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, P, B, T, D, K, G, Ŧ, Đ, S, V, I, E, A, O, U, Ä, Ö, Y.

Vowel Harmony
Einodo employs a vowel harmony system based upon frontness. There are three classes of vowels: back /a o u/, neutral /e i/, and front /æ ø 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, the 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)

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. 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 2,080 possible inflected verb forms.

examples:


 * 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)