reconlangmo 5: Sentence Structure (#148)

* reconlangmo 5: Sentence Structure

* lol oops

blog/reconlangmo-2-phonology-writing-2020-05-08.markdown

@@ -32,15 +32,15 @@ L'ewa, consonants and vowels.
 
 ### Consonants
 
-*Consonant inventory*: /d g h j k l m n p q s t w ʃ ʒ ʔ ʙ̥/
+*Consonant inventory*: /d f g h j k l m n p q s t w ʃ ʒ ʔ ʙ̥/
 
 | Manner/Place        | Bilabial | Alveolar | Palato-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labio-velar | Uvular | Glottal |
 |---------------------|----------|----------|-----------------|---------|-------|-------------|--------|---------|
 | Nasal               | m        | n        |                 |         |       |             |        |         |
 | Stop                | p        | t d      |                 |         | k g   |             | q      | ʔ       |
-| Fricative           |          | s        | ʃ ʒ             |         |       |             |        | h       |
+| Fricative           | f        | s        | ʃ ʒ             |         |       |             |        | h       |
 | Approximant         |          |          |                 | j       |       | w           |        |         |
-| Trill               | ʙ̥        |          |                 |         |       |             |        |         |
+| Trill               | ʙ̥        | r        |                 |         |       |             |        |         |
 | Lateral approximant |          | l        |                 |         |       |             |        |         |
 
 The weirdest consonant is /ʙ̥/, which is a voiceless bilabial trill, or blowing

blog/reconlangmo-5-sentence-structure-2020-05-18.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,137 @@
+---
+title: "ReConLangMo 5: Sentence Structure"
+date: 2020-05-18
+series: reconlangmo
+tags:
+ - conlang
+ - lewa
+---
+
+# ReConLangMo 5: Sentence Structure
+
+The last post in [this series][reconlangmo] was more of a grammar dump with few
+concrete examples or much details about things (mostly because of a lack of
+vocabulary to make examples with). I'll fix this in the future, but for now
+let's continue on with sentence structure goodness. This is a response to [this
+prompt][rclm5].
+
+[reconlangmo]: /blog/series/reconlangmo
+[rclm5]: https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/gmbwb5/reconlangmo_5_sentence_structure/
+
+## Independent Clause Structure
+
+Most of the time L'ewa sentences have only one clause. This can be anything from
+a single verb to a subject, verb and object. However, sometimes more information
+is needed. Consider this sentence:
+
+```
+The dog which is blue is large.
+```
+
+This kind of a relative clause would be denoted using `hoi`, which would make
+the sentence roughly the following in L'ewa:
+
+```
+le wufra hoi blanu xi brado.
+```
+
+The particle `xi` is needed here in order to make it explicit that the subject
+noun-phrase has ended.
+
+Similarly, an incidental relative clause is done with with `joi`:
+
+```
+le  wufra  joi              blanu    ke brado
+the dog,   which by the way is blue,    is big.
+```
+
+## Questions
+
+There are a few ways to ask questions in L'ewa. They correlate to the different
+kinds of things that the speaker could want to know. 
+
+### `ma`
+
+`ma` is the particle used to fill in a missing/unknown noun phrase. Consider
+these sentences:
+
+```
+ma   blanu?
+what is blue?
+```
+
+```
+ro  qa madsa   ma?
+you are eating what?
+```
+
+### `no`
+
+`no` is the particle used to fill in a missing/unknown verb. Consider these
+sentences:
+
+```
+ro no?
+How are you doing?
+```
+
+```
+le wufra xi no?
+The dog did what?
+```
+
+### `so`
+
+`so` is the particle used to ask questions about numbers, similar to the "how
+many" construct in English.
+
+```
+ro madsa so spalo?
+You ate how many apples?
+```
+
+```
+le so zasko xi qa'te glowa
+How many plants grow quickly?
+```
+
+## Color Words
+
+L'ewa uses a RGB color system like computers. The basic colors are red, green
+and blue, with some other basic ones for convenience:
+
+| English  | L'ewa  |
+| -------  | ------ |
+| blue     | blanu  |
+| red      | delja  |
+| green    | qalno  |
+| yellow   | yeplo  |
+| teal     | te'ra  |
+| pink     | hetlo  |
+| black    | xekri  |
+| white    | pu'ro  |
+| 50% gray | flego  |
+
+Colors will be mixed by creating compound words between base colors. Compound
+words still need to be fleshed out, but generally all CVCCV words will have
+wordparts made out of the first, second and fifth letter, unless the vowel pair
+is illegal and all CCVCV words are the first, second and fifth letter unless
+this otherwise violates the morphology rules. Like I said though, this really
+needs to be fleshed out and this is only a preview for now.
+
+For example a light green would be `puoqa'o` (`pu'lo qalno`, white-green).
+
+---
+
+I hit a snag while hacking at the tooling for making word creation and the like
+easier. I am still working on it, but most of my word creation is manual and
+requires me to keep a phonology information document up on my monitor while I
+sound things out. As part of writing this article I had to add the letters `f`
+and `r` to L'ewa for the word `wufra`.
+
+I am documenting my work for this language [here](https://tulpa.dev/cadey/lewa).
+This repo will build the grammar book PDF, website and eBook. This will also be
+the home of the word generation, similarity calculation, dictionary and
+(eventually) automatic translation tools. I am also documenting each of the
+words in the language in their own files that will feed into the grammar book
+generation. More on this when I have more of a coherent product!