Asuma

Classification and Dialects
This language was once an agglutinative language. It has gradually turned into a fusional one. It was spoken and written by an ancient humanoid civilization on an exoplanet circa 4000 BC - 1000 BC, or from -1500 to +2500 using their calendar.

They live in a twin stellar system. The second star is a red dwarf (35 AU away) going around a central yellow star little cooler than our Sun. At nights Asumanese people may admire the shiny dwarf with naked eyes. In daytime, however it is outshone by the main sun. Their home planet is about the size of Earth (95%) but is even more dominated by water - with a ratio 9 to 1 - and orbits at a smaller distance than Earth does (0.85 AU). This makes their years shorter than ours (324.5 d). Number of moons: 1 (0.9% of planet's mass). Average temperature +13 °C on surface. Deepest point -14,617 km. Highest point +5,528 km.

Early writings were written on a type of dried algae with inky substance derived from marine creatures best described as squids by our standards.

Phonotactics
Syllable structure: A nucleus consisting in a vowel is always mandatory.

V = vowel, W = approximant, N = nasal consonant, C = any other consonant than W or N

V, WV, CV, NV, CWV, NWV

The Asumanese language has a front/back vowel harmony.

Lexical stress: no.

Prosodic stress: yes, on penult.

Nouns
Nouns decline in number, gender and case. They are either in singular or plural. They come in three different genders: neuter or mixed, feminine and masculine.

Inflection pattern: stem-number-gender-case

Number
For plural /u/ or /i/ is suffixed to nouns depending on vowel harmony contraints. Before a vowel the markers are reduced to /w/ and /j/. That is the usual case.

Case
The nominative serves as a case of presentation and entry in dictionaries. It shows the subject in a sentence. The accusative is mainly a case for objects. In addition, some prepositive phrases require this case. The genitive is used to show dependencies between entities, such as possession. In Asumanese, you indicate place and time with the locative case.

Pronouns
Their declension differs somewhat from noun declension. Pronouns feature a clitic that can either be used to put an emphasis on the purport of nominative subjects or possessive adjectives. In the first situation, the clitic comes immediately after the verb. And in the second, it succeeds the element qualified by the adjective. You may also use them without a nominative subject or possessive adjective. Since they lack case endings, their role is open to interpretation. The clitics are not (yet) under the vowel harmony's influence.

Moods
Indicative, conditional, potential, subjuntive, imperative and infinitive.

Infinitive is considered as one of the moods and come in a short form and a long form. Both may be preceeded by the abstractive preposition "xe" or "xo" according to the long infinitive ending "-re" or "-ro". All long forms follow the rule:

(xe) [stem]-re | (xo) [stem]-ro

Simple tenses
Asumanese has three basic verb tenses present, past and future.

Simple present: current event, "something is getting done here and now"

Simple past: memory of an event, "something got done before this"

Simple future: projection for an event, "something will get done after this"

Complex tenses
Also a variety of compound tenses allow for further nuance. In principle, strings of multiple constituants are possible. However, their number rarely exceeds three. The longer the string the smaller the frequency.

The auxilary verbs used with present pariciples are movement verbs, think of enter, stay and leave.

Simple present + present participle: current habit or condition

Simple past  + present participle: memory of a habit or condition

Simple future + present participle: projection for a habit or condition

The auxilary verbs used with past pariciples are possession verbs, think of take, keep and give.

Simple present + past participle: current result of a past event

Simple past + past participle: memory of a result of a past event

Simple future + past participle: projection for a result of a current event

Gerund
Formed with an infinitive inflected in the locative case.

Examples:

kuronâ, meaning "in running", "by running" or "while running"

birena, meaning "in drinking", "by drinking" or "while drinking"

Voice
The auxiliary verbs used to make the passive voice are: xe gire (to enter), xe êre (to stay) & xo fâro (to leave).

With the past participle and an optional agent which is introduced by the preposition pira/purâ, according again to the vowel harmony.

Copulae
There are no copulae as such. Neither is there direct equivalents of English "there is". In order to assert something exists, one would only use the plain referent ("A dog" instead of "There's a dog"). Having the prepositions "xe" and "xo" render better an English noun phrase in isolation.

Negation
The basic negation word is "ni" or "nu", depending on the vowel harmony.

Adjectives
Agree with the head in number, gender and case.

Usually placed after nouns or pronouns.

Possessive
Use genitive or clitic pronoun. Agree with the possessed.

Past
neuter: -de, -do

feminine: dê, -dâ

masculine: -da, -dô

Present
neuter: -be, -bo

feminine: -bê, -bâ

masculine: -ba, -bô

Numbers
Hexadecimal system. Nouns derived from neuter.

Adverbs
Agree with subjects in number and gender.

Usually placed right before verbs or adjectives.

-mi, -mu

Prepositions
& Conjunctions

Both are used indifferently. Sentences are seen as neuter when they undergo inflexion.

Syntax
Due to the case system the word order may vary for focal or stylistic reasons. However, the unmarked arrangement is: SVO

On the other hand, the use of pronoun clitics make things a little more complex. They can act as the subject.

English-Asuma
no: ni, nu

yes: si, su

hello: âlu

thank you, general: gaje

thank you, singular informal: gaje pe tena

thank you, plural and formal: gaje pe vena

Asuma-English
gire: i to enter, get in; t to put in, aux to be about (to do)

êre: i to stay, remain; t to keep in, aux to be (doing)

fâro: i to leave, get out; t to take out, aux to have been (doing)

tare: i to take, remove; aux to be going (to do)

uro: i to keep, retain; aux to have (done)

sôre: i to give, let; aux to have just (done)

voro: i & t to speak; to talk, discuss

Example text
Tônô uôto votô. You (the man) have spoken.

Nânô tavi votâ. We (women) are going to speak.

Xo voro ve. You talking.

Nu voro ve. It's not your speech.

Vobumu. Talkatively (of a male)