Bentovian

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

Phonology

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)

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.

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

The negative suffix is -tso, and when fused with the plural it becomes -tsoba.

Participial forms are used in the perfect and progressive tenses.

Syntax

Constituent order

Tsrovesh sentence structure is VSO and head-final, except for complementizer phrases and prepositional phrases. Tsrovesh is not zero-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

Numbers

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

20 = ktela mekin