Behru cesik

Setting
Behru Cesik (a combination of Behru, an ethnonym, cet, to speak, and the suffix -hik, indicating a manner of doing something) is a language spoken in the southern half of the lower Sedonese basin, the Hedri plains, and in the northern portions of Kakinsake. Its speakers form a distinct ethnicity in the south of Sedone, independent from the dominant Idili. The Behru people originated from the distant and now extinct Behru empire, which attempted to settle the Hedri area 1500 years prior. The empire has collapsed since then, and the Behru people are now isolated, their nations being increasingly encroached upon by the native peoples they had once tried to conquer.

Phonotactics
All Behru free morphemes of native origin consist of a 2 syllable root with a maximum structure stop-fricative-approximant-vowel/syllabic l or r-consonant-vowel. Bound morphemes are permitted to have a reduced structure, so long as they start witha consonant should they be allowed to occur word initially. All syllables must start with a consonant. Alll free roots except particles and nouns in the agent case singular have a suffix of some sort indicating their grammatical role in the sentence.

Vowels
All roots that can exist unbound, along with several bound roots, hold a tone. This tone may be either a high ´tone like in lé, or a low tone le (low tone is unmarked). A high tone is only found in noun, verb, and particle roots, it is never found on the suffixes with the exception of several toneshift sandhi rules. In addition, a vowel may be of one of 3 "strengths". A weak vowel is reduced and centralized, and may carry have a high tone. A medium vowel is clearly pronounced but clipped in length. A strong vowel is held out in length. Some roots contain the sequence CV l/r C(V). The combination of a vowel and and l and r usually fuse in an unusual way.
 * roots containing l or r may strengthen according to two different series.

Sandhi
Sandhi in behru can be divided into two categories, tone sandhi and consonant sandhi. Vowel sandhi only occurs word internally, as all morphemes that can occur at the front of a word start with consonants.

Consonant sandhi
n assimilates in the point of articulation of the following consonants


 * note: The effects of rule 10 are never written, as they can always be determined, samt will always be pronounced as |sahmt|, no rules can reverse this.

Notes: the only rules which can change the voicing of c and j are rules 2 and 7.

Only the rules 1, 2, 6, 7, and 8 occur across word boundaries. Final consonants affected by rules 6 and 7 across word boundaries double. The h doesn't dissapear of rule 8 occurs across word boundaries.

Orthography
Behru romanized orthography matches the symbols given in the phonology section. Sandhi is indicated always in both written systems. The Behru native writing system is an alphabet, with symbols for vowels, consonants, vowel strength and tone arranged into syllabic blocks, written up to down, left to right. Pictures of these will be uploaded later.

Basic Grammar
Behru in the modern day is highly fusional, although the language of old, in the days of empire, was far more agglutinative. This older stage of the language is popular in literature, but this article primarily focuses on the Hedri colloquial. All root morphemes of the language can be split into 4 groups. All free morphemes are part of onne of 3 parts of speech, verb, noun, or particle. Adjectives and adverbs do not exist as a part of speech, they can exist as either prefixes or derived from verbs. The language is most commonly uses a subject object verb word order, but there are no strict rules on word order in most sentences. The language is exclusively head final, with all modifiers placed before the head. The verb always comes a finally when it is the head of a clause, and is the only portion of the sentence that may not be omitted under any circumstances.

Morphemes
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Free
! scope="col"|Bound
 * Semantemes
 * Verbs, Nouns
 * adjectival prefixes, adverbial prefixes, derivational sufixes
 * Grammemes
 * Grammatical particles
 * grammatical sufixes, positional sufixes, grammatical infixes
 * }
 * grammatical sufixes, positional sufixes, grammatical infixes
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Noun Morphology
Behru Nouns may be modified to show the nouns role in the sentaence. This modification is shown through vowel strength, final consonant mutation, and suffixes. A nouns number is also shown in this way, and there is no distinction between number and role markers. The standard Hedri dialect has 9 sentence roles and 3 numbers attached to the noun fusionally. The three numbers of Behru are one, few, and many. The few number is used for small groups of things, pairs, and a cluster of things. The many number implies that there are too many of a noun to be easily counted. There is also a mass noun suffix, -mik, with its own endings, but grammatically it is treated effectively identically to the one number. Nouns, excluding irregular ones, can be divided into the following declension groups: k, t, n, ik, ot, l, a, i, e, r. The declensions may also be divided into animate, inanimate, and abstract/mass, each of which use slightly different endings.

