The Pencil Language

The Pencil Language (natively Wakabewafow [/wakabɛwafoʊ/]) is a very widespread language used by countless civilizations within the Pencilcosmos, the world that it exists in. In setting, the language was created by the civilization of Awef.

Classification and Dialects
The Pencil Language has extremely strong agglutinative traits, and uses the nominative-accusative alignment. The Pencil Language is strictly head-final, although it handles adjectives derived from verbs very differently.

The Pencil Language, in its setting, has 2 major dialects: the Awefian dialects and the Central dialects. The Awefian dialects have had significantly less sound changes than the Central dialects due to most of the civilizations speaking the dialect heavily regulating the language and almost all aspects of it, including the grammar.

Consonants
* all consonants with an asterisk next to them only exist within the Central dialects

Vowels
There is one dipthong, /oʊ/, spelled as "ow".

Phonotactics
The syllable structure is (C)(C)CV(C)(V)(C)(C) (.

Voiced consonants generally make the consonants that comes right after it (if there is any) in a word voiced. /b/ becomes unvoiced if it comes before /ɸ/.

If /h/ is at the end of a word, it either goes unpronounced or turns into /ħ/.

Romanization
/oʊ/ is spelled as ow, /il/ is spelled as iw, /ɑl/ is spelled as aw, and /ul/ is spelled as uw

/ɸ/ is spelled as f and /β/ is spelled as v

/ʒ/ is spelled as zh and /ʃ/ is spelled as sh

/j/ is spelled as y and /ɹ/ is spelled as r

/ɲ/ is spelled as ny, /ʔ/ is spelled as ', and /ħ/ is spelled as h.

Every other consonant is spelled via their IPA equivalent.

/ɛ/ is spelled as e, /ɒ/ is spelled as o, and /ɑ/ is spelled as a.

Every other vowel is spelled via their IPA equivalent.

Central Dialect Phonotactics
/ʒ/ cannot serve as the coda of a word, and /ʃ/ cannot serve as the onset of a word.

Nouns
Nouns decline according to number and case. Nouns have no gender. The definite article is expressed through the word "yeb", which proceeds the word. The indefinite article is unmarked, so a noun can either mean just that noun or "a [noun]".

Noun Inflectors
-(w)ek = nominative case, -(a)fef = accusative case, and -(')ef = case given to all the indirect object objects in a phrase. Person marking will be only be marked on nouns if a subject and an object exist within the phrase/sentence, and person marking on a noun is usually removed if those nouns get genitive/locative/instrumental marking.

-(w)op = genitive/locative case (sound changes caused the genitive and locative to fuse together, although the location of the possessor/locator relative to the thing being possessed/located determines what case it is. If the thing that is possessed/located comes after the possessor/locator, the case marker takes the genitive form, and if it comes before the possessor/locator, the case marker takes the locative form).

-(')ol = instrumental case (can also be applied to verbs).

There are two grammatical numbers: singular (which is unmarked), and plural (which is marked with the suffix -na, which changes to -a if the noun it is inflecting ends with /n/).

Here are all the inflected forms of the word "prow"; thing:

Verbs
Verbs conjugate according to tense, aspect, mood, and person. Verbs generally fall into two categories: instantaneous and non-instantaneous/durative. Each of the two verb classes are inflected differently.

Verb Inflectors
do- = perfective case for durative verbs

wul- = perfective case for instantaneous verbs

apwu(l)- = imperfective case for durative verbs

wulapwul- = imperfective case for instantaneous verbs

da(l)- = future tense

-(w)uw = intransitive marker (if there is no object in the sentence while there is a verb, the verb will take this marker, and the marker will be removed once an object is added)

-(w)of = dative case (can also be added onto nouns as a way of saying "[noun] is for [noun 2]".

