Bryatesle
From KneeQuickie
Bryatesle is Miekko's first published conlang, and has been a work in progress for a bit over two years. Most of the development has occured during late 2003 and 2004.
When there is a discrepancy between this file and the .pdf on my homesite, this currently takes precedence. (As of 06.01.2005.)
Also, I'd be happy to answer any questions, so use the discussion page eagerly.
I'd be happy if someone who knows German'd read through it and check the terminology. I'm content if it's good German, the terminology needn't have any precedents in German linguistics
Design Principles
- A carefully designed syntax
- The syntax is constructed from a slightly simplified variety of X-bar theory
- The adjectives constitute a closed class of less than fifty specific words
- Most words cover a rather wide semantic field compared to those of English
- A nonstandard case system, without being all too nonstandard
- Lots of rather idiomatic usages of certain cases
- Use of verb duplication
- No infinitives
- Realism
- No weird for weird's sake.
- Consistency among the features, and the features should be interconnected in some way or other
- Many loose ends
Influences
- X-bar theory
- Russian
- Finnish
- Preverbal arguments
- Albanian
- Certain features of Swedish
- a line from the lyrics to a song by a mediocre alternative rock band
- various books on syntax, typology, ergativity, etc
What can be mentioned is that the preverbal arguments, as their usage was designed etc, they slowly morphed quite seriously, and have thence been replaced by the subject/object complements. The old idea of preverbal arguments as I had envisioned them has been resurrected in Glansbild, at least unless that Sprache develops in unexpected directions.
Preface / Pseudophilosophical preamble
The speakers of bryatesle, to use a phrase borrowed from object oriented programming, are a subclass of, to use the terminology of Platon, die Begriff of humans. This means they, by far, inherit most of the properties and functions of humans, but that I have the opportunity to add or overwrite some features. Of course, the problems suddenly abound due to the fact that I do not know all the properties of humans - and this, subsequently, becomes more obvious the more detailed my description of something about them is. This especially applies to the language. In the syntax, I have dared create a couple of underlying functions, that are easily explained using the standard syntactic tree as an illustration. Since most of the bryatesle syntax in fact predates those functions, it will be less consistent than the other -bild languages.
I am, however, not in possession of such knowledge that I would be able to say if these functions are anything like those that really operate in human syntax.
About the speakers
The majority of Bryatesle speakers are very dark skinned, tend to have black, straight hair. They also have epicanthic folds. For men, the average length is 170-174 cm, for women 162-167 cm. On average, their expected length of life is somewhat longer than for humans living under the same circumstances.
Phonology
Consonants
Bryatesle has the following consonants: /p b p\ B m/ Nothing about these is remarkable.
/t_d d_d s_d z_d l_d n_d/ all these are pronounced apicodentally, except /l_d/ which often is laminointerdental. /s_d/ and /z_d/ are regionally pronounced like /T D/.
/t d S r_r l n/ /r_r/ has developed from an earlier *Z. All of these tend to be laminopostalveolar or postlaminopostalveolar. Some vague palatalization can be traced in all of them, when close to front vowels, but none too noticeable. In dialects where /s_d/ > [T], it is not wholly uncommon that /S/ > [s].
/k g x/
There is no velar nasal, nor does - in the majority of dialects - the cluster of a nasal and a velar produce such an allophone.
/h/ varies from /h\/ to /X\/.
Allophones
Consonants
The labials don't have any specific allophones as far poa goes. A vague labialization with /u/ can be detected. With /i/, palatalization is detectable, but not particularly strongly. /p/ or /b/ occuring in front of other stops except word initially > /p\/ or /B/, the voicing assimilates to fit with the following consonant.
/m/ like other nasals, devoices word finally after voiceless consonants. Stops preceeding the voiceless /m/ fricativize, which is not the case with the voiceless allophone of /n/.