Simple consonant variation nouns
A behru noun has 3 principle parts, the default, weak, and plural forms. The plural form is used in the plural (obviously), and the weak form is used in the patient, genitive, possesive, comparative, and compound cases.

Basic endings
Endings using the first principle part These endings can be added to the 1st prinicple part of the noun using sandhi. One thing must be noted for consonant nouns, nouns ending in a simple voiceless stop will often have a semivowel inserted between the consonant and the ending. Which semivowel is inserted requires knowledge of the second principle part, nouns ending in an ii, like mügíi, will have a y inserted, nouns ending in an uu will hae a w inserted. Nouns ending in aa have nothing inserted. Therefore, the noun múk, mügíi, múugye, will have a y inserted in the ablative (múkyehn), as that ending starts with the vowel e, and múk's second principle part ends in ii.


 * V means vowel of the second syllable, which is reduplicated. Schwa endings do not reveal the final consonant in vowel ending nouns.

Consonant declension
Voiceless consonant ending 1: stems marked in Bold require knowledge of the invisible vowel, always marked in the second principle part

2: stems marked in are formed off of the second principle part

3: stems marked in are formed off of the third principle part

4: endings marked in use the ablative stem, and are similar across all nouns. Forming the ablative stem require knolwedge of both the first and second principle parts.

Endings added to the combining stem
These endings are added to the combining stem, and must themselves be declined before the noun is used. These nouns may only be declined in the dative, locative, vialis, and ablative. They are effectively "prepositional nouns".

Showing that a noun is posessed.
If a noun is owned by another noun (marked in the posessive case), an infix is inserted before the second consonant that agrees with the possessor. The genitive case is only used when one noun owns another noun, or with relations (my mother, your father). If one noun is part of the other noun, then a compound word using the combining stem is used instead. Inanimate objects always use the combining stem, never the posessive. The possessed nouns may be further declined, múbik (our dog), múbigii (our dogs), múbigiiñipi (for our dogs).

Locational suffixes from the owner case
Locational suffixes are added to the genitive stem of a noun

Verb Morphology
Behru verbs are conjugated by factors, person, number, transitivity, tense aspect, and mood. Many Behru sentences consist of only a verb, as both the subject and object may be dropped if they can be determined by context.

Command stem formation
The command stem is used for the imperative. Also, the command stem can be used to make a "future certain" or a self command with the first person basic subject suffixes.. Cìtu means "I will speak" and shows strong intention, and zínuv means "we will go".

Polypersonal agreement
The Behru verb agrees with its preformer, or subject, in person and number. A transitive verb also agrees with its object in person, subject, and number.

Descriptive verbs
Descriptive verbs are a special form of intransitive verb that are used to show ongoing states, like "the boiling rock" or permanent states, like "the rock is hard". Descriptive verbs function as adjectives. They agree with the noun being described in number, and use the intransitive stem. They are placed before the modified noun. When descriptive verb endings are not used, a participle is implied. -l descriptive verbs are attached to the intransitive stem of a verb, resultive verbs are attached to the basic stem. Resultant state endings are used to indicate an action has already happened to the described object

An illustration of the three ways to describe nouns with verbs

lwóhmro kàrt: rock that is being heated up

lwóhmlo kàrt: rock that is heating uo

lwómlu kàrt: Hot rock

lwómru kàrt: Rock that has become heated.

These verbs may be used in both attributive an predicative positions, for example, both lwómlu kàrt and kàrt lwómlu would be gramatically correct.

