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136 lines
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Markdown
136 lines
3.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "ReConLangMo 5: Sentence Structure"
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date: 2020-05-18
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series: reconlangmo
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tags:
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- conlang
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- lewa
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---
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The last post in [this series][reconlangmo] was more of a grammar dump with few
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concrete examples or much details about things (mostly because of a lack of
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vocabulary to make examples with). I'll fix this in the future, but for now
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let's continue on with sentence structure goodness. This is a response to [this
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prompt][rclm5].
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[reconlangmo]: /blog/series/reconlangmo
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[rclm5]: https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/gmbwb5/reconlangmo_5_sentence_structure/
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## Independent Clause Structure
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Most of the time L'ewa sentences have only one clause. This can be anything from
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a single verb to a subject, verb and object. However, sometimes more information
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is needed. Consider this sentence:
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```
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The dog which is blue is large.
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```
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This kind of a relative clause would be denoted using `hoi`, which would make
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the sentence roughly the following in L'ewa:
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```
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le wufra hoi blanu xi brado.
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```
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The particle `xi` is needed here in order to make it explicit that the subject
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noun-phrase has ended.
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Similarly, an incidental relative clause is done with with `joi`:
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```
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le wufra joi blanu ke brado
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the dog, which by the way is blue, is big.
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```
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## Questions
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There are a few ways to ask questions in L'ewa. They correlate to the different
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kinds of things that the speaker could want to know.
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### `ma`
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`ma` is the particle used to fill in a missing/unknown noun phrase. Consider
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these sentences:
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```
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ma blanu?
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what is blue?
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```
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```
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ro qa madsa ma?
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you are eating what?
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```
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### `no`
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`no` is the particle used to fill in a missing/unknown verb. Consider these
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sentences:
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```
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ro no?
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How are you doing?
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```
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```
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le wufra xi no?
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The dog did what?
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```
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### `so`
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`so` is the particle used to ask questions about numbers, similar to the "how
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many" construct in English.
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```
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ro madsa so spalo?
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You ate how many apples?
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```
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```
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le so zasko xi qa'te glowa
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How many plants grow quickly?
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```
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## Color Words
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L'ewa uses a RGB color system like computers. The basic colors are red, green
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and blue, with some other basic ones for convenience:
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| English | L'ewa |
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| ------- | ------ |
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| blue | blanu |
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| red | delja |
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| green | qalno |
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| yellow | yeplo |
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| teal | te'ra |
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| pink | hetlo |
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| black | xekri |
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| white | pu'ro |
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| 50% gray | flego |
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Colors will be mixed by creating compound words between base colors. Compound
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words still need to be fleshed out, but generally all CVCCV words will have
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wordparts made out of the first, second and fifth letter, unless the vowel pair
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is illegal and all CCVCV words are the first, second and fifth letter unless
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this otherwise violates the morphology rules. Like I said though, this really
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needs to be fleshed out and this is only a preview for now.
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For example a light green would be `puoqa'o` (`pu'lo qalno`, white-green).
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---
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I hit a snag while hacking at the tooling for making word creation and the like
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easier. I am still working on it, but most of my word creation is manual and
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requires me to keep a phonology information document up on my monitor while I
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sound things out. As part of writing this article I had to add the letters `f`
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and `r` to L'ewa for the word `wufra`.
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I am documenting my work for this language [here](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/lewa).
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This repo will build the grammar book PDF, website and eBook. This will also be
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the home of the word generation, similarity calculation, dictionary and
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(eventually) automatic translation tools. I am also documenting each of the
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words in the language in their own files that will feed into the grammar book
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generation. More on this when I have more of a coherent product!
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