Lalakhmet

General Information
Lalakhmet (also known as Proto-Lalakhi) is an a priori lang. It is spoken by a rather large group in the old roman province of Mauritania. This is the historical dialect whence came the modern dialects now spoken in the country of (romlang for conword). The ethnic peoples who speak Lalakhmet were largely nomadic when the Romans conquered North Africa. Over time, the nomadic peoples advanced quickly with the technology and society of the Romans (and later ethnic Nomidians).

Being nomadic, the original language was not written because it was only spoken, but for uses in this article, a romanization will be used.

Consonants
Note that Palatal'' is used to mean palatal and post-alveolar to conserve space. A French-derived system is used as the first person to re-construct Lalakhemt was French''. 1. /r/ is always a true trill 2. /ɲ/ is /ŋ/ word finally or pre-velar. 3. /r̥/ and /ɬ/ are treated as the fricative forms of /r/ and /l/ respectively in      Lalakhmeti understanding. /ɣ/ is viewed as a liquid. 4. /ɣ/ syllable-initial; /ɰ/ post-vocalic –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– All consonants can be geminate. Written: [m n ɲ] -  [p b t d k g q] - [t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ] -  [s z ɬ ʃ ʒ χ ʁ] -  [r l r̥ j ʎ] - 

Vowels
1. /a/ is a true front –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Diphthongs: [uɪ̯ aʊ̯] - ui au

Phonotatics
ICLVGCC, N̩ Restrictions
 * I - fricatives or nasals (where the /r̥/ and /ɬ/ rule comes in as /r/ and/l/ can't go here, but /r̥/ and /ɬ/ can). /d͡z/ as a result of /z/ not being allowed.
 * C - any consonant
 * L - liquid other than /r̥/
 * V - vowel
 * G - glides, {j w ɣ~ɰ}
 * N̩ - nasal other than /ɲ~ŋ/
 * /ɣ~ɰ/
 * /ɣ/ can only appear syllable-initial before a vowel
 * /ɰ/ can only appear post-vocalically
 * Affricates cannot final without a following vowel
 * /s z/ cannot be initial
 * /s/ can exist initially in the I position
 * /z/ must always become /d͡z/ (always represented with a Z)
 * Geminates can only exist intervocalically (this does include orthographic "intervocality" where a silent E can be placed thereafter to make a pseudo-intervocal environment).
 * /ɲ/ and /ʎ/ must be geminate intervocalically
 * Vowels cannot be in hiatus

Stress
Lalakhmet is spoken slowly (compared to French or Argentinian Spanish) and carries a moderate stress that is not phonemic. It is always placed on the antepenultimate (or the closest syllable thereto). When preceding a geminate consonant however, the penultimate is stressed.

Grammar
Words are formed from a root (the base example here will be khay-, -i-/-t-, speak/language/speech). This root can be applied for different meanings according to the verb/noun/adjective paradigms. Though, some words have their own name (these also have static genders). These paradigms can be layered (as in, khaï- can be put into a passive participle then an adjective suffix thereon to make the adjectival idea passive).

In a root, there are two (three) parts: the root, (khay-), and the sandhi, (-i-/-t-). The sandhi part affects the entire word: therefore, between two syllables, the suffixes will take the sandhi of the root. Note that glides are immune to sandhi as they function as vowels and consonants simultaneously.

Nominals
Note: personal pronouns are under verbs (Person under Verbial)

Description
Lalakhmet declines nouns to grammatical gender (masculine, feminine, neuter, ominous, and glorious), number (singular, partitive, mass, and plural), and case (nominative, accusative, lative, simple adpositional, and complex adpositional).

Gender paradigms are not noun specific except with some nouns (father, mother, sister, etc (these have separate words)).

Gender

There are five genders, masculine, feminine, neuter, ominous, and glorious. Masculine describes sentient being that are of the male gender. Feminine does the same but for the female gender. Neuter is similar, but it applies to insentient objects, plants, and mass groups of a mixed gender. Ominous and glorious split from the previous three: ominous describes ideas that are perceived as dark, taboo, malicious, etc; glorious does the same but for ideas that are perceived as happy, inspiring, good, light, etc.

Number

There are four numbers: singular, partitive, mass, and plural. Singular describes one single object. Partative describes objects that are either less than one (such as 1/2) and/or objects that are a part of a greater, complete object. Mass describes objects that are being talked about in general: not relating to or specifying a specific object. This is used most often with neuter nouns. Plural nouns talk about a specific group of more than one objects.

