Lili/Traditional

Lili is an engineered language that aims to let the speaker decide how ambiguous or unambiguous to be. It offers many resources to ambiguate or disambiguate a word or a sentence.

Consonants
Lili has 50 consonants:

b: /b

b̂: /ʙ

c: /ʃ

c': /ʃʼ

ç: /ɹ̠̊˔

d: /d

d̄: /ð

ḑ: /ɖ

f: /f

f': /fʼ

f̊: /ɸ

f̂: /ʙ̪̊

g: /ɡ

ḡ: /ɟ

j: /ʒ

j̧: /ɹ̠˔

k: /k

k': /kʼ

k̄: /c

k̄': /cʼ

l: /l

m: /m

n: /n

ń: /ŋ

n̆: /ɱ

p: /p

p': /pʼ

p̂: /ʙ̥

q: /q

q': /qʼ

r̥: /r̥

r: /r

r̆: /ɹ

s: /s

s̄: /ɬ

s': /sʼ

t: /t

t': /tʼ

t̄: /θ

t̄': /θʼ

ţ: /ʈ

v: /v

v̊: /β

v̂: /ʙ̪

w: /ɢ

x: /x

y: /ɣ

z: /z

z̄: /ɮ

z̃: /z̃

Vowels
Lili has 10 vowels:

a: /a

ä: /ɶ

e: /ɛ

ë: /æ

i: /i

î: /ə

o: /ɔ

ö: /o

u: /u

ü: /y

Hyphenated words
Words like "z-ç" usually mean a thing or its opposite, depending on the vowel you put instead of the hyphen. "z-ç" means "sad-happy", and is inflected like this:

züç: saddest (<<)

zuç: very sad (-3)

zöç: sad (-2)

zoç: a bit sad (-1)

zîç: neutral (0)

zëç: a bit happy (+1)

zeç: happy (+2)

zäç: very happy (+3)

zaç: happiest (>>)

The vowels are the same for every hyphenated word, with very few exceptions, which are noted.

Syntax
Lili has a SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) word order for non-switch sentences. Ignoring "d" and "t", the elements that occupy the odd positions of a sentence are called "operands", while the elements that occupy the even positions of a sentence are called "operators". There must always be an odd number of elements (ignoring "d" and "t") in the sentence, so that a sentence always starts and ends with an operand, alternating between operands and operators. Every word is separated by an "i" or an "l", everything is lowercase and there is no punctuation. Spaces are completely arbitrary. See the following transitive sentence:

pif̊ët̄ib: I see you

p: I (operand)

f̊ët̄: to see (operator)

b: you (operand)

This is the most basic type of sentence. Be careful, though, "pif̊ët̄" is not a grammatically valid sentence, because it's an even number of elements. If you want to connect a subject to a verb without an object, you have to use the operator "f" between the subject and the verb. The sentence will become:

pifif̊ët̄: I see

Please note that "I see" is meant to be taken literally, not in the sense of "I understand".

Parentheses
Consider the following sentence:

pifbaldi pideljec: I feed my dog

p: I

fba: to feed

d: (open parenthesis)

p: I

de: possessive

jec: dog

The same sentence without the parenthesis would have meant "the dog of the fact I feed myself", which makes no sense. That's because "deljec" ('s dog) would have referred to the whole sentence instead of just "I". A parenthesis is closed with "t", but that cannot appear at the end of a speech.

Switch
Adding an e- before any operator will switch A and B. For example:

pif̊ët̄ib: I see you

bief̊ët̄ip: I see you

The meaning is exactly the same. Switch sentence have an OVS word order.

Verbal tenses
"z" is the operator that introduces time, while "p-f" is the operand that means "past-future". For example:

pifińak: I eat (no tense)

pifińaki zipof: I just ate (immediate present)

pifińaki zipîf: I'm eating (present)

pifińaki zipëf: I'm about to eat (immediate future)