Ametdantar

Background

ametdantar was created by Marlowe Clark.

Goals

My goal was simply to create an a priori constructed language. I don't remember the exact date when I started, but I believe it was some time in August of 2014.

Setting

The ametdantar live on a small remote tropical desert island. They have no outside contact and are not aware of any other landmasses (and there may not be any others -- I haven't decided that yet). They believe that the world is mostly water and is therefore amorphous.

Inspiration

I joined the Constructed Languages group on Facebook with the intent of simply looking at the constructed languages of others for a while to get some ideas, and was mainly interested in auxilliary languages, but I started my own, ametdantar, fairly promptly after joining.

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m			n
Plosive	p		t̪ d̪					k
Fricative				s	ʃ ʒ				ʁ	h ɦ
Affricate				ts	dʒ
Flap or tap				ɾ
Lateral app.				l

Vowels

	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Close					u
Near-close
Close-mid					o
Mid
Open-mid	ɛ
Near-open
Open	a a:

Phonotactics

/p/ and /ʃ/ can occur only in onset position. /r/ and /ʁ/ cannot be the first element of an onset cluster or the second element of coda cluster. Onset clusters can contain a maximum of two consonants. Rimes are maximally trimoraic -- the long a, /a:/, counts as two morae, and each consonant in the coda is a mora.

Diphthongization does not occur in ametdantar, and the hiatus resolution strategy is "do not resolve." A series of two homorganic vowels does not become a lengthened vowel, not even if it is /a/.

Orthography

ametdantar has a mostly phonemic alphabet -- each monograph stands for exactly one sound, and each digraph stands for exactly one sound. ametdantar uses only lowercase letters.

Monographs

a /a/
m /m/
d /d̪/
t /t̪/
n /n/
r /ɾ/
e /ɛ/
h /h/
f /ɦ/
o /o/
p /p/
k /k/
u /u/
l /l/
s /s/
j /ʒ/

Digraphs

tz /ts/
si /ʃ/
rg /ʁ/
aa /a:/

Stress

ametdantar stress is very simple. There are two rules:
Stress is ultimate.
Enclitics are disregarded in stress assignment.

Now, of course, this requires us to define the enclitics of ametdantar. They are -et, the plural suffix, and -er, the perfective suffix. Note that there are roots that end with -et or -er naturally; these are not enclitics. There are also fossilized forms that are stressed on the enclitic (because, as a suffix, it's in ultimate position). Fossilized forms include the plural personal pronouns, which are all formed with the plural suffix, and some adjectives formed with the perfective suffix.

Grammar

Morphology

The vast majority of roots in ametdantar are nouns. Subject agreement particles and the infinitive suffix -ad also function as verbalizers. There is no distinction between adjectives and adverbs, but both are placed immediately before the element they modify -- so adjectives will always be before nouns and adverbs will usually be before verbs.

ametdantar has four cases: nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive. The nominative is unmarked. The accusative and dative are optionally marked, as they can also be determined by word order, and their markings when used are -ku and -kul respectively. The genitive is marked by -sia.

Syntax

Word order in ametdantar is SOV, with the indirect object preceding the direct object. Modifiers, including elements in the genitive case, precede the element they modify.