The dentals - the lips are slightly widened during the articulation. They only occur preceeding two different vowels: /i/ and /E/, and their unstressed, somewhat mid-centralised allophones. They occur as the final part of clusters with diverse other consonants. I haven't really worked out what will happen to these yet.
The postalveolars - various stuff.
/t1/ and /d1/ tends towards [ c1 ] and [ J\1 ] in nearly all dialects.
Velars have no palatal allophones. /l/ and /n/ have regular palatalized allophones in front of /i/. This tendancy is not as strong for the other postalveolars. (In some dialects to the north, where palatalization and (alveo)palatalness is more prominent, the most extreme dialects - at the center of the phonogloss for strong palatalization - have t and d go [ c ] or [ J\] or even [ cC) ]and [ J\j\) ] preceeding /i/. /x/ does a fair share of voicing assimilation.
The velars tend to backen a bit towards uvular when in the vicinity of /A/. When in the vicinity of an unstressed /A/ ( [ @_- ] - (no, that's not a smilie who's gotten hit over his eye ) this is way less notable. Velars and labials tend to labialize in the vicinity of /u/, this even when /u/ preceeds them. This rounding, although somewhat weakened, tends to spread towards the next vowel - <uka> [ M_x_o,k_wQ ] or [ ,uk_w8_- ]. Postalveolars do occasionally labialize too, but the only ones for which the labialization ever goes on to the following vowel are /S/ and /l/. The dentals don't generally labialize.
All these allophonical tendancies with relatively closed vowels weaken when unstressed due to their becoming relatively open in unstressed position and thus not demanding the tongue to be as lifted.
In positions where the opposition dental - postalveolar doesn't exist, alveolar and postalveolar realizations are in free variation in some dialects. A strong tendancy towards postalveolar realizations that prevails in those environments is probably conditioned by the relative prominence of postalveolars in the language.
/h/ ranges from whateveryngeal is frontmost to purely glottal, a bit depending on vowels and stuff. In vicinity of /i/ it occasionally acquires a slight palatal secondary articulation. It is clearly pronounced even word finally. In clusters, it always assimilates to the voicing of the other consonant, even across word boundaries.
Distribution
Vowels
The vowels are i, e, A, u, 1, i:, e:, A:, u:, 1:. This system is somewhat uncommon, but is cited to exist in Lakono Arawak. (See credits for more information).
Stress
The primary stress falls on the first heavy syllable. A heavy syllable is either a closed syllable, or a syllable with a long vowel (in many dialects without phonemic vowel length distinction this also holds true, as there is still an allophonic vowel length distinction, triggered by voiced consonants). Secondary, ternary etc. stresses tend to spread out, depending on stress in nearby words, word length, syllable weight and clause-level intonation pattern. These will be described in more detail, as soon as I get the proper know-how to deal with them.
In unstressed syllables, vowels reduce. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, they in fact do. This is not your typical elven conlang of "pure" vowels in every syllable. /e/ and /i/ > [ I_x ], /1/ and /u/ > [ M_x_O_ ], and /A/ or /6/ or what-have-you > [ @_- ]. Some dialects take this even further, and collapse even more vowels when unstressed.
In case no heavy syllable is found, though luck. (Or rather, the vowel of the penultimate is lengthened to produce a heavy vowel, or something. I might do it by increasing the heaviness of some consonant too - like it spreading back over the syllable boundary or something.)
Allophones
/i/, except its midcentralised unstressed allophone stays put pretty much. The occasional u-induced rounding does occur. In the north, it has developed a nonsyllabic allophone, [ j ].
The same applies pretty much for /E/, which however merges with /A/ in unstressed positions (they are distinguished under secondary stress). Dum da dum. Rounding, of course. Geh.
/A/ - duh. Occasionally, /Q/ or in some dialects /O/ when the u-induced rounding has worked its magick on its surroundings. EDIT: why did I ever type "duh" there? I don't know.
/u/ - stays pretty much put. With exception for the occasional foray to /o/ when forming a vowel sequence with /A/. In the north, it has developed a nonsyllabic allophone [ w].
