Lemizh: Difference between revisions

|setting          = Alt-history Europe

|posteriori        = [[w:Proto-Indo-European|Proto-Indo-European]]

The Gheans discouraged the use of the natives' language, but obviously tolerated Lemizh words (or rather word stems) to stand in for unfamiliar Ghean ones. The grammar of simple sentences was easy enough to learn for the Lemizh, as they were used to inflection and head-first phrases, and likely still knew VSO sentences from poetry. After two or three generations, the natives must have spoken a [[w:Creole language|creole]] with a more or less Ghean grammar but an abundance of Lemizh words, especially outside the core vocabulary. This is a quite unusual development as most creoles draw their lexicon mainly from the dominant group, and tend to be grammatically more innovative. (The Tanzanian language [[w:Mbugu language|Mbugu]] might have had a somewhat similar development with more or less analogous outcomes.) After the disappearance of the Gheans, Lemizh patriots tried to revive their old language, which failed spectacularly for the grammar but reintroduced many Lemizh words of the core vocabulary.

The alphabet is [[w:Phonetic orthography|phonetic]]: each letter corresponds to a certain sound, and each sound is represented by a single letter. The direction of writing is left to right. This article uses the standard transcription of the native Lemizh alphabet as given here:

The inner case is represented by one of the eight vowels, optionally followed by a liquid (the primary case suffix) and/or a nasal (the secondary case suffix). The outer case has the same structure. For the first word in each sentence, the main predicate, the outer case is missing.

===Adjectives and numerals===

There is no difference between adjectival and nominal verbs: they mostly appear with inner accusative. This is the same situation as in, say, Latin, where ''albus'' can mean "a white one" as well as "white". Numerals are basically a sub-category of adjectives.

For example, the nominative object "Father Christmas" has to name the complete sender of the above instance of giving. This excludes from this instance all giving not done by Father Christmas. So each object places a restriction on the action of giving the main predicate refers to. Thus, the subset of giving meant by this instance of ''dà.'' – what the sentence is ultimately talking about – is defined more and more precisely with each additional object. (The same is true not only of the main predicate but of all words in a sentence.)

<!-- Rule Five applied to inner case: THIS instance of giving exists -->

|nỳzd gangèy txỳska.

|bird-ACC-1 sing-NOM-ACC-2 loud-ACC-'''FACT'''-3.

|''a bird, a loud singer &#61; a bird singing loudly'' (The '''action''' of singing is a loud thing.)}}

Adverbially used clauses, unsurprisingly, are factive brackets …

<!--The nominal verb ''mà.'' "to make [something, an entity]"  

{{Interlinear|indent=3|display-messages=no|ablist=1:first level; 2:second level

|

|

|''''}}-->

Compounds expressing degrees of [[#Adjectives and numerals|adjectives]] are also formed from brackets. They have an epenthetic consecutive (''-il-''), which stems from the corresponding abstract noun: ''gmrìl dmỳil. ⇔ dmỳ gmrìly.'' "much warmth" ⇒ ''gmrildmìl.'' "heat" (abstract noun formed with inner {{sc|cons}}), ''gmrildmỳ.'' "hot" (adjective with inner {{sc|acc}}).