Einodo

Einodo is a highly agglutinative, nominative-accusative language.

Phonology
The phonology of Einodo is extremely regular. Each grapheme in the alphabet refers to exactly one phoneme. There are also no multigraphs (i.e. digraphs and trigraphs). Einodo consists of 24 phonemes—nine vowels and fifteen consonants—two of which (one vowel and one consonant) do not have a grapheme, being instead optionally represented by an apostrophe as it is epenthesized according to certain rules.

The Einodo alphabet, or "leremeo," is: L, R, M, N, V, S, Ŧ, Đ, P, B, T, D, K, G, I, E, A, Ä, O, Ö, U, Y.

Vowel Harmony
Einodo employs a vowel harmony system based upon frontness. There are three classes of vowels: back /a o u/ /a o u/, neutral /e i/ /e i/, and front /æ ø y/ /{ 2 y/. When a word contains a back vowel, all vowels in that word will be back, and if it contains a front vowel, all vowels in that word will be front. Neutral vowels do not change, and are transparent, meaning that they do not affect any of the other vowels in any way. If the root of a word contains only neutral vowels, it is treated as though it were a back-vowel word. Compound words are not subject to vowel harmony, though each word within the compound word is. Each back vowel is paired with a front vowel. A is with ä, o is with ö, and u is with y.

Epenthesis
Due to the phonological constraints of the Einodo language, consonant clusters and double vowels are illegal. In other words, no two consonants can be next to each other and no two identical vowels can be next to each other. Therefore, when this happens, a morphophonological change called epenthesis takes place. When a consonant cluster occurs, a schwa /ə/ /@/ is inserted between them, while when two identical vowels occur proximally, a glottal stop /ʔ/ /?/ is inserted between them. These epenthesized phonemes are not represented with a grapheme, though they can be optionally represented by an apostrophe for clarity's sake.

Morphology
= Zero or one occurrence of the enclosed item.

{ } = Zero or more occurrences of the enclosed item.

[ ] = One or more occurences of the enclosed item.


 * = “or”

/ = one of the items on either side are used, depending on the vowel harmony of the word

V = any vowel, subject to vowel harmony = i|e|a|o|u|ä|ö|y

C = any consonant = l|r|m|n|p|b|t|d|k|g|ŧ|đ|s|v

C1 = terminating consonant = n|m|s|v

syllable = (C) V (C1)


 * this means that the language's phonetics contains no diphthongs and that each vowel receive's it's own syllable

phonological constraints = (C) [V] (C) [V] (C)...[V] (C1)

pos = part of speech marker

in = inflection affix

pr = personal affix

de = declension affix

pl = plurality affix

po = polarity affix

co = comparative affix

pre = derivational prefix

suf = derivational suffix

word = verb|noun|pronoun|adjective|adverb|preposition|conjunction|interjection

verb = po {pre} root {suf} pos in pr

noun = {pre} root {suf} pos pl de

adjective = {pre} root {suf} pos co pl de

adverb = {pre} root {suf} pos co

pronoun = root pos (pl) de


 * the plural suffix is only used when the pronoun is possessive

Grammar
Einoda has extremely regular and very specific grammar rules for the inflection, declension, and derivation of words. Also, each part of speech has a specific vowel associated with it. This vowel will always be at the end of an uninflected or undeclined word of that part of speech.

Verbs
Uninflected verbs will always end with -a/ä. Verbs are inflected by affixing agglutinated phonemes to the end of the word. Verbs are inflected for voice, tense, aspect, mood, and person. There are three persons, each of which have a singular, dual, and plural form. Additionally, the first person dual and plural have a differentiation of being inclusive or exclusive.

Inflectional Affixes
The active present imperfect indicative inflection, being the standard form, drops all agglutinated inflectional affixes, having only the personal affix.

The imperative mood can only be in the present tense and only in the 1st person inclusive and exclusive dual and plural and all 2nd persons.

There are thus exactly 1,272 hypothetically possible inflected verb forms, though not all of them are used.

Example Verb Inflections

 * a – to be

an – I am

as – you are

ai – we (ex pl) are

alovon – I would be

alivum – he/she were

alada'as – you (du) will have been

alodoin – we (in pl) would have been

alokai – we (ex pl) are being


 * mylä – to house (i.e. to give shelter)

mylän – I house

myläs – you house

myläi – we (ex pl) house

mylälövön – I would house

mylänidän – I had been housed

mylänäkäis – you (pl) will be being housed

mylärövä'ä – we (ex du) housed

mylänöŧäin – we (in pl) are housed (habitually)

Nouns
Undeclined nouns will always end with -o/ö. Nouns are declined by affixing agglutinated phonemes to the end of the word. Nouns are declined into twenty cases as well as three different numbers, singular, dual, and plural.

Declensional Affixes
There are exactly 63 possible declined noun forms.

Example Noun Declensions

 * alo – knowledge

alon

alos

aloim

aloavim

aloidem

alomen

aloapan

aloken


 * mylö – house

mylön

mylöv

mylöäs

mylöben

mylöigän

mylönem

mylöädäm

mylöivem

Adjectives
Adjectives are declined in the same fashion as nouns and must agree in both number and case with the noun being modified. Adjectives have the added declension of comparison.

Adverbs
Adverbs are declined to show comparison in the same way that adjectives are.

Pronouns
Pronouns are declined in the exact same way as nouns for case. Pronouns are only declined for number when in the possessive form.

Derivation
Derivation in Einodo is done by the addition of derivational affixes to either the beginning or end of words. More than one affix can be added for further derivation, as long as the derivation makes sense. The affixes are parsed in order from left to right. Not all derivations are plausible.

Prefixes
Prefixes are affixed to the beginning of a word.

Suffixes
Derivational suffixes replace the part of speech affix. The first vowel must match the part of speech of the word which is being modified (thus it is easy to double check if a derivation is even possible) and the last vowel becomes the new part of speech affix. Therefore, suffixes which do not change the part of speech will begin and end with the same vowel. –oŧio/öŧiö

Word Order
The word order in Einodo is very free due to the high amount of inflection. The most neutral word order is VSO (verb-subject-object). All other word orders imply emphasis. There are certain words which must be placed in order, however. Modifiers tend to be placed directly following their heads and adpositions are prepositional. Along these same lines, genitive cases must immediately follow the head to which it is being related.

Sample Translations
For a full lexicon, view the article "Einodo Lexicon ."