Goldifrans

Goldifrans is the language spoken by the Goldifrans people. It evolved from Early Goldifrans and is the ancestor of Late Goldifrans.

Phonology
Rhythm: syllable-timed

Lexical stress: All the syllables of the root of a word are stressed. No other syllables are stressed.

Vowel harmony
In each word the vowels in the word suffix align by frontness with the last vowel of the word root.

example: The suffix for plural changes between ʎɛ, ʎɐ and ʎɑ
 * ɡoldɪʎɛ
 * kxɐʎɐ
 * pʎɛsɪdɑʎɑ

Morphology
Syllable structure: [C][C]V[C] (most commonly CV)

Words are formed by one (or more) root and zero or more agglutinating suffixes.

Grammar
There is no fundamental difference between verbs, nouns, adverbs and adjectives. Most words can act as either of this depending on context and word order.

Word order can be described as V-S-O though this is not very applicable for this language.

Genders
There are 3 genders: masculine, neuter and feminine. The gender of a word can be determined by the last vowel in the root of the word.

feminine - ʏ, ø, ɪ, ɛ (front vowels)
 * ɡoldɪ (owner)

neuter - ʊ, ə, ɐ (central vowels)
 * kxɐ (human)

masculine - u, o, ɤ, ɑ (back vowels)
 * pʎɛsɪdɑ (star)

For words that can have multiple genders, the gender is changed by changing the vowel with its corresponding one in the new gender by openness.

The suffixes of each root agree with it by gender (this phenomenon is merged with vowel harmony).

The modifiers of each word agree with it by gender.

Numbers
There are 4 numbers - common, zero, singular and plural. The common number is used for questions or when the count is not known. Zero indicates the lack of something, singular is used for one object and plural for more than one objects.

fɹɑns - land, ground

common: fɹɑns (some land, any land)

zero: fɹɑnsɑɹx (no land)

singular: fɹɑnsɑʎɑ (one land, the land)

plural: fɹɑnsɤl (many lands, the lands)

Using a number other than the common usually also denotes definiteness. Because of this the number suffixes are sometimes also seen as suffixes for definite article.

Persons
There are 4 persons depending on whether the speaker and the listener take part in the action.

ɡoldɪ - to own

1 person: ɡoldɪm - * I own, we (me and someone else, but not you) own

2 person: ɡoldɪŋɛx - * I own, we (me and you) own

3 person: ɡoldɪsɪ - you own

4 person: ɡoldɪjɪ - he owns, she owns, it owns, they own


 * Sometimes called inclusive and exclusive we. When in singular, the exclusive form is used (ɡɔldim). Sometimes in written text the inclusive form is used to indicate that the speaker is thinking or speaking to himself (as in this case the speaker is also the listener).

Numbers
Goldifrans uses duodecimal numeral system.

Ordinal numbers act as verbs (first is best translated as "to be first"). They agree in person with the word they modify. sɛm - I am first. sɛjɪ - He is first.