Krudic

=Phonology=

Consonants
Krudic distinguishes 35 different consonant sounds. The palatalised stops /tʲ/, /dʲ/, /kʲ/ and /gʲ/ and lateral /lʲ/ are all treated as seperate phonemes, for example woedje "soup" vs woede "vase".

The consonant inventory is typically european, with phonemes that are present or can be approximated by most common european languages.

Allophones
There are occasional allophonic relationships between sounds, particularly when it comes to nasals. Although each of the four native nasal phonemes /m/, /n/, /ɲ/ and /ŋ/ can occur seperately, for example in the words em "erm..", en "chair", enj "maybe" and eng "spring", there are certain environments where only one particular nasal can appear. Only /m/ can appear before /b/, /p/, /pf/ and /bv/, only /n/ can appear before /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /ts/, /dz/, /r/, /l/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/ etc, only /ɲ/ can appear before /ç/, and only /ŋ/ before /k/ and /g/.

Consonant Clusters
One of the most noticeable characteristics of Krudic is the common consonant cluster tb, which is pronounced as /tb/ by Krudic speakers, and /təb/ by English speakers and speakers of other languages. It is commonly found at the beginning of words, for example tba "woman", tboešer "bone", tbesk "to say", which may be difficult for English speakers to pronounce absoloutely correctly.

The combinations /pf/, /bv/, /ts/, /dz/, /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ are not seen as sequences of consonants, rather as affricate consonants - and treated as seperate sounds.

Vowels
Krudic distinguishes 10 (occasionally 11) monopthong vowels. In addition, /æ/ (and /ɛ/ sometimes) both reduce to a schwa [ə] sound at the end of a word and in unstressed syllables.

When appearing in stressed syllables, the central vowel /ɨ/ can become [ɪ], like English big.

The vowel /y/ can occasionally appear in careful or pedantic speech, in words derived from Greek which contained the letter upsilon. However, most commonly the /y/ is pronounced /i/, and this rarely causes confusion. Whatever the pronunciation, the former upsilon is represented by the glyph <ü>, for example rütem "rhythm" and müt "myth".

=Orthography= Krudic employs regular use of all of the 26 basic Latin letters, as well as numerous digraphs and diacritics to aid pronunciation.

Basic Alphabet
There are 26 basic letters of the Krudic alphabet, although there are numerous characters with diacritics which are seen frequently in Krudic writing. The status of these characters is uncertain, although many consider them to be seperate letters. The letters 'b', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'k', 'l', 'm', 'n', 'p', 's', 't', 'v', 'w', 'x' and 'z' are pronounced as in english, with the only particularly unusual pronounciation being the use of 'q' for /kʲ/, similar to the sound in acute.

Diacritics
In addition to the 26 basic latin letters, Krudic employs regular use of diacritics to help with pronunciation, and in some cases to indicate that the letter produces a significantly different sound than it usually would.


 * The acute accent is seen on e and o to produce é and ó. This shows that the letter is pronounced higher than its usual value, for example é for /e/ and ó for /ɔ/. The letter <é> is often pronounced /ej/ word-finally or in stressed syllables. These letters are often treated as letters in their own right, although usually collated with  and  respectively.


 * The caron is seen on c, s and z to produce č, š and ž. It shows that the letters are pronounced postalveolar rather than the usual alveolar way. These letters are often treated as letters in their own right.


 * The grave accent is seen on a, e and u to differentiate between homophonic words. For example, an "the" and àn "he/she/it", tupoe "that" and tùpoe "which?". On , it is also used to show that the sound /ɛ/ is pronounced in an unstressed syllable, as it is normally reduced to [ə] in these positions.


 * The trema is used on e and u to show that two vowels are pronounced seperately, rather than forming a dipthong, as in baëdu "to nag" pronounced [bæ(j)ɛdu], rather than baedu which would be pronounced [beːdu]. It is used on rarely for this effect on 'u' as in kontinuüm "kontinuum". The letter 'ü' is most often used in words that originate from greek, where the 'ü' shows that there was originally an uspilon, as in müt "myth".

Digraphs
In order to represent certain sounds (particularly less common consonants), there is a system of digraphs employed in regular use in Krudic.