-(')ow = passive voice

-(n)osga = lative case, also indicates a change of state from the subject to the object

wa(') = imperative mood

-(w)ush = subjunctive mood

-(a)n = ability to perform the verb

Here are all the forms of the verb "kan" (see) conjugated for person, aspect, and tense: Verbs do not conjugate for person if the doer of the verb is a 3rd person-non pronoun word, and a few common verbs have irregular conjugation.

Instantaneous and Durative Classes
Although each category of verb have their own inflectors, adding inflectors meant for one category onto a verb of another category is indeed grammatical and will alter the meaning. Even though "kan" (see) is a durative verb and thus should get the 'do-' marker if inflected for perfective aspect, prefixing 'wul-' onto it turns the verb into the instantaneous category, turning the meaning into something along the lines of "barely saw". On the other hand, prefixing 'do-' onto an instantaneous verb such as "shef" (die) will imply that the action has happened many times, so "doshef" would mean "died many times".

Different meanings verbs can take based on this, demonstrated using the instantaneous verb "shefuw/oshef" (kill) and the durative verb "fesnf" (listen/to pay attention to): More affixes can be added to the conjugated verb to produce very specific meanings; e.g. the word "dalapwulshefowuwof", meaning "will constantly be killed for".

If you want to say something like "is barely [instantaneous verb]" or "is constantly [durative verb]", you can use -'ef and -'ek respectively (so "barely kill" would be shef'ef and "constantly hear" would be fesnf'ek).

Relative Clauses and Causality
In ancient Pencil Language, nouns and verbs were joined together (with noun coming first) via a vowel to produce a relative clause, and as the language developed, this vowel was set to 'e'. All relative clauses follow this template (slots that are italicized are optional; if there is no object the verb gets the intransitive marker):

[subject noun(s)]e[verb(s)] [object(s)] [method in which the verb is carried out]ol

Now, let's fill in the slots with placeholder words, with the subject, object, and method in which the verb is carried out being "prow" (thing) and the verb being "pay" (do).

"prowepay prow prowol" (thing that does to a thing via a thing"

thing-REL-do thing thing-INSTRUM

All the components of the relative clause do not take person marking, and if there are two discrete subjects performing the verb or if there are two discrete objects being affected, a conjunction word, "siy" (and), is inserted between them. If there are two discrete methods in which the verb is performed, siy is once again inserted between the two words and both words are marked with the instrumental case.

Causality is expressed in roughly the same way, although instead of using 'e', you use 'o'. If the verb is left unmarked, the verb will be interpreted as perfective and indirect. However, unlike the relativizer, the causality marker follows a different template:

[verb(s)/noun(s)]o[verb] [object(s)] [method in which the verb is carried out]ol

Both nouns and verbs can be inserted into the first slot. If a verb is inserted, the verb does not act as the doer of the action, instead being inferred to lead, directly or indirectly, to the action happening to the object. In the case that there is an object and an indirect object and the first slot is a filled with a verb (as in "...see the sunset, causing them to go back home.") In this case, the template is modified to look something like this:

[verb(s)/noun(s)]o[verb] [object(s)] [indirect object(s)/method in which the verb is carried out]ol

Adjectives
Adjectives take very little marking, and agree with nouns on person (the adjectives take the person marking of the head). For example, with the word "yesh" (good): As The Pencil Language is very head-final, adjectives come before the thing they're describing, except for adjectives derived from nouns, which are converted into their verb form and glued to nouns via the relativizer. For example, to get an adjective like "countless", you take the word for "count" (paholk), negate the word using a(p)-, (producing "apaholk"; not count), switch it to passive voice using -owuw (producing "apaholkowuw"; not counted), glue it to the head via -e(w)- (producing "ewapaholkowuw"; which is not counted), and finally add -(a)n to it to signify that the action cannot be done (producing "ewapaholknowuw"; which cannot be counted). Although the process is relatively complex, the system is extremely flexible. Due to this, this is also a useful derivational tool.

Syntax
The default sentence structure is VOS, although originally it was SVO. The Pencil Language is always head-initial for words that only serve as adjectives but is head-initial for adjectives derived from verbs.