/1/ - following velars, this often is pulled back and is basically an unrounded u then. It also has a nonsyllabic allophone, in, surprise surprise, those same northern dialects. I don't remember the IPA for it though ... :P.
I need to consult my notes before writing anything more on this.
Distribution
Ortography
Dentals
Various quirks
The former phonemes */c/ and */J\/ has developed into /k/, /g/ and /t/, /d/ in different positions. Some words where the vowel shifts between different forms can even have different initials depending on form. (I wonder if that clause nearly qualifies for garden pathness).
Transcription
When transcribing from Bryatesle to English, I've chosen to use a pretty much phonemic method, and disregard the native ortography right now. The only phonemes that cause any problem are the dentals, the velar fricative and the central vowel. I've chosen to use <y> to represent /1/, <x> to represent /x/, and umlauts to mark that the preceeding consonant is dental. Dentality disappears when the following vowel is not i or e, but underlying dentality can be marked using umlauts on the other consonants too. I limit this usage to the dictionary. Thus /l_dE/ is written lë, but /la/ can, if it originates from a /l_d/ be written either la or lä in some sources - here, however, lä would only appear in the dictionary. When written <lä>, it is unambiguous, but <la> could originate from /l_d/ or from /l/. This is morphophonetically relevant, since inflections or stress-move related vowel changes can provide the context for an underlying dental consonant to reappear. In case no vowel is present to carry the umlaut, I will use a quotation mark instead.
Morphology
A little specification: in English school grammar, what I call "predicative" usually is called complement. Since this term also is used with a different significance in modern syntax, I have taken the liberty to use this word instead.
Nouns
The details still may be changed but basically, bryatesle has a three gender system, and a double case system. The heading here is somewhat erroneous, since this chapter deals with the morphology itself as well as the semantic and the syntactic roles of the different cases - thus semantomorphosyntax would perhaps be the right name for this chapter, but I decided to call this chapter "morphology" as durch Tradition sanktionert werden.
The genders
The primary cases
Nominative and accusative
Nominative is used for subjects and their predicatives. Likewise accusative is used for objects and their predicatives. Accusative is also used with a small number of postpositions, and to mark direction with feminine nouns denoting locations.
Most nominatives are unmarked, except for mass nouns, which often are "definite tantum" in singular. The neuter accusative behaves like it should in any wellbehaved Euroclone and is therefore identical to the nominative.
I will use the word for "scythe" to showcase the masculine inflection. nom Takembel, acc takemblal.
The inanimate transitive subject
The inanimate subject of a transitive verb will be preceeded by a singular animate pronoun and the noun will be inflected with the ablative partitive case. Verbs and subject predicatives will agree with the pronoun rather than the neuter noun. Adjectives are in the peculiar situation of being able to agree with either or.
Ablative and dative
The dative fills the following grammatical roles
- indirect object
- oblique object with some verbs
- subject of several Wahrnemungsverbe.
- object of several postpositions
- some noun attributes to NPs
- the owner for possessed nouns
- direction with nouns denoting locations
Scythe would look like this: takemblë
The ablative fills the following grammatical roles
- (oblique) object with fruchtlose verbs
- negative object (with partitive or if possessed with possessive)
- origin with nouns denoting locations
- some noun attributes to NPs
- object of several postpositions
- occasionally as a kind of translative Umgestaltungsanfang (the logical subject is marked as ablative)
Scythe: takemblïty
Exclamative and vocative
Vocative is your vanilla vocative, used to get the attention of someone.
Exclamative is conversely used to direct the attention of the listener to something. Equivalents in English would be "Look at that ... !", "Beware of the ... !", "Mind the ... !", "Oh, fuck it's ...", luckily enough without any odd vowel changes resulting from it.
