Fén Ghír: Difference between revisions

This is my first attempt at a conlang, originally conceived as a part of a larger game that never took off. It is the only language from the game that reached anything nearing completion. Inspiration and influence were drawn both from my earliest impression of Irish while falling back on my stronger knowledge of English and French. The grammar was largely completed before I had much experience with linguistic theory or the conlanging community, thus while functional it may be somewhat backwards at times and occaisionally lacks for easy terms to descripe itself.

The language is designed for a conworld and as such aims to be as unique as possible. However as both an early conlang and due to initial worries for aesthetic features as well as content it draws heavily on a few sources;

Morphemes originally were derived by mixing French, Irish and English words beyond the point of recognition. This was later largely supplanted both with the use of randomized generators and compounds and other mutations derived from these morphemes.

Derived from the Galav culture which spread far during the early iron age. The Fén came about as the Galav spread over what would come to be known as Nílíra or the Fén Highlands and eventually spread over the rest of the penisula. The Fén are the only remaining people of the Galav culture that retain complete cultural independance under a High King. They are in turn divided into six petty kingdoms and the northern island colonies, with four major cultural sub-groups and dialects. Culturally, they are adopting the style of their imperial neighbours and loan words along with it.

"''Té dégep me gír cur tol fabhen pon éloc léc cíp dó dégep ghír.''"

Ígelá and Ígel see much less use than the simpler pronouns, such as "lo" but in written word, they might follow in the sentance after a relative pronoun, though "lo" in that case is also acceptable and more common. Ígel may be used in a sense similar to "on" in French or "one" in English.

{| class= "bluetable lightbluebg" style="text-align:left; vertical-align:middle; width:200px;"

*If preceding Fabhan it refers both how long until something occurs and how often something occurs; "(Lé bhé dén dir) Ne Én Fabhan (cur ít)" Means "(This will be done in) No Time" while "(Bhé dén dir) Ne Én '''ba''' Fabhen (cur ít)" means "This was never done" or more literally "This is done none of the time".

Fén language branches leftwards on Verb/Noun Phrases. Adjectives, Adverbs and Possessive precede the Verb/Noun.

{| class="bluetable lightbluebg" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:middle; width:100px;"

|+Verb Branching Order

Verbs are followed by the Subject [Accusative Noun]. In cases where the division is unclear [due to the verb doubling as a temporal adverb for example] is when the preposition "ag" is used to make the Accusative.

{| class="bluetable lightbluebg" style="text-align:center; vertical-align:middle; width:300px;"

|+Noun Phrase Branching

|}

Fén syntax is relatively flexible in principle; each noun phrase begins with a preposition and ends with a noun. There is a strong sense of natural order in the language, which is as follows;

Verbs are given tenses in a fashion similar to English; Have, Is or Go precede the verb in various orders to give it a tense.

Where adverbs precede the order of the mood adverb, that mood or voice adverb is affected rather than the verb itself.

The person who is being addressed usually precedes the rest of the sentance. This is particularly used when addressing to get their attention someone;

|}

This is the subject or actor in a sentance. It usually comes around the end of a sentance, unless the location or time of the action is being framed.

It should be noted that in "to be" sentances [which use té as the principle verb] there is usually no agent or actor. This is covered in the "té" section.

Accusative nouns are the direct objects of the sentance, which follow the verbs immediately. They are identified largely by syntax as they follow the verb immediately. There is a vestigal "ag" but this is not used except in rare cases of ambiguity.

This refers to most cases of indirect objects which usually immediately follow Accusative nouns. In this category are both dative and instrumental. The difference between the two being order alone; Dative follows after Accusative, while Instrumental and Relative will follow after Dative or the relevant noun.

These are similar to a dependant clauses in English, though necessarily not conditional; these frame the place, time and reason why an action happened as well as an original source. It should be noted that if a place is part of the action or only partial, then that place should be either a Accusative/Dative [I went to the field] or relative [I went to the person who was at the field].

The above four are markers for dependant clauses which frame the action and thus typically come after the noun. For poetic reasons or reasons of suspence, these may be shifted about just as in English.  

Because of the relatively strict word order and preposition use, there is no declension or suffixes to differenciate between adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verbs.

=====Ba=====

Ba is a possessive Marker, which until any other preposition in Fén is preceded the genative case that it creates and further is unique in that it may appear at any point in the syntax relative to other prepositions without altering the meaning of it

| colspan="8"|"'''''The girl''' <u>without</u> red flowers saw when he left.''"

|}

In Fén a great deal of focus are put upon various clauses in a sentance. There are three basic types which occur for different reasons;

These are essentially a full sentance on their own but they may be linked with the above copula. They typically begin with a copula or a verb (in cases where the copula would be dropped) and conclude with the subject. These are essentially sentances on their own and follow typical word order;

''Bél lirod del re me di.''

In Fén there are two types of Dependant clauses which are quite distinct from eachother. On depends upon the initial copula, which often make the rest of the sentance dependant on them. These sorts of sentances invovle two full clauses, where the second is dependant on the first;

The order in these dependant clauses is usually: Locative-Temporal-Causal-Perspective.

In Fén relative clauses are rather common and often mark another action within the sentance. These begin with a relative determiner, however there are no strict rules on there ending. Verbally this is usually distinguished by tone, while writers may use commas or expect their readers to understand based off of context. 'ci and 'cibh are gaining popularity as verb and written endings in some faster speaking dialects, but are not yet considered standard in Fén.

|}

====Pluralization====

"Mical"->"Micalíg"/"Micíg".

====Yes/No====