Aalmok

General information

 * Aalmok is intended to be an attempt at an International Auxiliary Language that takes a different route to its creation than most of its counterparts. It's an a priori language with a more complex grammar system. The more complex grammar and phonemic inventory are intended as a tool for introducing learners to concepts and sounds they may be unfamiliar with. With it's extremely high regularity, it is also intended to be relatively easy to learn.

Consonants
1. /t, d, n/ assimilate to dental or post-alveolar if preceded or followed by consonants of those positions.

2. /pɸ, bβ, t̪θ, d̪ð, ts, dz, kx, gɣ/ appear as digraphs in written Aalsen.

3. /kx, gɣ/ are only used for names or loanwords.

4. Consonants can be palatized or velarized if followed by /w, j/.

Vowels
1. /y, yː, e, eː, œ, œː, æ, æː/ appear as digraphs in written Aalsen

Alphabet
The romanization of Aalšik (the Aalsen orthography) is as follows:

The digraphs mentioned in the earlier section are as follows:

Finally, there are two "oddball" digraphs: "hl" is pronounced /ɬ/ and "hw" is pronounced /ʍ/.

Phonotactics
The phonology of words is equivalent to their spelling, excepting the changes listed below the consonants table. It is recomended that the learner simply learns the words, as the phonotactics are unlikely to be codified.

General
The sentence structure in Aalmok is generally free, with the only exceptions being the location of adjectives, adverbs, and genetive case nouns (These will be discussed in their individual sections).

Primary stress falls on the final syllable of a word, not including case or verb endings, unless there are one or more long vowels; in which case, primary stress would fall on the first long vowel. Secondary stress radiates out from a primary stress source to every other syllable. For example: /nipesak/ (companion) is pronounced [ˌni.pes.ˈak] and /seeišmaguk/ (weekly news) is pronounced [ˈseːʃ.ma.ˌguk]

This overview will begin with nouns.

Nouns
For the most part, Aalmok can be said to revolve around the nouns. Verbs, adjectives and adverbs are derived from them. In fact, nouns even function the primary descriptors, as, as you will later find out, there are an extremely small number of adjectives. The first things a learner should know is, that nouns always end in a consonant and that nouns decline for 6 cases and 2 numbers in a wholly regular pattern. This is shown in the following table: The plural ending used is determined by whether or not the final consonant of the noun is voiced. If the noun ends with /y, w, h/ then the full ending must be used. /s, z, š, ž/ also require that the full Nominative, Dative, Locative and Orientative endings are used and /n/ requires the full Accusative ending; although, in these cases, in friendly speach, the ending's first vowel can be dropped if the ending's consonant is replaced by /ħ/.

Each of these cases has an underlying concept behind them, although it is preferred that the Locative and Orientative not be used without an accompanying preposition. The Nominative is used for nouns taking the subject role in verb constructions. The Accusative marks the direct object of a verb and the Dative, the indirect object. The Locative indicates that the preposition modifying the noun is expressing a location in relation to something else and the Orientative indicates direction in relation to something else.

The Genetive is rather unique among the cases. It takes its position within the other cases and generally functions as the language's adjective. It indicated that the preceding noun possesses the genetive noun's qualities, or that the preceding noun is possessed by the genetive noun. The Genetive does not modify to agree with the case in which it lies. There is, however, one exception to the preceding sentence; if the Genetive is refering back to a noun already in the genetive, then /u/ is added on to the basic genetive ending; if the Genetive is refering back to a word already in the second level of Genetive, then it adds /o/; then /a/; then /e/; and finally /i/; if further levels of the Genetive are used for whatever reason, then the final vowel progression is restarted. In discussion, these Genetive forms are referred to as “levels of Genetive”, and, in glossing, are written as “GEN2”, “GEN3”, “GEN4” and so on.

Pronouns
This section is quite brief. How about a table to sum it up?: If the learner doesn't know the difference between “We (Exclusive)” and “We (Inclusive)”, then the learner should check here.

Also, keep in mind that, in Aalmok, it's perfectly alright to refer to humans of either gender as "it".