For inanimates, these are not distinct from each other.
voc/exl takemblem
Secondary cases
In Bryatesle, there are two case systems that cooperate. A noun always is inflected for a primary case (if even with a 0 morpheme), but the secondary cases are not mandatory in every position. A topic case (which, because of certain concerns would be a bit ambiguous between secondary and primary) is mentioned in some old notes I've made, but it seems any need for it has since solved itself. It's a good language that suggests its own solutions, no?
The possessive
Possession is marked on the possessed noun. It is the most fusional of the second cases, thus having its own specific inflection for every primary case.
nom takembenë acc takemblan dat takemblang abl takemblënt
The reciprocal object
This case here I made up because I wanted a case I could describe only somewhat semiaccurately exactly what it does, referring to "idiomatisch Sprachgebrauch ", "not very predictable" and whatnot. But the basic use is to mark two objects that are made to act upon each other in a way or another, so nearly some kind of double instrumental, but not quite. You wouldn't beat two rocks together, you would beat them-re.obj.. But then, there are loads of odd usages with this one, and I will have to work out lots of examples in order to convey them. Also, some verbs will get specific meanings when used with it, and those will be marked with a +rcp in the lexicon.
In reality, this case came from the idea of having a pronoun that refers back to the objects, and is reciprocal and later merged with the object, while the subject-referring reciprocals merged with the verb (as a prefix, and yes, this development caused a line to cross another in the syntactic tree).
The secondary subject
Covers the following roles: with nominative:
- subjects of certain verbs that express necessity
- objects of mediopassives (with nominative)
- the subject, when the instrument has been promoted to subject status
- as kind of genitive attribute to a subject, wherein the genitive either is the name of a place or a person, and the subject is a person.
- occasionally, the topic. Occasionally the topic goes unmarked and the real subject is marked instead.
with accusative:
- the first object of a causative, if bivalent (I cause X.ss to eat porridge)
- the subject of an object complement verb (I saw her-2nd run away)
Some verbs can acquire specific meanings with is, and they are marked with +ss in the lexicon. (Further specifications can be needed in some of those cases.)
The sentence "I saw her run away", if 'her' is not marked for 2nd subject, it will basically mean "I saw her while (I) ran away".
Partitive marking
nom takemblu acc takembluzë abl takemblër
Species marking
Basically this corresponds with the English bestimmter Artikel 'the' (species actually being the technical term for the distinction between 'the' and 'a'), but has a slightly different distribution, and won't coincide with the other secondary cases. In some declinations, it is identical to the inverse genitive. Also, many a mass noun will always take this marking when the secondary case slot is empty. Finally - and this is fully phonetically conditioned - a considerable part of the vocab has the article show up only as a zero morph. Since it is phonetically conditioned, it also varies with the preceeding case. Occasionally, this marks the topic.
Negativity agreement on nouns
Since the negativity particle usually appears quite late in the clause, objects (or intransitive subjects) are marked for negativity. In most dialects, the marking on intransitive subjects is rather optional (or ranks lower than the other secondary cases), but in a number of dialects the marking on the object is also optional, or as in some of the northernmost dialects, completely abolished. The negativity agreement indicates a certain indefiniteness too - you wouldn't use it if the object still is definite.
The negativity agreement is, in most dialects, identical with partitive ablative and partitive accusative, feminine and masculine using either of them in different contexts, and neuter only using partitive ablative.
Some pronouns have forms distinct from the partitive ablative/accusative.
Our friend - die Sense - would come out as takembluze or takemblër.
Suggestion marking on nouns
This is used to mark that something is a suggestion, either as a kind of really weak imperative, or with irreal verb moods ("he could've taken the car-suggestion, no?"). The same suffix is used to mark other word classes, but I list it with the other secondary cases because of its being in complimentary distribution with the others. This is also the first case for which I dare present a phonemic form to you: /ki/. This one has this one unvariable form throughout the paradigm, which more or less is agglutinated to the other cases.
Number
Bryatesle has three basic numbers - singular, dual and plural. All of these, in turn, can combine with the partitive case, which, sort of, gives another dimension to the number system. There is also an unspecific number, which is described further down.