Comparative and superlative verbs.
A comparative verb is like an adjective, stating that x is more/less y than z. The superlative says that x is the most/least y out of everything. A superlative verb agrees with the noun it describes, like an intransitive verb, and the comparative verb agrees with both the thing it describes and the thing it compares to, like a transitive verb

Anticausative formation
The anticausative is the opposite of the causative, it indicates that an action was interfered with/ stopped by an outside force. It also strengthens the core vowel The anticausative uses the same causative endings, with opposite meanings, for example

yenû`lkèmu (someone) stops me from walking

yenû`lxfù(someone) interferes my walking

yenû`lmésu (someone) won't let me walk

yenû`lsfù (something caused) me to not walk

(note: y and w, when at the end of an initial consonant cluster are Not used for determining the infix)

Combining Causative and anticausative  with the passive
To combine passive with the causative or anticausative, one first changes the stem to causative or anticausative, then palatalizes it. Example: Kàsa to kwàsa to kuyàsa, brúvi to brenû´vi to breñû´vi.

Sentance introductory particles
These paticles are placed at the beginning of the sentence and are used to indicate the speakers viewpoint about what they are saying. They include

ghé: indicates a new observation, ex: ghé mòk màshro, (I just noticed) the sea is calming down.

wèn: indicates an opinion or belief. ex: wèn yùdon mesë´hmfro (I think) that child can't see.

cì: indicates a reminder or advice, can be somewhat rude.

rú: indicates an expression of disbelief, similar to asking a question with an obvious answer in English

Transitive sentence structure
A Behru transitive verb agrees with both its object and subject in person and number. The subject of a Behru sentence is unaltered, and the object is put in the receiver case

A transitive sentence: shún kr`du zòsrozha

Man-subj rock-few-obj break-3rdperson-one-subj-3rdperson-few-obj

Gloss: The man breaks some rocks

Because transitive sentences agree with the subject and object, Behru does not have pronouns, as they would be redundant. A sentence consisting of only the verb would look like this: cézvung (we talked to you)

Intransitive sentence structure
An intransitive verb in Behru may either be intransitive by default or derived from a transitive verb. A transitive verb agrees with its subject, which may be either in the basic or receiver cases. The verb still agrees with it in person and number, though. Here is an example of the differance in meaning depedning on the case used

basic case: shùn dwéhnlo "The man cooled off" (intentionally) vs. shü´hnë dwéhnlo "The man cooled off (because it was cold outside). This is why Behru cesik is considered to have "fluid ergativity" as linguistics say.

"Bu" particle
Verbs associated with the bu particle usually have to do with opinions or thoughts. cét (to speak, to say) and hmèn also use thebu particle like quotes, it marks off the subject thought about or the words said. In most verbs, bu indicates the target of an opinion. Bu may encapsulate a subordinate clause without using abstract nouns like zo or ka. An example would be: "náwa së´mvarime" bu mü´klë dòn cèsraya.

"Mom can't see us" the kid said to his dog.

Passive sentence structure
In a passive sentence, the subject is deleted, the passive verb agrreing in person and number with the object instead. The object is left in the basic case, rather than the receiver case. The subject may optionally be indicated through the means case. The passive can indicate two things, a vagueness about the subject, and a dissapointment about the action referred to on the part of the speaker. When the passive form is used with an intransitive verb, it is always used to indicate dissapointment.

A passive sentence: mùgvo kàrt zryònesro (The rock was broken by the dog) or, deleting the subject: kàrt zryònesro (the rock was broken). Even the object can be removed: zryònesro (it was broken) Usage with the intransitive: kàrt zònetlo: the rock broke (speaker wishes that didn't happen.)

Causative and Permissive sentence structure
In a causative or permissive, a third player, the causer, put in the cause case, either forced (in a causative form) or allowed(in a permissive form) an action to happen

an example of a causative sentence: shúnwe rùnayònën "cálmu" bu dòn cwèsrozha: The person made the child say to the other men "I'm fine".

The direction case
The direction case inicates the destination of a verb of motion, or the goal of another action.

The location case
The location case indicates the location or context where an action takes place. A locative noun may be treated as a verb when on wants to express the verb "to be" an example of this would be sédonehiro "they are in sedone".

The origin case
the origin case indicates the origin of an action, or the reason for an action, sometimes meaning "because"

The means and companion cases
The means case indicates the tool used to do an action, usually translated as "with". The companion case indicates a companion in a sentence, and can usually be translated as "together with". Both cases can be negated with the infix -(a)ma, meaning without, inserted immediatly after the noun stem (the a is useed when the noun stem ends in a consonant.) The noun is then declined into the means or companion cases.