 * AE - the digraph 'ae' represents the lengthened vowel /eː/, sightly longer in duration, although with no difference in articulation from the character <é>.
 * OE - represents the long vowel /oː/.
 * BV - represents the afficate /bv/, as in bvég "eye".
 * CJ - represents the consonant /ç/, as in wécje [weçɛ] "witch".
 * DJ - represents a palatalised plosive /dʲ/, as in djogter "lizard".
 * DZ - represents the affricate /dz/, i.e. a voiced 'c'.
 * GJ - represents a palatalised plosive /gʲ/, as in gjer "grass".
 * HH - represents the consonant /ɦ/. Often, it is not pronounced at all, as in hhukod "sister", and is often pronounced [j] intervocalically, as in mehhed [mɛjɛd] "wasp".
 * NG - represents the same sound as it does in english: /ŋ/, as in kengè "artichoke".
 * NJ - represents the palatal nasal /ɲ/.
 * PF - represents the affricate /pf/ as in pfég "tooth".
 * WJ - represents the approximant /ɥ/ - pronounced like /j/ but with rounded lips, as in French huit.

S and Z
As in many Western European languages, /s/ is voiced to /z/ between vowels. Therefore, the consonant /z/ is often represented by the letter 's'. For example rosen "strawberry" is pronounced [ɾɒzɛn]. A double s 'ss' is used to represent the sound /s/ intervocalically, as in rossen "brown" [ɾɒsɛn].

The letter 'z' is used usually at the beginning and end of a word, where it represents /z/, however it occasionally appears intervocalically kozen "eel", and in the digraph 'dz'.

Homograph Distinction
The most common method of homograph distinction is the use of the Grave Accent. It is used on 'a', 'e' and 'u' to distinguish two words that would otherwise be graphically identical. There is a list of words that are specifically supposed to contain a letter with a grave accent for homographic distinction.

The E with Grave (è) appears in a great deal more words, where it represents the vowel /ɛ/ in word positions where a simple 'e' would be pronounced as a reduced mid-central vowel [ə]. These are not included in the list above, as in these case the grave is used to show pronunciation, rather than homograph distinction.

Etymological Spelling
The etymology of words usually takes a back seat when it comes to spelling Krudic words. The only time that etymology is really taken into account is in Greek loanwords. The greek letter 'chi' is represented by the digraph kh, as in arkhitekt "architect", the letter 'upsilon' is represented by the glyph 'ü', as in sünkope "syncope". Other letters are represented by the closest native Krudic letter.

Ligatures
In some texts, the common digraphs 'ae' and 'oe' are replaced by 'æ' and 'œ' - for example in tupœ wer "that man". This is often an attempt to give the text a more latinate or graecian aesthetic. Though these help to show that these letter combinations represent distinct sounds, the non-ligature forms are far more common, and preferred by orthographic standard.

=Basic Grammar=

Personal Pronouns
Krudic does not make a distinction between male and female pronouns, meaning the words for "he", "she" and "it" are all represented by the same word àn.

There is no specific Genitive Case for Personal Pronouns (although there are for other nouns), as the use of Posessive Suffixes in Krudic means that a Genitive Case would be completely redundant.

It is important to note that the grave accent above the 'a' in àn "he/she/it" is to distinguish the word orthographically from an "the", which would otherwise be graphically identical. The use of the grave accent continues on all of the declension of àn, even if it is not needed to distinguish orthographic ambiguities.

Disjunctive Pronouns
Disjunctive pronouns are ones which are used in isolation, for example "Who did this?" "Me.". In Krudic, disjunctive pronouns take on the vocative form of nouns, as in ''Šecje fasset-šejem? Sédd''.

Demonstrative Pronouns
Demonstrative pronouns are like english "this" and "that". In Krudic, Demonstrative Pronouns follow the same declension rules as other nouns, for example taking cases dependent on their use in a sentence.

Indefinate Pronouns
Indefinate Pronouns refer to general people or general things. For example english "anybody" or "someone".

Case
Krudic is a tripartite language, meaning that nouns take on different case forms depending on whether they are the object of a transitive verb (ergative), the subject of a transitive verb (accusative) or the object of an intransitive verb (absoloutive). Krudic nouns take on an additional seven cases, bringing the total to ten.

Ergative Case
Unlike in many languages that employ the Ergative Case which mainly mark the ergative, and leave the absoloutive unmarked, Krudic does the opposite. The Ergative version of nouns is the one which is commonly shown in dictionaries.

