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Adwan (''amhdha'' [ˈawðɐ]) is a personal ''a priori'' conlang. Primarily inspired by the notion of high density information packing and free word order, Adwan is characterized by a large presence of fricatives and a borderline polysynthetic morphology consisting of enclitic agglutination. Aesthetically, Adwan is heavily inspired by Polish, Welsh, and Portuguese, with an internal structure largely influenced by Basque, Nahuatl, and Latin. | Adwan (''amhdha'' [ˈawðɐ]) is a personal ''a priori'' conlang. Primarily inspired by the notion of high density information packing and free word order, Adwan is characterized by a large presence of fricatives and a borderline polysynthetic morphology consisting of enclitic agglutination. Aesthetically, Adwan is heavily inspired by Polish, Welsh, and Portuguese, with an internal structure largely influenced by Basque, Nahuatl, and Latin. | ||
==General Characteristics== | == General Characteristics == | ||
Adwan is a highly inflecting language, making use of agglutination to the morphosyntactic level. Nouns are the most heavily inflected class, not only inflected for grammatical case but also for the grammatical person of the primary verb argument. Adwan verb arguments come in <i>tiers</i> corresponding to the valence of said verb. Verbs with only 1 argument (<i>intransitives</i>) require that the verb argument, which is usually in the nominative (but may be in any case other than the accusative), be appended a personal consonant identifying the subject of the intransitive verb. Verbs with 2 arguments require the argument <i>furthest down the canonical list of cases</i> be marked with the a personal consonant identifying the <i>agent</i> of the verb. Because the order in which cases are ordered in declensional tables is <br><center><i> Nominative > Accusative > Genitive > Dative > Locative > Ablative > Instrumental</center></i> | Adwan is a highly inflecting language, making use of agglutination to the morphosyntactic level. Nouns are the most heavily inflected class, not only inflected for grammatical case but also for the grammatical person of the primary verb argument (with grammatical number of verb arguments generally being ignored). Adwan verb arguments come in <i>tiers</i> corresponding to the valence of said verb. Verbs with only 1 argument (<i>intransitives</i>) require that the verb argument, which is usually in the nominative (but may be in any case other than the accusative), be appended a personal consonant identifying the subject of the intransitive verb. Verbs with 2 arguments require the argument <i>furthest down the canonical list of cases</i> be marked with the a personal consonant identifying the <i>agent</i> of the verb. Because the order in which cases are canonically ordered in declensional tables is <br><center><i> Nominative > Accusative > Genitive > Dative > Locative > Ablative > Instrumental</center></i> | ||
it follows that | it follows that verbs with 3 arguments (<i>ditransitives</i>) require the argument in the <i>dative</i> be appended a personal consonant identifying the <i>agent</i> of the ditransitive verb. Notice below that the suffix <i>-m</i> is separate from the transitive verb <i>mys</i> and instead attached to the direct object (in the accusative) <i>purgw</i> (nominative: <i>purga</i>): <br><div style="text-align: left; padding-left: 20px;"><i>Mys purgwm</i><br>mys purg-w-m<br>see.PRES dog-ACC-1<br>"I see a dog."</div> | ||
Furthermore, notice the second person personal ending <i>-t</i> attached to the noun in the <i>dative</i> below: | |||
<div style="text-align: left; padding-left: 20px;"><i>Lgos cwenw gobur luga</i><br>lgos cwen-w gob-u-r lug-a<br>tell.PRES story-ACC boy-DAT-3 girl-NOM<br>"The girl tells the boy a story."</div> | |||
In this respect, one can say that Adwan verb conjugations are partially marked on <i>nouns</i> (for grammatical person, strictly speaking; grammatical number is another story). This is further reinforced by the lack of verbs for <i>to be</i>, <i>to do</i>, <i>to have</i>, <i>to arrive</i>, and <i>to depart</i>, as these verbs are instead expressed by appending a personal consonant to the corresponding noun case ending (i.e., <i>to be something</i> has the noun corresponding to <i>something</i> in the nominative with a personal consonant suffixed to it, e.g., <i>mimham</i> "I am a cat"). Adwan therefore conjugates verb complements for the grammatical person of the verb subject. Moreover, the specific case of a given conjugated noun determines the perceived relation implied by such 'empty' verbs (i.e., in this system we have verb stems separated from conjugation endings; for the verbs mentioned above, we can think of them as belonging to one single verb with an empty stem, with different meanings expressed via variation in the verb argument's morphological case. | In this respect, one can say that Adwan verb conjugations are partially marked on <i>nouns</i> (for grammatical person, strictly speaking; grammatical number is another story). This is further reinforced by the lack of verbs for <i>to be</i>, <i>to do</i>, <i>to have</i>, <i>to arrive</i>, and <i>to depart</i>, as these verbs are instead expressed by appending a personal consonant to the corresponding noun case ending (i.e., <i>to be something</i> has the noun corresponding to <i>something</i> in the nominative with a personal consonant suffixed to it, e.g., <i>mimham</i> "I am a cat"). Adwan therefore conjugates verb complements for the grammatical person of the verb subject. Moreover, the specific case of a given conjugated noun determines the perceived relation implied by such 'empty' verbs (i.e., in this system we have verb stems separated from conjugation endings; for the verbs mentioned above, we can think of them as belonging to one single verb with an empty stem, with different meanings expressed via variation in the verb argument's morphological case. | ||
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# /w̃/ is realized as [ɰ̃] | # /w̃/ is realized as [ɰ̃] | ||
==Morphology== | == Morphology == | ||
=== Nouns === | |||
== | == Syntax == | ||
== | |||