaking, a predicate-core can take any number of arguments (including 0) (even though some combinations of arguments might not make sense ''semantically'' speaking). Each of the arguments of a predicate-core will be an adverbial phrase [Ap]. The phrase thus formed will be a statement [S].

== Adverbial phrases [Ap], noun phrases and postpositions [Np>Ap] ==

There are two kinds of adverbial phrase [Ap]. There are nominative adverbial phrases, which are just noun-phrases [Np]. And there are complex adverbial phrases, which consist of a noun-phrase followed by a postposition. Postpositions are functors which take a single argument of class [Np] and form a phrase of class [Ap], i.e. postpositions are of class [Np>Ap].

A common postposition is '''ko''', which essentially serves to mark the accusative case.

In summary: any noun-phrase is an adverbial phrase. And any phrase consisting of a single noun-phrase modifying a postposition is an adverbial phrase.

== Noun phrases and noun-heads ==
To make noun-phrases [Np], you’ve got a bunch of what are called noun-heads [Nh]. The commonest noun-head is '''le''', meaning – roughly – "the". A phrase of the form "Y '''le'''" ("Y" being some phrase that is an argument of '''le''') is a noun-phrase [Np], meaning "the (single) person/object x such that "x Y" would be a true sentence", i.e. "the x which satisfies "Y" ". If many Ys each modify '''le''', then '''le''' picks out the single x that satisfies ''all'' of those Ys.

'''le''' ''definite singular article''
'''go'' ''definite plural article''
'''se''' ''indefinite singular article''
'''
Sing. def. l

Pl. def. k

Sing. indef. s

Pl. indef. m

= Example phrases =

Here are some example phrases (some of which are complete sentences), written first with the parsing markers, and then with brackets ''instead'' of parsing markers, in order to show the grammatical structure – the brackets surround a bunch of phrases each of which is an argument of the functor just after the brackets.

'''haara le''' <> the (one that is a) woman

(haara)le

'''hecci le''' <> the one that climbs

(hecci)le

'''heccis haaran le''' <> the one that both climbs and is a woman; the woman that climbs

(hecci.haara)le

'''ko hecci le''' <> the one that is climbed

((ko)hecci)le

'''Gaazi le ko hecci.''' <> The hill is climbed.

(((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''Haara le hecci.''' <> The woman climbs.

((haara)le)hecci

'''gaazi le ko hecci le''' <> the one that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci)le

'''Haara les gaazi le kon hecci.''' <> The woman climbs the hill.

((haara)le.((gaazi)le)ko)hecci

'''gaazi le ko heccis haaran le''' <> the woman that climbs the hill

((((gaazi)le)ko)hecci.haara)le

'''kos haara len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''Hecci le haara.''' <> The one that climbs is a woman.

((hecci)le)haara

'''kos hecci len heccis gaazin le''' <> the hill which the one that climbs climbs

((ko.(hecci)le)hecci.gaazi)le

'''kos haara len hecci le''' <> the one which the woman climbs

((ko.(haara)le)hecci)le

[[Category:Conlangs]]
[[Category:Taaluketti]]
[[Category:A priori conlangs]]