Case

There are five cases: nominative, accusative, lative, and the simple/complex adpositionals. The nominative describes the subject and the agent of an active construction and the subject of a passive one. The accusative is the patient of an active construction and the patient and agent of a passive one. The lative does three things: the dative, genitive, and a general adpositional (representing at, to, towards, into, etc). It also acts as a pseudo-accusative with intransitive verbs; in passives, it replaces the accusative. The first prepositional describes nouns that are being acted upon by dynamic[,] deictic prepositions (as well a few other abstract prepositionals (such as against [someone])). The second prepositional describes static, deictic prepositions and abstract ones.

Declension
Masculine

Feminine

Neuter

Ominous

Glorious

Description
Introduction

Verbs conjugate to object (their number and gender), evidentiality (first hand, second hand, third hand, fourth hand), passivity (active, passive), tense (present, past, future, conditional), form (verbal, nominal), state (main, subjunctive), and mood (explained later under Mood), aspect (non-aspect, perfect, continuous, progressive, habitual), semantic aspect (standard, mementane, inchoative, terminative, frequentive), and quality (normal, augmentative, diminutive, causative). Person is prefixal. In that the sandhi part might be confused with a suffix/infix, the part would be then geminated to distinguish.

Object Conjugation/Agreement

Verbs do not conjugate to person (prefixal pronouns do that). Instead, they conjugate to their accusative/lative's number and gender. If the verb is intransitive, then there is no agreement. Reflexive verbs agree with themselves (boys/girls would use the masculine/feminine when speaking about themselves). Evidentiality

This is an optional suffix to the pronominal prefix. It dictates how the information encoded in the verb came to be. First hand are events directly seen and/or experienced by the speaker. Second hand are events that the speaker learned from someone else. Third hand are events learned by someone else who in turn learned it from someone else the person's self, or the speaker learned it from a authority figure. Fourth hand are events that had been fabricated, falsified (when used in the retrospect of the speaker), or events told in a story or fable (especially the latter). There are, on the other hand, restrictions to each one's use: Tense, Passivity, Form, and State
 * First Hand: -â-
 * Second Hand: -yâ-
 * Third Hand: -âġ-
 * Fourth Hand: -eâ-
 * All pov's can be used in the present tense during any aspect other than continuous and progressive
 * more later

Passivity and tense conjugate together. Sandhi is the same as the root.

There are two voices: the active and passive (both extend to nominal and adjectival forms). The active is an event where the nominative is the agent and subject and the accusative is the patient. The passive is the opposite thereof. In nominal and adjectival (rarely the latter) forms, it means that the meaning of the word has reversed actors (as in employer and employee where employer is active and employee is passive). Specifically to adjectives, it makes the adjective causative (as in, the active "the warm bread" and the 'passive' "the bread that has been made to be warm").

There are the present, past, future, and conditional tenses. The present describes events taking place around the moment of utterment. The past describes events taking place a relative while ago to the point of utterment. The future describes events taking place a relative amount of time to another point in the future: if it is not being made out as an overt fact/goal, then it takes a optative/subjunctive meaning in which the event is wished or guessed to happen. The conditional describes an event that could/should/would (depending on the auxiliary verb or lack thereof) take place. For the sake of space conservation, the table will read right to left "Preset | Past | Future | Conditional" (for Prs, Pst, Ftr, and Cnd respectively).

Form is the part of speech that the verb is conjugated into: verbal and nominal. Verbal verbs are those which function as verbs and conjugated as such. Contrarily, nominal verbs are those which act as nouns. Depending of the declension paradigm that they take, thay can be a noun (if it takes a noun declension) or adjective (if it takes an adjective declension). It can become a prepositional verb by attaching a position² suffix to the nominal form. As a noun, it would usually take the neuter, ominous, or glorious.

State is the placement within the sentence. A main state is where the verb takes place in the independent/main clause whereas the subjunctive state is one which takes place in a dependent clause. Subjunctive states take over most gerunds and that clauses.
 * (*) The E in -oér is stressed.

