Brefic

Overview

As of now, Brefic is a sketch of a language, primarily an experiment in grammar design. I wanted to see if it was possible to design a language in which nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and even prepositions are merged into a single part of speech, without requiring any sort of part-of-speech markers (as in Esperanto) or otherwise seeming too artificial. Perhaps one day it will grow into a full language.

The grammar of Brefic is designed to minimize "grammaticalization." As many concepts as possible are included in the category of content words, and the small set of particles serves only to make the connections between them clearer. This maximizes the freedom to combine concepts with other concepts, and the freedom to include or omit concepts as desired.

At present, Brefic has a skeleton vocabulary stolen from European languages, mostly used in examples to illustrate the grammar. Its grammar, however, is entirely constructed, resembling a bizarre hybrid between Chinese and Japanese grammars if anything at all.

=Basic Grammar=

Parts of Speech
Content Words - All words which carry any sort of semantic content whatsoever. This includes nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and even post-positions. Brefic content words can move between these functions without any sort of modification, though the meaning of using, say, a "nounish" word as a "verb" or vice-versa is well-defined. It is possible to express entire sentences using nothing but content words (and not just tiny sentences, either.)

Particles - Words which do not carry any semantic meaning at all, but mark the relationships between the content words to help reduce ambiguity in parsing the sentence. The aforementioned all-content-word sentences can become very ambiguous, especially as they grow longer. Therefore Brefic contains a small word-class of particles to make them more precise when needed. Brefic's set of particles is small and bounded.

Interjections - These are words like "Hey" that are used to express an emotion (as opposed to naming an emotion, such as the noun "anger.") I won't define specific interjections or rules for using them - my focus is on content words and particles.

Modes of Grammar
Brefic contains a wide range of possible ways to express sentences, ranging between two main "poles."

Quick mode - This is the mode of quick yet ambiguous sentences. It is based off of the long strings of nouns that can appear in English and other languages. This mode requires no particles (except the occasional conjunction like "and" or "or") but as a consequence, it isn't always clear exactly what modifies what. The only general dis-ambiguating rule is that modifiers come before the words they modify. Thus the word orders in the quick mode are:


 * Subject-Object-Verb - ex: Jo das wid = "I that see" = "I see that"
 * Subject-Verb-Object is possible in a sense, though it would translate literally to "There is/are which is/are by "
 * Adjective-Noun - ex: ruz haus = "red house"
 * Genitive-Noun - ex: jo haus = "I house" = "my house"
 * Noun-Postposition - ex: haus-in = "in the house"
 * Number-Noun - ex: tri haus = "three houses"
 * Adverb-Verb - ex: rapid cur = "fast run" = "run fast" (This is actually quite flexible, since there's no distinction between adjectives and verbs - the adverb can be used as a modal verb, and thus appear after the main verb without any sort of particle.)
 * Verb-Modal Verb - ex: ed deb = "eat must" = "must eat"
 * Relative Clause-Noun - ex: apl ed hom = "apple-eating person" = "person who eats apples"

Clear mode - This is the mode of unambiguous yet somewhat longer sentences. Brefic contains particles which are analogous to "parentheses" and "commas" to show exactly what modifies what. These particles also reverse the word order of the quick mode - the open-parenthesis particle, d, also functions as Brefic's only preposition, with which adjectives can appear after nouns, objects (and even subjects) can appear after verbs, and so on.

To illustrate the difference between these two polar extremes, consider an example in which letters represent content words and parentheses & commas represent particles:


 * A B C - the quick mode, with no particles. We know that B modifies C, but A might modify either B or C.  A longer string of content words would have even more permutations as to what modifies what.

The clear mode can distinguish the two:
 * C(B, A) - C is modified by B and A
 * C(B(A)) - C is modified by B, which is modified by A

And of course, it's possible to mix the two:
 * A C(B) - A and B modify C (equivalent to C(B, A) above).
 * B C(A) - same as above
 * B(A) C - equivalent to C(B(A)) above
 * C(A B) - also equivalent to C(B(A))

Content Words
To understand Brefic content words, it helps to think of them all as nouns. This isn't the only way to describe them - they can also be described as all verbs - but I'll stick with the noun-based explanation for now. "Verbs" are nouns referring to actions - the English verb "sleep," for example, can be used without modification as a noun meaning "the act of sleeping," as in "I'll get some sleep." In Brefic, every verb is like the English verb "sleep" in this regard. I will refer to this as the "gerund rule."

Brefic "adjectives" are nouns referring to states, qualities, or properties. To illustrate with an English example, English color words such as "red" or "blue" can be used both as adjectives and as nouns referring to the concepts of the colors (though one can also say "redness," "blueness," etc.) Brefic has no need for suffixes like English -ness - all adjectives have it "built in." Alternatively, think of all adjectives as verbs meaning "to be " (and they can be used as such) and turn those verbs into nouns via the gerund rule.

Brefic has no prepositions, but postpositions (technically it has a preposition dy, but that's considered a particle.) It's hard to think of pre/postpositions as nouns directly - therefore, I'll describe it as a series of part-of-speech conversions that eventually leads to nouns. First, imagine a preposition as a verb meaning "to be " ex: replace "I am in the house" with "I in the house." Then imagine this verb as a gerund, e.g. "being-in." Now we have arrived in the land of nouns.

That's all well and good, but how do we go the other way? How do we use these nouns as verbs, adjectives, adverbs, or postpositions?