An example of the means case: kàrdl zòlesraya He broke it with a rock.

An example of the comanion case: múkur yùlu I walked with a dog.

Negated versions of the above sentences: kàrtamal zòlesraya: He broke it without a rock

múkamit zòlesraya: I walked without the dog.

Conjunctions
tu: sentence a but sentence b

fa: sentence a thus sentence b

lya sentence a or sentence b

Behru cesik uses only these three conjunctions independantly, most other sentence linking is done through clause subordination.

Chaining nouns and verbs
Behru nouns and verbs may be chained in a variety of ways with post position pronouns.The simplest way to chain nouns together is to add "ce" to the last word in the list. This means and, and a noun phrase ending in ce has all inflection shifted to the ce as if it were a noun. The nouns in the phrase are declined for number. An example of this would be "yón vén cèsa dòn (sùlu)" this is the man and woman's child. Other postpositional pronouns that function like ce would include bi (or) xa (including, with, consisting) ño (all) fe(some) txa(inexhaustive list) and gi(also, in addition). When chaining verbs in this manner, it is typical to add the suffix -ka to nominalize them.

Examples of usage:

múg jwòja bi lnémuhro Do they want a dog or a cat.

Comparisons
The comparative case's primary use is in comparitive sentences, such as "x is y-er than z" the comparative is used as the "than z" noun case. An example of this would be: cúxwi còmúk còjwòjiho gòblon "usually, dogs are bigger than cats". The comparative case is also used with some relative prefixes, such as: còmúk meyùjwòjiholònro, tu géñjwòjiholònro."Dogs aren't the same as cats, but they are related." The third main usage of the comparative is as the "subject" of a verb of opinion, such as in: còmúxo cojwòja bu cúxwi me césro "most of the time, dogs don't like cats."

Verbs that incorporate nouns
Behru has no independant copula. Instead -lòn is suffixed to a noun to change it into a to be verb, for example

sùmúk mejwòjalóhnro ''This dog isn't a cat. Other verbs are changed into suffixes like this as well, for example, -lór (to become, as in yùmúk jwòjakóllehrro that dog became a cat. ''The third major incorporating verb is -lû´r (to make) as in

mebóloniyéyejuv? can't we make bolo?

Because adjectives are ensentially altered forms of verbs, they can be considered to have the copula "built in" and do not need any

Numbers
Behru has a base 12 numbering system. Simple numbers are simply suffixed after the nouns they count. The result is then declined like a noun.

Compound numbers.

To make complex numbers, like 25, or 156, one strings together the simple numbers in a sequence of addition from the biggest to the smallest number.

25: fumu fu(24) and mu(1)

156: srangu sran(144( and gu(12)

157: srangumu

305: fowanggudat

when a number is affixed to a noun, it is declined like a noun. Typically, the penultimate vowel takes a ` accent and is subject to vowel strengthening or weakening. For example, 25 beds would be mùkfùmu, but if declined in the owner case, it would be mùkfümungò, and in the direction case, it would be mùkfùmuhi. 10 beds would be mùksùk. towards the (12^12)*11 people would be shúnrusesifòshashi

Ordinal numbers
Behru ordinal numbers are formed simply by prefixing a number to a noun. They are usually prefixed to a noun like -tsék(place) or -ya (time, as in a cycle)

Fractional numbers
Fractions in Behru are formed by the suffix -t for numbers which end in a vowel and -ta for ones ending in a consonant. The fractions for half, third, fourth, and twelfth are formed irregularily. They are -kir, nisa, besa, and gusa. they are used the same way normal numbers are, mùkrusèt would be 1 eleventh of a bed. If one wishes to count the fractions, those numbers are suffixed past the fraction. mùksransùktaruse would mean "eleven 154ths of a bed"

Usage of numbers, and approximate quantities
A specific number is always declined in the "few" number, as the few number is considered to encompass all small or specific quantities. A general number, like -not, which means some, is considered a mass noun, and all mass nouns use the "many" case.

General quantity suffixes -hok: every,all -mok: none -hot: some -huk: most -muk: few

Number modifying suffixes: -sát: around, aprroximately -kère: only, just