Some constructions with dual
The number two governs the dual, but is in itself singular. The number 2 can be inflected in the dual, and then governs the plural. It then signifies "four". :-p
Some things that always come in pairs are nearly always dual - scissors, pants, testicles, parents - when these are counted, a specific form is used of the numbers, which I choose to call "dual collective numbers".
About the unspecific number
The unspecific number is not a number in the traditional sense, and is not used to mark that the number is unknown, or that you don't want to inform the listener about it. The unspecific number does not carry any inflection for number - and thus most often is identical to the singular in the nominative. It has distinct oblique and accusative cases from the singular. The unspecific number is nearly exclusively used to form compounds in the majority of dialects, and in the dialects where it is not limited to this function, the usage is rather idiomatic and still very limited - mostly to nouns used auf eine unübliche Weise as mass nouns.
Constructions with the anaphoric pronouns
Some analytical constructions
The attributal noun
The adverbial noun
Another way of defining the verb is by using a (mainly subject) predicative or a noun that directly predicates the verb (where the unholy mother oph phlheghmhlikhe accuhmhulathions of the letter h shall I put that syntactically???). There is only one adjective that is used in an adverbial sense and that is "good" - vind. The rest of the adjectives are nominalised first and used like nouns.
A typical construction would be: he runs, athlete.NOM -> he runs like an athlete. And similar examples, more later. Agent-forms, professions, people of certain qualities are popular.
Pronouns
Personal pronouns
The average gamut, details later, nothing settled yet, under construction.
Possessive pronouns
Don't really exist, but how are those constructions taken care of?
Demonstrative pronouns
Two levels of demonstration.
Indefinite pronouns
There is no notable mass / count noun distinction traceable in this system.
I think I might've rushed ahead too fast when designing this system so I suspect many horrific revisions are coming up ... nicety, huh?
1. Totally undefined
lervind / lerbat - ler inflects for gender/case whereas vind / bat (literally "good") does not. This is used when a free choice is implied, or with absolute comparation (tho' less frequent in that position than nr 3, the negative.
The meaning could literally be translated as "somegood" or "anygood". It's often used with imperatives, wishes, sometimes in indirect quotations ("he told me to bring any kind of ..."), and similar. lerbat is used with persons, lervind with things.
2. For indirect questions
lertën
lerbat) - somewhat archaic, but occasionally about persons.
Also used in imperatives when telling someone to, for instance go to a specific, but unknown place (go _some_where!, not go anywhere...)
3. The negative
lermud - negative, used for all negations - even indirect, and also for absolute comparisions (so "it's more beautiful than anything" and it's "it's more beautiful than nothing" are both valid).
In Bryatesle you say "I was told not to bring nothing" when you mean "I was told not to bring anything".
4. When the speaker knows what he refers to
lerden - ler inflects, whereas den (literally "one") does not. lertar - when a selection of options exist. "Tar" is a morpheme a bit like "teen" in "thirteen" and such. This is also used in exhortations conveying stuff like "take any/some of these" or somesuch.
When saying something like "I've brough something", where the thing is known to the speaker but not the listener.
Other indefinite pronouns
If you use the comparative of vind (or other adjective) instead with "ler ---" you get the meaning "another", tho' often with the subtext of preferrance. If you just generally need to say "another one", you'd use "ler meneh" (literally "any 2nd").
"Every" is formed using ler+DET vind + sg
"The wrong (one)" is formed using ler+strange for persons or ler+bul for things.
"Little" is formed from lerngyhmah > lernygmah "Few" is formed from lerngyhm > lernyg
"Much", "plenty" is lerdury form durlyh "Many" is lerdor from dor.