Mood

Mood is formed by placing the roots of some auxillary verbs to the end of the verb. Indicative is a regular verb. Optative expresses want or desire ("want"/"want?" in int., requires acc). Potential expresses ability ("can"/"can?" in int.). Permissive expresses permission ("may"). Hortative expresses suggestion ("should"/"may?" with acc). The imperitive expresses demand. The jussive expresses imploring, pleading, and/or begging. Note: a tilde, "~", is the sandhi vowel of the root.
 * Indicative: -∅
 * Optative: -jem
 * Potential: -gaf
 * Permissive: -dj
 * Interrogative*: -k
 * Int. Optative: -jeñk
 * Int. Potential: -gafk
 * Hortative: -djek
 * Imperitive*: -âq
 * Jussive: -jâq

Aspect

There are three types of aspects: nuancicle, semantic, and qualitic. (nuancicle and qualitic are not real words, but they are used in this article for ease of distinction).

Nuancicle aspects are those which change the nature of the verb: non-aspect, perfect, continuous, progressive, and habitual. Non-aspect is a general tense (ie. past is any event in the past). The perfect is an event which is over by the time of being spoken. The continuous is an event which is still going on at the time of utterance but is not necessarily going to stop or alter. The progressive is an event which is still going on at the time of utterance but, contrary to the continuous, is insinuated to stop or change. The habitual is an event which regularly happens. The suffixes have the root/sandhi parts for if they precede a qualitic aspect.


 * Non-Aspect: -∅-
 * Perfect: -a-/-t-
 * Continuous: -st-/-e-
 * Progressive: -s-/-e-
 * Habitual: -że(l)-

Semantic aspects are those which change the meaning of a verb: standard, momentane, inchoative, terminative, frequentive. Standard is the verb's normal definition. Momentane changes the verb to one which happens once, briefly (to eat. MOM -> to scarf down / to inhale [a foodstuff]). Inchoative changes the verb to one which begins (to run. ICH -> to begin [a tournament/competition]). Terminative changes the verb to one which ends (to run. TRM -> to finish [a tournament/competition]). Frequentive changes the verb to one which takes place in some regular or irregular interval but often enough to be considered a pattern (to eat. FRQ -> to eat [a meal]. The latter is where one eats/is eating/ate/has eaten/will eat one's meal of the three meals of the day whereas the former is eating in one occasion regardless of the other meals eaten.
 * Standard: -∅-
 * Momentane: -t-
 * Inchoative: -ñ-
 * Terminative: -ʎ-
 * Frequentive: -ż-

Qualitic aspects are those which change the degree of the verb: normal, augmentative, diminuative, causative. Normal verbs which carry their same definition. Augmentative are those which have an exaggerated or somehow larger-to-scale definition (to eat. AUG -> to devour). Diminutive is the opposite of augmentative where its verbs are understated or somehow smaller-to-scale (to eat. DIM -> to nibble [at]). Causative verbs are those which are caused by something else (to eat. CAU -> to stuff [food [into something]]).
 * Normal: -∅-
 * Augementive: -añ-
 * Diminuative: -i-
 * Causative: -ċue-

Nuancicle and qualitic aspects can be layered combining both depending of the order of layering (to eat. ICH . AUG -> to feast versus to eat. AUG . ICH -> to fatten [something] up). Note that the frequentive and habitual aspects are the same in colloquial speech, but frequentive is considard very "scientific" and/or "preppy" whereas the habitual is more often used with a more positive conitation.

Person

Person is prefixal coming before the root. When there is no overt nominative in a complete sentence, this prefix becomes it (making some clauses SVO rather than the conventional VSO). Though, this prefix can be left out if in contexts where the subject is known (by inference and/or previous-mentioning). All prefixes have the two sandhi parts of -e-/-s-.

Plural pronouns are formed by placing OU either before or after the prefix depending on if it is a consonant or vowel respectively (oud- for "they" but iou- for "we"). There are no partitive/mass pronouns. Reflexive pronouns are made by ghe- then the first consonant (e (masculine) -> i (feminine) -> a (glorious) -> ue (neuter) -> u (ominous)). For example, ghek- is "you/yourself" masculine, but ghik- in the feminine. Note that in the first person, it becomes ghey-.

Pronouns are not full words, but inflections on a word whose meaning is closest to self. The personal prefix is attached to the noun. The nominative is never used as the verb (if anything, the copular verb) would already describe this, hence why there is no nominative except as an identifier.

Adverbs
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Ideas:
 * Adjectives with degrees of connotativeness (heinous, bad, neutral, good, glorious) and nature (positive/negative, active/passive) with comparativeness made with adjectives