Ban'si

General information
Ban'si is the language of the vulpine inhabitants of Bassa. It's a fairly dense language, so it has moderately short words in spite of its simple phonemic inventory.

Grammar-wise, Ban'si relies on reduplication, tone steps and a wide variety of pronouns and clitics to indicate information such as person, voice, transitivity, negative, plural, verb tense and mode, and so on. It is generally a rather analytic language (not isolating, but not too far).

Consonants
- All consonants can also be long (except word initially), spelled with a double letter (ex: "anno").

- The variation between [ɾ] and [ʁ] is regional. Long [ɾ] is pronounced as [rː].

Vowels
- Long vowels are spelled by doubling the letter (ii, ee, aa, uu, oou, oo).

- Nasal vowels are spelled by adding "n" (in, en, an, un, oun, on). Their length varies between short and long.

- Ambiguous sequences are separated with a silent "h" (ex: "ohu" /oɨ/).

Tone
- Tone step up is spelled with an appostrophe (ex: ka'mi).

- Tone step down is spelled with a dash (ex: ra-son).

- Words without any tone steps fall into the category of "toneless" words, and will have a small step added before the last syllable. For instance, the word kolimaso will be pronounced as kolima'so (non sentence-final) or kolima-so (sentence final), but with the step about half as large. However, sometimes no step is added if the next word starts with a step (ex: kolimaso' men) or if the previous word ends with a step (ex: gande' kolimaso), especially in non-sentence final position.

Phonotactics
- Permitted syllables are (C)V only.

- Long consonant cannot follow a long vowel or nasal vowel (so sequences such as taasso or tansso are not alllowed).

Possessive
In Ban'si, possessive is indicated in one of two ways:

- With a step up. For instance, "Kami' papa" ("Dad's truck").

- With the "na" particle: "Kami na papa" ("Dad's truck"). "Na" is mostly used in longer noun phrases or with relative clauses.

- Attributive adjectives also use this construction: "Kami' bile" or "Kami na bile" ("Blue truck").

- Relative clauses also use this construction: "Kami' o ve" or "Kami na o ve" ("The truck I see").

- Locatives also use this construction: "Kami' Pari" or "Kami na Pari" ("The truck in Paris").

- This is also used with possessive adjectives, demonstratives and interrogatives, as in "Kami' men" ("My truck"), "Kami' ga" ("This truck"), "Kami' wa" ("Which truck?").

Copulative
The copula ("to be") is expressed with a step down.

- This is used with adjectives: "Kami-bile." ("The truck is blue").

- This is also used with nouns: "O-papa." ("I am a dad").

- This is also used with locatives: "O-Pari." ("I am in Paris").

Existential
The existential is expressed with a locative pronoun + the noun group.

- If the object is is close, the pronoun "Ga" ("Here") is used: "Ga kami." ("There's a truck here").

- Otherwise, the prounoun "La" ("There") is used: "La kami." ("There's a truck").

- This is also used with impersonnal verbs: "Ga pile." ("It's raining here"), "La pile." ("It's raining").

Negative
Negative is indicated with the "kou" prefix. This can be used with verbs, adjectives, nouns, locatives or pronouns:

- Verb: "O kou ve i." ("I don't see it").

- Adjective: "O-kou bile." ("I'm not blue").

- Noun: "Kou kami-bile." ("No trucks are blue").

- Locative: "Kami-kou Pari." ("The truck is not in Paris").

- Pronoun: "Kou me!" ("Not me!").

Plural
Plural is indicated by reduplicating the first syllable (but without the long or nasal vowel) and is similar to the negative. If the word doesn't have a step up (or the next step), a step up is also added. Plural is optional in Ban'si. It can be used with verbs, adjectives or nouns (pronouns form their plurals differently):

- Verb: "O ve've." ("I see them"). This can indicate plural object or intensive or rarely plural subject, depending on transitivity and context.

- Adjective: "Kami bi'bile." ("The truck is very blue"). Plural adjectives generally indicate intensive rather than the plural of the attached object.

- Noun: "Ka'kami-bile." ("The trucks are blue"). Note that plural is optional in Ban'si.