Verbs
Fast jeden clause in Bryatesle has to have a verb, and most of those that lack them have unterliegende verbs (that are identical to that of a previous phrase). The verb has, in some analyses, the hochest position in the clause, yet in some analyses it is only a bit lower in rank (outranked, as it were, by either the subject or the predicative complement or the Qualifier-phrase, or the tempus phrase, or the determiner phrase...). Both of these results are necessary to explain some of its syntactical behaviour. (I only say that in order that you not point out some glaring mistakes in the syntax later on).
Inflections for persons
Aspects
Static
This is somewhat of an imperfect(ive) aspect and somewhat of a static aspect. It emphasizes a process that is not producing any specific results, that doesn't change something, or emphasizes a resultless temporal part of the process. This is the morphologically least marked form.
Dynamic
Mutatis mutandis and you have etwas sehr gleichartig to dynamic aspects in some languages and perfect aspect in some languages. It emphasizes result and/or change. Some verbs aren't markedly different from the static form and then the different object cases disambiguate the clause.
Copula constructions
Bryatesle lacks a Vanillezucker-flavoured copula, and instead uses static verbs with predicative arguments:
- I stand proud
- he sits content
- the clouds float white by
- etc
Almost any static, intransitive verb can be used to convey "is", tho' one will most often use one that expresses location, movement, states (shines, has a certain look), etc.
Causative constructions
Causative constructions use transitive verbs instead. When the caused verb is already transitive, a double verb construction described later will be used.
Dynamic causative constructions
These of course use dynamic, transitive verbs. Something about their connotations will be added later.
Static causative constructions
Something about these will be added later too.
Causativity and possessivity
Something about how the object of the causativity can be marked for secondary subject and sometimes for possessedness (and a possessing pronoun that agrees with the initial subject).
Transitivity and voice
Yeah, hell, this is a nest of mean wasps.
Passive intransitives
OMG.
Intensive constructions with doubled verbs
Various nonstandard transitivity concerns
The adjectives
Short and long forms
The short form of the adjectives are used with qualifiers and question particles to mark either the ammount of –ness the adjective describes, or that the question pertains to “how much so-and-so” whileas the long adjectives are used without qualifiers, and with question particles they convey “is it so-and-so?”. Either can work attributively or predicatively. The adjectives all can take case endings, but their paradigm is defective in comparision to the noun paradigm. By itself, the short form occasionally is employed to mean “how ADJ!”.
Also, in sentences roughly like “let’s see how strong you are”, the short form would be used, in a construction like “let’s see you-Q drask”, whileas “let’s see you-Q draskeh” would be “let’s see if you are strong”. For adjectives that cannot easily be quantified such as colors, and certain other adjectives, the short form marks excessiveness ("too") or is used with qualifiers while the longer forms usually mark attributively being something. Comparatives and superlatives are considered forms of the short adjective.
Some adjectives lack distinct long or short forms. When the adjectives are presented in tabular forms, these go in a middle column.
The long forms aren't predictable from the short forms, but often contain the consonant -h.
Comparation
Congruence
Attributally vs. Predicatively
Predicatively, the adjectives inflect for the whole gamut of gender/case/number. The rules are slightly more complex for attributal congruence.
Adverbs
Most of the work done by standard adverbs in English and other western languages is done by predicatives, free-standing finite verbs, adpositional phrases and other nifty things.
There are however a number of native adverbs, which behave a bit different from other word classes. Some of these really ride the border between adverb and verb by showing person agreement with the verb, and in many dialects they also exhibit certain syntactical behaviours specific to verbs.
Modal adverbs
Temporal adverbs
Adverbs of grade
The postposition
Rection
The majority of postpositions take either ablative or dative.
Every postposition that can take the accusative can also take the ablative or dative. Such a postposition, when being an oblique object, will take the nonaccusative alternative. The accusative generally marks motion.
rema + acc = on the way towards a location or traversing a distance rema + dat = at the location, or having traversed a distance. remanaus + dat = at the location, or having traversed a distance.
naus + abl = with, (at) naus + acc = to (visit, be with, join) someone
The passive postposition
I will describe this using an example:
"The big stone behind the house"
Now, if you'd like to point to the house instead, you'd either say, in English, "the house (that) the big stone is behind" or "the house in front of the big stone". In Bryatesle, instead of using another postposition, you can passivize the postposition:
"house-ABL-REC behind-passive big stone"
Many details about this are still rather undecided, so I'll tell you more later.
