Bentovian
Bentovian | |
---|---|
croveš | |
Pronunciation | [/tsʁoˈveʃ/] |
Created by | IlL, Praimhín |
Setting | Verse:Tricin |
Lakovic
| |
Tsrovesh (croveš /tsʁoˈveʃ/) is a Lakovic language spoken in Txapoalli, inspired by Modern Hebrew, Georgian, Armenian and Finnish.
Introduction
Todo
f -> ɸ -> h? vowel reduction into 'a'?
Hebrew-style vowel changes
ikcav = "topic"?
be- = agentive? (beda = doctor; the root is a Windermere loan)
Phonology
Orthography
Tsrovesh is most commonly written with the Windermere alphabet.
Consonants
Labial | Dental | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m /m/ | n /n/ | [ŋ] | |||
Plosive | voiceless | p /p/ | t /t/ | k /k/ | ||
voiced | b /b/ | d /d/ | g /g/ | |||
Fricative | voiceless | s /s/ | š /ʃ/ | x /x/ | h /h/ | |
voiced | v /v/ | z /z/ | ž /ʒ/ | r /ʁ/ | ||
Affricate | voiceless | c /ts/ | č /tʃ/ | |||
voiced | dz /dz/ | j /dʒ/ | ||||
Approximant | l /l/ |
Syllabic resonants: ṃ ṇ ḷ ṛ ṿ
Vowels
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i /i/ | u /u/ | |
Mid | e /e/ | o /o/ | |
Open | a /a/ |
Consecutive vowels are prohibited.
Prosody
Stress
Intonation
Phonotactics
Tsrovesh phonology is slightly less restrictive than Israeli Hebrew but much more so than Georgian. As in both languages, initial consonant clusters appear frequently in Tsrovesh. Initial clusters of the form l/r + consonant are allowed (Are those really syllabic resonants?). For example:
- croveš (the name of the language)
- ldag (door)
- šmer (man)
- cnaxat (dream)
- gzin (to shine)
- vlo (to live)
- lvar (to play)
- tkešet (regardless)
- švili (for me)
Medial consonant clusters are also common:
- ertma (spider)
- detkvis (limestone)
- opxram (reed)
All final clusters are prohibited.
Stress
Stress is always penultimate.
Morphology
Nouns
Plurals by redup: crov 'a language' > circrov 'languages'
Definite suffix -i: lakov 'a person' > lakovi 'the person'
Somewhat agglutinating; no grammatical gender
Honorifics?
Verbs
some uncanny hebrew prefixes?
me- for the present imperfective? (it could use a welsh-like grammatical shift of progressive -> imperfective)
Pronominal suffixes
-i, -eč, -ek, -eš, -eb?
Syntax
Constituent order
Tsrovesh sentence structure is SVO and head-final, except for complementizer phrases and prepositional phrases (think Chinese). Tsrovesh is not zero-copula; the word for 'to live' is used as a copula. Word order is strict, and topicalization occurs with the suffix -eti.
Noun phrase
The adjective comes before the noun in Tsrovesh:
ha-udvanit ertma = the happy spider
(udvanit = happy, ertma = spider)
But relative clauses are placed after the noun:
ertma, ža-ves ha-šmer kixaven = spider who the man killed
Verb phrase
Sentence phrase
Conjunctions
et = and
-eb = and (used like Latin -que)
Dependent clauses
Numbers
Windermere 1-5: doan, rath, stiw, smech, müets
azar, kin, šelvi, sṃči, mevti, cohi, avci, lucebi, azorbi, kteva?
?, ?, ?, ?, čorti, uškni, voherbi, adorgi, ktela, ktela azareb, ktela kineb, ktela tvagib, ktela lucmib, ...
20 = ktela mekin