The Pencil Language

The Pencil Language (natively Wakabewafow /ɣakaβɛɣaɸɒɣ/ and sometimes abbreviated as TPL) 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 (with traces of polysynthesis), 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.

Phonology
TPL has a relatively small consonant inventory, at just 13 consonants and 5 additional allophones.

Consonants
/w/ is only used in loanwords in some parts of the TPL speaking regions.

Phonotactics
The syllable structure is (C)(C)V(C)(C)(C). The only vowel that can come word-finally is /a/.

Writing System
The Pencil Language, over its extremely long history, has had many writing systems, a fair amount of them adopted from other languages and modified. The current and most widely used one is shown below: The glottal stop is usually not shown, although if it is, it is shown with a dash.

Nouns
Nouns decline according to two numbers: singular and plural, and seven cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, instrumental, and benefactive. Nouns have no gender. Only the definite article is marked.

Noun Inflectors
Here are the noun inflec behave when a word ends with a consonant, with bayak ("computer") as an example:

Here are how cases behave when a word ends with a vowel, with dca ("planet") as an example: * The genitive and locative cases are distinguished by the inflected noun's position relative to the head. If the noun comes before the head, the case is genitive, and if the noun comes after the head, the case is locative.

The accusative case -(a)fef has two special contracted forms: -pfef and -pfē-. The former occurs after V(p/b/f/), where V is any vowel. The latter occurs as -VC-afef-e, where V and C are any vowel and consonant, respectively.

Verbs
Verbs conjugate according to two tenses: past and future, four moods: indicative, imperative, conditional, and potential, and two voices: active and passive. Verbs conjugate differently depending on whether the direct object is explicitly stated in the clause.

Here is a table of inflected verb forms, with the verb kan ("see") as an example:

The imperative, conditional, and potential moods can be compounded onto each other. For example, wa-kan-an-uw, conjugated for the imperative and potential mood, would mean "[noun] should be able to see".
 * The indicative mood is unmarked; it used to refer to statements of fact.
 * The imperative mood is used to signal commands and requests.
 * The conditional mood establishes a causal relationship between one event which is not certain to (have) happen(ed) and its effect.
 * The potential mood is used to express the capability of performing an action.

Verb Nominalization
Verbs can be turned into nouns via the use of the nominalizers -ak/-af.

Reciprocity
Although the suffix -na is generally reserved for nouns and is used to mark plural number, it can be appended to the verb along with -uw to form the suffix -uwna, which adds a reciprocal meaning to the verb. There needs to be at least 2 arguments or at least one plural argument.

-uco- Verb Construction
Regarding the conditional mood,

Joiners
TPL has two special "joiners", -e- and -o-, which join together a subject and a verb. Both of them can take on a variety of meanings depending on context and their role in the sentence.

The joiner -e- generally refers to a habitual action carried out many times, while the -o- joiner refers more to causality. -o- is very often used to denote an action that was completed or done a single time. In formal TPL, even habitual actions can be conveyed by -o-, with the added implication of causality.

Additionally, the -e- joiner is used to express relative clauses.

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 "bayak" (thing) and the verb being "pay" (do).

"bayakepay bayak bayakol" (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 sometimes 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

Zero-Copula
The Pencil Language lacks a copula. Although in Ancient Pencil Language there was a copula ("fen"), it has long since gone unused and almost all traces of it are gone. Descriptive nouns are treated as adjectives but as they also technically are nouns, get person marking (e.g. "it is a [living] creature" would be "kefafef feabek" [creature-ACC 3sg-NOM]).

Adjectives
Adjectives take very little marking, and agree with nouns on person ("adjectives" here also include descriptive nouns). 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.

Comparative Affixes
There are two prefixes that show comparativity:

Yi(w)- = comparative marker

Yo(y)- = superlative marker

If you were to say something like "i am better than you", you say "yiyeshosga ab ad" (COMP-good-LAT 2sg 1sg), literally meaning "I am better to you".

[COMP/SUP]-[adjective]-osga [2] [1]

For superlatives, the same construction is used, except -uw is suffixed to yo[word]osga, and only one noun is used.

None of the words that are compared with each other get any person marking.

Interrogatives
The tag-question particle, fep, comes at the end of the clause to signify that the clause is a question.

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

Example text
Water. Earth. Fire. Air.

''Cug. Sug. Cag. Ceg.''

Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony.

Yeb kefēfeknawekebaduluw dopanōpf'ekuwna siy docakehsalewadofnekuluwop bōsiwkecubuluwop.

LIT. The four civilizations existed together and existed in a condition of peace in a time long ago.

Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.

Siy cap yowkakek dohōnow Kefēfekecagopodocolguwafef.

LIT. However, everything was changed by the Civilization of Fire invading.

Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished.

Bagop kefehōn'ek wabnawebaduluw yign feabnafef siy cap feabodowapkananowuwakuluw desiy yeb dcawodopoyefeyowakuluw feab.

LIT. Only the creature that manipulates the four elements can stop them, but they turned invisible when the world needed them most.