Naeng/Literature

Lăcoaf/Lexicon

Lăcoaf/Swadesh list

Naeng/Literature
brits Lăcoaf
Created by	IlL, Praimhín
Setting	Verse:Tricin
Language family	Naeng/Literature

Lăcoaf (brits Lăcoaf /brits ʟəkoəv/) is a conlang based on similarities between Hebrew and Mon-Khmer languages, such as final stress, minor syllables and overall head-initial syntax. Most Trician linguists consider it a language isolate.

Introduction

Lăcoaf (originally named Windermere) was originally created by Praimhín for the Fifth Linguifex Relay. It is currently being revived and adapted for Verse:Tricin as a classical language of Talma. This version will also be more synthetic than the original creator envisioned.

Todo

• Eevo-ish grammar but more synthetic

Phonology

Orthography

Consonants

• Ϫϫ Շչ Ɑᶑ Ѡϙ Ғғ Ѵѵ Ƌժ Ƨƨ ſʗ = p b f t d th c g ch
• Ɨɟ ʢє Ϯ₼ = m n ng
• Ϟɥ Ɔɔ Պɱ Ҕҕ Ʌʎ = s ł ts tł ș
• Էէ Ӿӿ Գƪ Քƍ Ֆⱷ Пп = r w y h l ʔ

Vowels

The vowel signs are placed to the right of the consonant letter.

• · : ; ı › ˫ ⸗ = ă u ü i o e a; :ƍ ;ƍ ıƍ ›ƍ ˫ƍ = ua üe ie oa ea

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Lateral	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m /m/	n /n/			ng /ŋ/
Plosive	voiced	b /b/	d /d/			g /g/
	voiceless	p /p/	t /t/			c /k/		' /ʔ/
Affricate			ts /ts̻/	tł /tɬ/
Fricative	spirant	f /f~v/	th /θ~ð/			ch /x~ɣ/
	nonspirant		s /s̻/	ł /ɬ/	ș /s̺~ʃ/			h /h/
Resonant		w /w/	r /r/		y /j/		l /ʟ/

The glottal stop is not transcribed word-initially.

In Eevo, pʰ p f tʰ t θ kʰ k x ts̻ s̻ tɬ ɬ s̺ m n ŋ ʟ r w j h ʔ are borrowed as p b f/v t d þ/ð c g ç ts s tx x z m n ŋ l r v j h ∅

[cf. OHG /s̺/ > Modern German /z/ ]

Vowels

Monophthongs

	Front		Central	Back
	unrounded	rounded
Close	i /i/	ü /y/		u /u/
Mid	e /e/		ă /ə/	o /o/
Open			a /a/

Diphthongs

	Front		Central	Back
	unrounded	rounded
Close	ie /iə/	üe /yə/		ua /uə/
Mid	ea /eə/			oa /oə/

Notes

• /ə/ occurs only in unstressed syllables.
• /oj/ is pronounced [øː], which is borrowed into Eevo as øø.

Stress

Stress is invariably final.

Phonotactics

Zero and C are the only permitted word-final codas.

Morphology

Lăcoaf morphology is exclusively prefixing and infixing.

Nouns

im- is used as the plural prefix.

The case markers are the following:

• łi: direct case marker
• wa: indirect case marker
• mi-: locative
• ya-: comitative
• șa-: allative

Pronouns

	I	thou (m.)	thou (f.)	he	she	it	we (exc.)	we (inc.)	you (pl.)	they (an.)	they (inan.)
Indirect	rie	łen	łes	in	is	tan	tsa	bang	ngea	ănam	tănam
Direct	grie	găłen	găłes	cin	cis	dan	gătsa	găbang	gangea	cănam	dănam

After a preposition, indirect forms are used.

Verbs

Lăcoaf verbs inflect for mood, aspect, and trigger/voice, but not for tense. (Daughter languages use periphrastic constructions for tense, and use aspect and trigger affixes derivationally.)

The trigger system is a Tagalog-style trigger system, with the focus on the direct case argument.

Aspect

Aspect inflection uses a combination of prefixes and reduplication.

Reduplicant uses 1st consonant (F) or last consonant (L)

• habitual = unmarked for some verbs but marked with ta- for others
• perfective = unmarked for some verbs but marked with el- for others
• momentane = bla-
• progressive = ăL-
• gnomic = FăL-
• frequentative = FeLFă-
• inchoative/inceptive = aLFă-

Intensive

• thu- = "very" - intensive prefix

Trigger

• Core triggers
  • ‹ăc› = Patient trigger [telic]
  • ‹ră› = Patient trigger [atelic]
  • ‹ăs› = Agent trigger [= a weird way of syntacticizing passive voice/ergativity]
  • ‹ăl› = Reflexive trigger
• Applicative triggers - these meanings are not always literal
  • ‹ăn› = Applicative trigger
  • ‹ith› = Locative trigger
  • ‹ăng› = Instrumental trigger
  • ‹ăfong› = Destination trigger
  • ‹ălis› = Comitative trigger
  • ‹ăm› = Source/cause trigger
  • ‹ăchem› = Benefactive/purpose trigger
  • ‹ărea› = Malefactive trigger [also "lest"]

Adjectives

Adjectives are stative verbs: they behave almost idenitcally to verbs but they cannot take the imperative by themselves.

Derivational morphology

• incopyfixation = nom'zer for underived verbs
  • for simple initials: ‹ăLm›
  • for complex initials: ‹măL›
• bin- = nominalizer for derived verbs
• hăl- = nominalizer for adjectives
• și- = negation
• ing- = verbalizer
• yăn- = adjectivizer
• nu- = agentive

TODO: verbalizers, "adjectivizers" ("X-like", "characterized by X")

• Head-initial concatenation. Common concatenated morphemes:
  • hălwier = '-logy' (lit. "beauty of")

Syntax

Constituent order

The basic word order of Lăcoaf is DIRECT-VERB-INDIRECT - if there is no direct case argument for the trigger to act upon then the word order is VERB-INDIRECT. This should help promote the "focus-first"/"predicate-first" word order in Eevo.

Verb phrase

There is a preverbal negative particle die.

Time clauses

For a non-finite time clause, mi- + verbal noun may be used.

Relative clauses

mo- = relativizer

• often combined with the complementizer: mong

Complement clauses

nga = complementizer