Ælis

Preliminary Remarks
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Ideology
hAnWnArAsAiA2tE (Welcome!) k1lISK [Ælis] is a constructed a priori language with a very particular approach on grammar. As such, it might be very interesting for aficionados of theoretical linguistics to use Ælis as a tool to start philosophizing about and exploring the boundaries of human grammar. Ælis has no nouns, adjectives, verbs or adverbs in a grammatical sense; verb conjugations, inflections, declensions, tenses, moods or voices; (hardly any) stress in words which is relevant; no tones, no fixed word order, (hardly any) punctuation, and no spaces to divide words or sentences from one another. Nonetheless, Ælis has a solid, very consistent and unambiguous grammar. The entire language is built on a few hundred root words. These roots are not fusional but independent, which means that every root is always a morpheme and always has the same meaning. They do not depend on the words to which they are attached.

Apart from the philosophical aspect, the language aims to be an artlang, aesthetically appealing both to the ear and the eye; as well as an auxlang, equally easy to learn for speakers with a variety of native backgrounds.

Phonemes
The table below contains all the phonemes that the Ælis language features (IPA). Bold-faced phonemes represent the preferred pronunciation, phonemes in brackets are allowed variations that will not cause ambiguity.

Alphabet and syllabic writing
The alphabet has 21 letters, of which 6 vowels and 15 consonants. Technically, [aɛ] is a diphthong, but it is regarded as a common vowel. All written letters should always be pronounced and vice-versa. The table below follows the Ælis alphabetical order. Letters in bold are those where the Romanisation differs from the actual IPA phonemic symbols.

The two bottom rows of this table represent the so called primary  and secondary case. Ælis is written in an alternation of these two cases in order for the different root words to be visually distinguishable. The writing style follows this pattern: the first phoneme of every root word is written in the primary case, every other letter is written in the secondary case. They have been designed so that the secondary case letters appear to the top-right of the primary case letters. For example:


 * aM = [am] eN = [en]  iR = [ir]
 * mA = [ma] nE = [ne]  rI = [ri]

Apart from proper names and borrowed words, root words can have either two or three phonemes/letters, for which only certain patterns are admissible:

Two letter root words: Three letter root words:
 * CV:  tW [tæ] (colour)
 * VC:  aR [ar] (reason, causality)
 * VV:  uA [ua] (centre, half)
 * CVC:  lIS [lis] (concept, notion)
 * CVV:  gOE [goe] (water)

Punctuation and the name tag
Ælis has a full stop ( . ) and a comma, but these are used only very sporadically. There is not even an obligation to use these punctuation marks at all.

There is, however, a set of two fairly important symbols which are used as a name tag: the rea. These two (mirrored) symbols enclose any type of proper name or borrowed word in order to mark it as such. The rea may be literally pronounced. E.g.:


 * eG1lIS [egælis] = peaceful language;
 * eG k 1lIS K [eg rea 'ælis] = the language (that is named) Peace. (=Ælis)

By itself, [rea] ( rEA ) is a root word which means "name":

iA1mAhA rEA kfREDERIQK ==> My name is Frederic.

Morphological word structure
Words are constructed with one simple but fundamental guideline: the head of the root word cluster has a nominal value; the tail of the root word cluster is dependent, adjectival or adverbial. An example:  tE [te] means 'human/person'. uBlE [uble] means 'strong'. An interesting and possibly unique feature of the Ælis root word approach is that semantically related words are nearto always lexically similar. The following words are lexically related, which in correlation means that they have a certain amount of root words in common:
 * tEuBlE [te>uble] means 'a strong person'
 * uBlEtE [uble>te] means 'human strength'

tEnAlE [tenale] ==> person>quality>much; a good person --> friend

tEnAiO  [tenaio] ==> person>quality>little; a bad person --> an enemy

iItEnAlE  [iitenale] ==> target>person>quality>much; to target (being) a good person --> to become friends with

lItEnAlE  [litenale] ==> origin>person>quality>much; to come from (being) a good person --> to stop being friends with

etc.

Number concepts
Along with the 21 common letters of the alphabet, Ælis uses a set of ten additional symbols called number concepts. They could be considered to be digits or ciphers, but they only appear within certain words. The number concepts all have a numeric value:

Counting
One of the primary uses of number concepts is proper numbers. The counting system could technically be called bi-quinary (5x2), although probably decimal is easier and also accurate. The numbers from 0 to 9 are formed by prefixing a number concept to the number morpheme qA [qa].

Accordingly, the first ten numbers are:

For numbers 10 and up, multiple number concepts are combined as if they were digits. E.g.:

10qA = 10, 11qA = 11, 12qA = 12, 20qA = 20, 30qA = 30, 100qA = 100, 347qA = 347, etc.

Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns exist in 6 grammatical persons and three genders. Personal pronouns are only used for arguments that can be interpreted as having a character: people, or sometimes animals, anthropomorphized objects (in literature),... The undefined pronouns are only used if a speaker is either unaware of the gender, doesn't wish to specify, or, in plurals, for referring to a group where both sexes are represented.

Qualifiers
Qualifiers are a set of five roots used as suffixes to nearly any other morpheme which express a certain amount, degree or quality of something. Qualifiers are essential building stones of the Ælis morphology. There are five levels:

sI (nothing) - iO (little) - uA (moderate/middle/half) - lE (much) - rA (all) One of the previously presented roots is [na], which means quality. By itself, the root has no connotation. A qualifier has to be suffixed to add a 'level' of quality:
 * nAsI [nasi]: no quality --> worthless
 * nAiO [naio]: little quality --> bad
 * nAuA [naua]: moderate quality --> neutral
 * nAle [nale]: a lot of quality --> good
 * nArA [nara]: all/total quality --> perfect

Another previously presented word was [uble], 'strong'. This too is a combination of the root [ub], 'a (degree of) strength', with a qualifier suffix. According to the pattern, the qualifiers create the following words:


 * uBsI [ubsi]: no strength --> powerless
 * uBiO [ubio]: little strength --> weak
 * uBuA [ubua]: moderate strength --> moderately strong
 * uBle [uble]: a lot of strength --> strong
 * uBrA [ubra]: all/total strength --> very strong, allmighty

A very big part of the vocabulary relies on the use of qualifiers.

Pluralization
The topic of pluralization is peculiar, as it differs from the 'traditional' singular/plural pattern. Ælis, root words are principally ambiguous as long as they're not specified. For instance, '[te]' can mean both 'person', 'people', and 'human'; '[ma]' can mean both 'man', 'men', 'manly', 'manliness', etc. E.g.:

lA mAh AaNdAuA [la ma ha'andaua]
 * ==> There is a man here
 * ==> There are men here
 * ==> There is male presence here

By adding the root qA [qa], with either a number concept or one of the qualifiers, these roots transform into precise (countable) and imprecise (non-countable) amounts, respectively. Compare:

...
 * 1qAmA [æqama] (one man)
 * 2qAmA [eqama] (two men)
 * qAiOmA [qaioma] (a few men)
 * qAlEmA [qalema] (many men)
 * qArAmA [qarama] (all men)
 * etc.

Moreover, [qa] can be combined with a number concept and a qualifier at the same time, by which both nuances will be incorporated:


 * lA 9qAiOmA hAaNdAuA [la uoqaioma haandaua] (nine men (not much) are here) --> There are only nine men here.

Topicalization
To cover for the facts that there are no word classes; that the word order is free; and that there are no spaces to divide words and sentences, Ælis places a very big emphasis on the semantical functions that different words have within a sentence. There is a high rate of 'topicalisation', or function marking, which means that each word has one or more root words prefixed to them to point out their semantical function in the sentence. There are 8 functions in Ælis, which are divided into three categories. It is noteworthy that none of these semantical functions must be obligatorily present in a sentence for it to be grammatically correct (unlike is often the case with grammatical functions S-V-O), nor is any of the functions restricted to only one use per sentence.

Primary functions
Primary functions divide sentences into the equivalent of constituents (noun phrase, verb phrase, adverbial phrase, etc.). Since Ælis doesn't use spaces, the primary functions serve as a means of delineating different words within a sentence. There are 4 primary functions.

Topic

 * → Corresponding morpheme: hA [ha].

The topic describes an action or state. In full sentences, it will often be translated with a verb, though the topic itself has no form of conjugation, tense or mood. The topic is always essive, which means that it should be interpreted as a noun phrase that starts with 'there is', 'there are'.

E.g.: hA dOE [ ha doe]
 * (TOPfire)
 * => to burn / there is (a) fire.

Patient

 * → Corresponding morpheme: iA [ia].

The patient is the syntactical object that is affected by the topic. It has no active participation in the process expressed by the topic. It will generally translate to an (in)direct object or prepositional object whenever the topic expresses an action, or the subject if the topic describes a (passive) state.

E.g.: iA aNoWsIhAdOE [ ia 'anoæsi hadoe]
 * (PAThouse TOPfire)
 * => the house burns / the house is on fire.

Agent

 * → Corresponding morpheme: lA [la].

The agent is the syntactical object that initiates the topic. The appearance of an agent can turn a sentence into a (transitive) action.