Adverbs
Don't be fooled! Adverbs in Aalmok are quite a bit more functional than in English.

To start off, an adverb is marked by the suffix “-âs”. Like in English, adverbs can be used to modify verbs, genetive nouns and other adverbs; however, they are also used in the vocative sense as well as to modify an entire clause. The meaning is also stretched slightly and the concept can be defined roughly as “by means of” or “in terms of”. Adverbs can sometimes be used interchangeably with “ni + dat.”.

Adjectives
Curiously enough, there are only 15 adjectives in the entire language of Aalmok.

Here's another table: “Mepa” can be modified to “lamepa”, meaning “penultimate, the second to last”, technically meaning that there are 16 adjectives.

Adjectives are always adjectives, to make on of the above into a noun /n/ must be added to the end.

Verbs
Starting right off with the declension: Oh dear! What's this? A first person command form?? What does that even mean?

Well, It's really not that complex. Sometimes the learner may find themself stuck on a school or work assignment, and in English, it's not uncommon for people to try to energize themselves by giving themselves commands. The only difference in Aalmok is, that you use the 1st. person command instead of the 2nd. person command. The 1st. person singular and plural also have another use in conversational speaking. If you or you and you're group are in a confrontation with one or more others, a 1st. person command can be used to call for an action from you and/or your group against the opposition in a fashion that is pretentious or debasing to the opposition.

The “-as” command is essentially the same as the “let's” formation in English.

The tense, mood, aspect and other qualities of verbs can be modified through the use of a pretty good sized list of prefixes and suffixes. The extent to which these affixes are used has an effect on register, but that's a story for another section. Here's a list of the affixes along with the effect the have: 1. the becoming prefix is determined by the onset consonant of the root word, if there is not onset consonant, then the “in-” form is used. It can also have any of the causatives attach to it without using their consonant.

Affixes can be stacked if sensible.

All suffixes are treated as part of the root and the basic verb ending is added to the end of the last suffix.

Polite requests are formed by adding the proper command form onto a hypothetical stem with "niňkwâs" (please) starting off the sentence. For example: ".niňkwâs siijarea." means "Could you please move?".

If the learner doesn't know the meaning of any of the terms in the above table, they can be found explained in wikipedia's mood and aspect pages.

The passive voice is formed by switching the cases on the subject and direct object and adding the "-us" suffix to the verb.

Prepositions
This is a tough bit here. The prepositions have many meaning and the prevailing one is dependent on which case it is used with. As per their name, prepositions are placed before that which the modify. Prepositions of the same case can be combined into one to combine their meanings. Prepositions can also be used as prefixes. This section will be divided into cases.

Nominative
Only one preposition can use this case: "pu". when used with this case, "pu" means "per, for each". It is used in the expressions "pu dumoks" and "pu zamoks" meaning "percent" and " permille".

Accusative
A table of the preposition that can be used with this case and their meaning in such a case: "wi", "yu" and "mi" are used for general comparisons when both compared entities are identified in the sentence. The construction is as such: "la aanai ťikal wi aaťâ”, meaning ”it is better than that”, or more literally, “it is good to a greater degreee than that”.

“so“ is only used in the accusative as such: “.(so go e gwe)”, meaning ”Between you and me,”. I.e., between in the metaphorical sense.

Dative
A table of the preposition that can be used with this case and their meaning in such a case:

Locative
A table of the preposition that can be used with this case and their meaning in such a case:

Orientative
A table of the preposition that can be used with this case and their meaning in such a case:

Genetive
Only two prepositions can be used with the Genetive: “ša“ and “bu“. “ša“ means “owned by“ in this case and “bu“ means “made out of“.

Comparisons With Only One item
There are 4 suffixes used to make comparisons without that which the object is being compared to: “-ab”, the positive comparative (more); “-af”, the negative comparative (less); “-uat”, the positive superlative (the most); and “-iad”, the negative superlative (the least). These are always used in the Genetive. Example sentence: “.iiňglîsmok aanai ťikal;dooicmok aanai ťikabal;o aalmok aanai ťikuatal.”, meaning “English is good, German is better, but Aalmok is the best.”.

Vocabulary
To be updated