Postpositions as verbal particles
Syntax
Basics about the word order
Bryatic typology:
- (Topic) Subject (Object) (Dative) (SubjectPredicative) (Object Predicative) Verb
- modifiers precede heads
- postpositions
- finite verbs can be modifiers of finite verbs
The word order part II
Word order has to be understood as the order of constituents relative to each other, and how these come together to form bigger constituents.
I will refer to compound constituents (even when there is only one visible non-zero constituent in it) as phrases. The noun phrase, for instance, consists of the noun, an adjective attribute phrase, a genitive phrase (the owners), and other noun-phrases (noun attributes), and there may also be other kinds of phrases in there.
Now, languages are often categorized as left-branching or right-branching, and this because there often is a clear tendancy as to in what direction of the head the modifier tends to be. This is also true in Bryatesle. Bryatesle is predominantly left-branching, with several common exceptions. The verb right-branches from the subject, and some stuff often rightbranches from the object as well as the subject.
One idea that is rather new and experimental (that I thought up mid-January), is the inclusion of *two* underlying levels of syntactic structures for Bryatesle. Both are X-bar like constructions, but what in one of the structures branches from the VP branches from the object phrase in the other, and what in one branches away from the subject phrase, branches away from the verb phrase in the other.
In the primary analysis, indirect objects branch from the object phrase as an adjunct, while a predicative phrase branches as complement. Within the predicative phrase there is the first one, the head of the PP from which the other branches as an adjunct.
The other analysis will have those branch from very close to the verb, while the object actually branches from something invisible, and the dative branches from the object.
Now, it seems the final analysis suggests that predicatives be the head of the verb phrase, and verbs the adjunct to them. In addition, the dative still branches from the object phrase, and so on. I will have to consider these consequences a while.
Some adverbs will branch from the verb in one analysis, but from something invisible in the other.
Now you see what unclear thinking and sleep deprivation can cause :p
Anyway, one possible solution, which fucks up the branchingness even more, is to consider the predicatives the head of the verb phrase, with the verb it's adjunct.
Now i've really messed this up and it will be seriously interesting to try and resolve this. I suspect I will abandon this attempt. - or, it will turn into the first "guitar string theory" conlang!
The X-bar tree and Bryatesle
How the various constituents are connected
How reversed branching affects daughter nodes
C-command and pronouns and stuff
Vocabulary
xepan the mass of unsown seed, neut, sing. tantum, def. tantum
ngaub the males of a cow-like species
dyrdak novice
beuddadek an issue involving the whole village
patenpeu in between
pténij a kind of movable oven often in the middle of tents
skaunt a kind of song
liste a smile
rnadix juice, neut, sing. tantum.
delëk a kind of pastry
tsaka a game played by kids
ferept rugs
sxarg the side of the boat
dërk the patch of land surrounding ones home.
xyrbis star
sëuner the moon
laxt a unit of measurement; specifically, c:a 15 kg. Used mostly about fish.
lurn a corner
nëusme a house for other purposes than living in
takembel" a scythe
j postposition, "to"
Credits
This article provided me with the idea for the vowel system; I had a 5 vowel system (possibly one with 5 short and 6 long) in mind when I began designing the Bryatesle phonemic inventory, but this provided me with a very good alternative to the average classical Latin 5 vowel system. Well worth reading.
Ahribar suggested a cool idea for the phonemic inventory, which also was much more consistent with the language in general: /r_r/ instead of /r/. Thanks!
I will also ask my linguistics teacher permission to cite him as an influence here, as he has taught me a considerable ammount of stuff.
Sano made a great alphabet for Bryatesle! Many many thanks to him!