E.g.: lA 1mAiAaNoWsIhAdOE [ la æma ia'anoæsi hadoe]
 * (AGme PAThouse TOPfire)
 * => I set fire to the house.

Modifier

 * → Corresponding morpheme: iR [ir].

A modifier adds information to a sentence which cannot be covered by one of the previous functions. Generally, the modifier corresponds to a variety of adverbial constituents: time, place, manner, cause, etc. Modifiers also harbour the key to expressing time tenses.

E.g.: iR aSdAlElA1mAiAaNoWsIhAdOE [ ir asdale laæma ia'anoæsi hadoe]
 * (MODfuture AGme PAThouse TOPfire)
 * => I will set fire to the house.

Subordinate functions
Subordinate functions are functions that can only appear in combination with one of the primary functions. Thus, they are strongly tied to one specific argument of the sentence.

Characteristic

 * → Corresponding morpheme: eM [em].

A characteristic gives you additional information of a specific syntactical argument. The information is always considered to be either inherent to the respective argument, or of predictable nature. It will mostly translate to an adjectival description of age, size, shape, colour, etc.

E.g.: iRaSdAlElA1mAiAaNoWsI iAeM vErAhAdOE [irasdale laæma ia'anoæsi iaem vera hadoe]
 * (MODfuture AGme PAThouse PAT-CHARpreciousness TOPfire)
 * => I will set fire to the precious house.

Referent

 * → Corresponding morpheme: vW [væ].

The referent is a syntactical element that places an argument in a semantical relation to something else. The referent may therefore correspond to the use of a comparative or superlative structure (e.g.: I am bigger than you), to a relative indication in time or space (e.g.: in front of me), but also simply to a possessive pronoun. The referent can be analytically translated as a relative clause that starts with "when compared to...": when compared to you, I am big / when compared to me, in the front.

E.g.: iRaSdAlElA1mAiAaNoWsIiAeMvErA iAvW 2mAhAdOE [irasdale laæma ia'anoæsi iaemvera iavæ ema hadoe]
 * (MODfuture AGme PAThouse PAT-CHARpreciousness PAT-REFyou TOPfire)
 * => I will set fire to that precious house of yours.

Free functions
The free functions are functions that do not take part in the hieratic relationship that the primary and subordinate functions have to each other.

Sentence bracket

 * → Corresponding morpheme: lW [læ] + iW [iæ].

The sentence bracket is a set of two morphemes that allow subordinate clauses to be constructed within the main clause. The opening bracket 'læ' is comparable to the relative pronouns 'that' and 'which', and the closing bracket 'iæ' is used to mark the end of the subclause. The entire sentence bracket will be subordinate to the root word to which it is suffixed, and will probably in turn feature primary and subordinate functions itself.

E.g.: iRaSdAlElA1mAiAaNoWsIiAeMvErAiAvW2mAiAem lW lA2mAhAeLeAnArA iW hAdOE iW hAdOE [irasdale laæma ia'anoæsi iaemvera iavæ'ema iaem læ la'ema haeleanara iæ hadoe]
 * (MODfuture AGme PAThouse PAT-CHARpreciousness PAT-CHAR- BRACKET.OPEN(AGyou TOPmuch-love BRACKET.CLOSE) TOPfire)
 * ==> I will set fire to the precious house of yours that you care for so deeply.

Sentence breaker

 * → Corresponding morpheme: tA [ta].

The sentence breaker is a morpheme placed in between two sentences to separate them. Without the sentence breaker, arguments with the same function are considered to be enumerations. E.g.:

lA1mAhAeRlAksEMKhAeN [laæma haer laSem haen] (AG me TOPvision AGSam TOPhearing)
 * => Sam and I are looking and listening.

lA1mAhAeR tA lAksEMKhAeN [laæma haer ta laSem haen] (AG me TOPvision (sent.br.) AGSam TOPhearing)
 * => I am looking and Sam is listening.

Conciseness
Since this function marking construction pattern tends to create very large sentences, discourse aims to be as concise as possible. As long as the conversation covers the same subject, a lot of words can be omitted without losing information. An example:
 * Person A: iRaSdAiOlA1mAiAaNoWsIiAvW2tE
 * (MODpast AGme PAThouse PAT-REFyou)
 * ==> "I did something to your house."
 * Person B: hAnE
 * (TOPquestion)
 * ==> "What (did you do to it)?"
 * Person A: hAdOE
 * (TOPfire)
 * ==> "I set fire to it."

Note that the last reply ([hadoe]) is the exact same formulation as the first example sentence which meant "There is a fire". Only now, the implied meaning is completely altered by the context.

Vocabulary
Please follow the link to the /Root word list and vocabulary/ page.

Example text


The Lord's Prayer