Bentovian

Tsrovesh or Tzrovesh is a language of Southern Cuadhlabh, inspired by Hebrew and Georgian.

Most Hussmauchian linguists classify it as an isolate.

Phonology

Orthography

Tsrovesh is most commonly written with the Thensarian alphabet.

Consonants

The consonants are the same as in Israeli Hebrew, plus ch /tʃ/, dz /dz/, zh /ʒ/ and dj /dʒ/.

Vowels

The vowels are the same as in Israeli Hebrew or Georgian.

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, for example:

• Tsrovesh (the name of the language)
• ldag (door)
• shmer (man)
• tsnakhat (dream)
• gzin (to shine)
• vlo (to live)
• lvar (to play)
• tmezhov (to find)
• tkeshet (regardless)
• shvili (for me)

Medial consonant clusters are also common:

• ertma (spider)
• detkvisi (limestone)
• opkhram (reed)

Morphology

Nouns

Nouns have 9 cases: nominative, genitive, accusative, dechticaetiative/instrumental, locative, comitative, essive, adverbial and vocative.

Verbs

The present, past and future tenses are be-, ki- and sa- respectively. The present tense is also used as a timeless tense.

Kitmezhov ha-shmereti la-detkvisi.

PAST-find DEF man-EMPH ACC.DEF limestone

It was the man who found the limestone.

Verbs do not inflect for person but they do inflect for number (except for the copula): the plural suffix is -eba.

The negative suffix is -tso, and when fused with the plural it becomes -tsoba. The negative form of the copula is tso, which is the same in the plural.

Participial forms are used in the perfect and progressive aspects.

Syntax

Constituent order

Tsrovesh sentence structure is VSO and head-final, except for complementizer phrases and prepositional phrases. 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, li-ves ha-shmer kikhaven = spider who the man killed

Sentence phrase

Conjunctions

et = and

Numbers

azar, kin, tvagi, lutsmi, chorti, mevti, ushkni, voherbi, adorgi, ktela, ktela azareb, ktela kineb, ktela tvagib, ktela lutsmib, ...

20 = ktela mekin