Missa

Introduction
Missa is a constructed language that took approximately a year to develop. It is highly agglutinative and, throughout its development, has developed a class-based diglossia; the lower-class version is presented here. The page on this site is highly based on the Wikipedia artcle for Turkish grammar.

Suffixes
A suffix (é) is attached to a stem (ot). This stem may be a root (ot), or it may be further analyzable (e.g., otta(i)-). Missa suffixes, as Turkish suffixes, fall into two main types:


 * constructive suffixes (mónde trel'ěntesa) which are not noun cases or verbal inflections, and
 * inflexional suffixes (pelm trel'ěntesa), which (naturally) are.

Spelling and Phonology
The phonology of Missa is roughly as thus (borrowing somewhat heavily from the look of Czech and Slovak):


 * Consonants : c m b p n d t ń g k s z š l r j -u- v '
 * Vowels : a e é i o ó u ě/y.

These are as in the IPA, with the following exceptions:


 * Consonant Differences : [c] represents /ts/; [ń] is a velar nesal; [š] is a devoiced postalveolar fricative; [-u-] is a labial approximant (or similar); ['] represents palatalization or /j/ after a consonant (e.g. [trel'] ~ [trelj].)
 * Vowel Differences: [e] is /ɛ/, [o] is /ɔ/ (with their accented forms being /e o/, respectively), and [ě]/[y] being representative of schwa.

The differentiation in Missa being orthographic [ě] and [y] is that [y] is used in pure roots; while [ě] is used for the schwa that developed from the developmental simplification of such initial consonant clusters as [tm].

Gender
While Missa does not have gender for common nouns, gender is distinguished in 3rd person pronouns (as in English). However, Missa has highly productive suffixes to mark specific genders, being -el (feminine) and -ék (masculine). The genderized epicine pronoun contrasts as an obviate to the (inherently privative) normally gendered third person gendered pronouns, ak (m.) and aš (f.)

Person
Missa has 3 persons (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), and as stated above, the 4th person in some clauses is represented by suffixing a gender-marking suffix to the epicine 3rd person pronoun.

Parts of speech
Missa has 8 parts of speech (drepsa gellikvo "parts of talking"):
 * 1) noun (móm "noun");
 * 2) pronoun(móm milvo "noun of person");
 * 3) adjective ((mómsavo) gapsl'on"Thing that talks about (nouns)");
 * 4) verb (oton "action");
 * 5) adverb ((otonsa) gapsl'on "Thing that talks about (actions)";
 * 6) conjunction (ukliginon "Thing that makes others come together");
 * 7) Grammatical particle (umsepl'on "The (inherently) known");
 * 8) interjection (dóš "Shout" ).

Missa does not inflect its adjectives or adverbs; and the majority of these are themselves derived from nouns or verbs, respectively.

Because Missa does not use the present tense of the verb "to be", the word de "it" followed by a noun can make a complete sentence: ket "dog"; de ket "It's a dog."

However, in dictionaries, Missa gives two "cases" of its nouns, Nominative and Vocative; as it is the vocative that shows the true root a noun: štlum "porch, patio"; štlubu "Porch! Patio!"

Dictionaries give verbs in their simple root form (as the 'infinitive' is highly archaic in all variants of Missa), however, some may give the verb in "root, I (root)" form: mel "(to) run"; mel, melé "(to) run; I run".

As explained above, adjectives and adverbs are often formed from similar nouns and verbs, respectively:

Adjectives are commonly formed from nouns by suffixing a former participial suffix, which with time has worn to become a simple adjective suffix for both nouns and verbs: Cel "Rust"; celle "rust-colored, rusty."

Adverbs, however, are usually only formed from verbs or adjectives with the suffix -pte: Tyk "Good"; tykpte "well".

Other common suffixes include -on, which creates a simple noun from a verb (or even adjective on occasion): ńek "young"; ńekon "something or someone who/that is young".

Missa quite often in adjectival constructions has the root adjective take the suffix -vo, which follows the noun it modifies; however, an adjective derived via -le does not take -vo and comes before the noun : *Dek "cat" and til "red", dek tilvo "red cat" (literally cat of red); but *Rénsle dek "smiling cat" (without -vo and preceding.)

The suffix that makes an adjective or adverb (or rarely verbal transitive meaning) emphatic is -ke: Malk "Green"; malkke "very green".