The Ergative Case is used to show the subject of a transitive verb, as in koxett an cjoete an šerifebb "the woman shot the sheriff", in which the noun an cjoete "the woman" takes the ergative (unmarked) case, and an šerif "the sheriff" takes the absoloutive case ending -ebb.

Accusative Case
Case Ending: -(e)bb

The accusative case marks the object of a transitive verb. For example, in the sentence koxett an cjoete an šerifebb "the woman shot the sheriff", the noun an šerif "the sheriff" takes the accusative case ending -ebb, as it is the subject of the verb koxett "shot".

Absoloutive Case
Case Ending: -(e)nn

The Krudic absoloutive case marks the argument or subject of an intransitive verb. For example, in the sentence koxett an cjoetenn, the noun an cjoetenn meaning "the woman" takes the absoloutive case ending -nn to indicate that it was the only thing taking part in the verb koxett "shot".

Dative Case
Case Ending: -(e)tetb

The dative case indicates an indirect object of a verb. This can be the equivalent to the english words "to", "at" or "for" amongst others. For example in the sentence koxett an cjoete an šerifetetb "the woman shot at the sheriff", the subject šerif takes on the dative case to indicate that the subject is indirect.

It is also used to indicate the intended benefactor of an object. For example, in letters, one might write hogt šecjetetb hogt hóss zyrvewaen ànn "to whom it may concern".

Genitive Case
Case Ending: -(e)woen

The genitive case is used to indicate possession. For example, in the sentence an kaetér an héremewoen "the name of the man/the man's name", the noun hérem "man" takes the genitive ending -ewoen to show that something belongs to it.

Personal pronouns do not employ the genitive case, as instead nouns take posessive suffixes depending on possession by the pronoun. This means that any genitive pronoun case would be unnecessary.

Comitative Case
Case Ending: -oedj/-oer

The comitative case is used to indicate an object is with or accompanying something. For example, the sentence "you are standing with me" is written deen heggešenc koe soer.

The most common comitative case ending is -oedj, as in hutlaek lajsseoedj "chicken with rice", which occurs in most nouns. Pronouns however take the -oer ending, in which the 'r' element is not usually pronounced.

Locative Case
Case Ending: -aen

The case ending -aen is used to indicate elements similar to english "in", "at", "on". So therefore an nessenaen can mean "in the house", "at the house" or "on the house". If specification is needed, the preposition bond can be used to highlight the "on" element, although the locative form of the noun is used, so bond an nessenaen means "on the house".

Ablative Case
Case Ending: -koën

The first function of the ablative case is to indicate motion away from something. As in toldet sé Helenekoën, órmovór "I left (from) Greece yesterday".

Secondly, it can be used to show the cause of something, so something similar to the english word "because". It can be coupled with the ergative, accusative or absoloutive cases, as in: an héremkoën "because of the man" ~ tbeskett an héremennkoën "because the man said" ~ ''tbeskett wek an héremebbkoën "because she told the man".

Instrumental Case
Case Ending: -dem

The instrumental case is used to indicate that something is being used by something else. As in "I'm cleaning the floor with/using the vaccuum" Deen stuloesenc an graed an vakjoemdem.

Vocative Case
Case Ending: -(e)dd

The first use of the vocative case is to indicate an addressee. "Martha! Are you okay?" ''Martha'dd! Koe éd okae?''.

The second major use is that of disjunctive pronouns. As in ''Who did this? Me." Šecje fasset-šejem? Sédd.

Number
There are two grammatical numbers in Krudic. The indication of the plural is -(e)k, so an hérem "the man" ~ an héremek "the men".

Articles
Indefinate articles are placed before the noun they are modifying. The definate article is an, so an nessen means "the house". The indefinate article is én, so én nessen means "a house".

The negative article specifies the fact that there is "none" of the noun. The negative article is nè, although the word nè also has several other negative meanings. nè nessen means "no house(s)".

Posession
Posession is marked in two ways, firstly by the genitive case, and secondly by posessive suffixes. This section deals with posessive suffixes, as the genitive case is mentioned above.

Adjectives
Adjectives come in up to ten different forms, depending on intensity and number. Most adjectival suffixes are the same for every adjective. See the table below, using the example žyr "ugly".

Comparisons
To make comparisons, the preposition ment is used, as in the following examples.