First, it's important to understand the entire Brefic sentence as a noun phrase. Jo un arbor wid, "I see a tree," would mean roughly "the seeing of a tree by me" or "my seeing a tree" or "my sight of a tree," etc. Saying this noun phrase as a sentence means that you are asserting the existence/happening of the noun phrase you're referring to. This means that all nouns, even the most "nounish" of nouns, are impersonal verbs meaning roughly "There is/are " (The trouble with this English translation is that "is" and "are" implies tense, whereas what I'm trying to express here is a tenseless concept.  The "tense" of the sentence would be expressed as a modifier within the "noun phrase" itself, such as "X which happens in the future" or something like that.)  For verbs, this "reverses" the gerund rule - to say "There is a sleeping done by me" is almost exactly equivalent to "I am sleeping." This is based on a somewhat philosophical idea that "existence" and "happening" are the same thing - "happening" is "existence" for events, and "existence" is "happening" for objects.

What about modifiers? In general, the "quick mode" of Brefic grammar operates on the principle that modifiers come before the words they modify. "Modifier" in this sense refers not just to adjectives and adverbs, but even to subjects, objects, genitives, relative clauses, and postpositional phrases. In English, we can use nouns as modifiers by sticking them in front of other nouns, as in "truck tires" or "sound amplifier." There is some vague-yet-obvious-from-context meaning connecting the two nouns, but it's always clear that "sound amplifier" is a kind of "amplifier," not a kind of "sound," and "truck tires" are a kind of "tire," not a kind of "truck." (Not all English compounds work this way, but all Brefic compounds do.) Brefic modifiers operate on these exact same principles. For example, to express the concept of "angry person," one would say engo hom, which translates more literally to "anger-person." Likewise for verbs we have ed hom, "eating-person", i.e. a person who eats. In general, A B can be translated as "B which is related to A in the most direct way that makes sense, given the context" (or "B of A" if you want to be short.)

Both postpositions and relative clauses are considered specific versions of "modified modifiers." For example, in hom would mean "in-person" - a person who is inside something. But haus in hom is more specific - it means "house-in person," or a person who is inside a house. The root haus modifies in, which modifies hom.

Compounds
Compounds in Brefic mean exactly what they would mean if they had spaces separating their roots - compounds and strings of roots are interchangeable. Thus, the same left-branching rules apply to compounds - the root at the end is the "kind" of thing the compound refers to. It's possible to turn postpositions into case suffixes, and auxiliary verbs into tense suffixes, merely by compounding them. It's theoretically possible to express an entire sentence as a single, giant compound, but that wouldn't be too easy on the eyes.

Particles
Particles in Brefic are designed to help resolve ambiguities and free up the word order. Particles follow special rules different from the general rules that Content Words follow, and for this reason I intend to keep the number of particles in Brefic down to a small size.

d - (pronounced /də/, or /d/ before a word that begins with a vowel) roughly "of" (though it can also mean "which is," "who," or "that,") this is the only "preposition" in Brefic. It is used to indicate that the word before it is modified by a word or phrase appearing after it. For example, hom d engo is equivalent to engo hom, angry person, and Jo wid d un arbor is equivalent to Jo un arbor wid. This particle fills the dual role of freeing up the word order and splitting sentences up into smaller phrases to reduce ambiguity.

c - a kind of "close-parenthesis" for a phrase beginning with d. For example, Un hom d engo un arbor wid would mean "There is a person who angrily sees a tree." However, Un hom d engo c un arbor wid would mean "a person, who is angry, sees a tree." The c blocks the d from "capturing" the words after it. This particle is not necessary if the d-phrase terminates at the end of the sentence (as the first example shows.)

f - roughly "and of," a "comma particle" that separates multiple phrases within the "parentheses" of d and c. For example, "A d B f C f D d E f F c f G" can be visualized as A(B, C, D(E, F), G). I believe that parentheses and commas like these show with complete unambiguity what modifies what (i.e. A is modified by B, C, D, and G, and D is modified by E and F), so the particles that translate to these symbols should create complete unambiguity as well.

Compound particles:
d-f - a version of d which implies that all the individual roots within its phrase are separated by an unspoken f.

Example: A d-f B C D = A(B, C, D)

This doesn't apply to d-phrases attached to those roots.

Ex:A d-f B C D E F d G f H c I = A(B, C, D, E, F(G, H), I)

Notice that the "comma" between G and H still required an f particle.

Logical particles:
Logical particles are considered a separate class from the above grammatical particles. They include conjunctions such as "and" and "or," and the negation particle "not."

ei - means "and." For numbers, this means "plus."

mei - means "except" or "but." For numbers, this means "minus."

or - means "or"

ar - exclusive or

na - means "not." Na appears immediately after the word it negates. Ex: arbor-na = not a tree / not trees

nei - "nand," i.e. "not both"

nor - "neither...nor"

nar - "both or neither"

lei - "all" or "every" - appears before nouns as a quantifier. ex: lei hom = "all people"

lor - "some" or "at least one" - appears before nouns as a quantifier

lar - "some, but not all" - appears before nouns as a quantifier

The last three function as content words, but they are shown here because they are derived from logical conjunctions.

Tense Markers
Tense markers in Brefic are nouns meaning things like "future event," "past event," etc. They can appear either as modal verbs modified by the main verb or as adverbs modifying the main verb. Some important tense words are:
 * wil = "future event," the future-tense marker.
 * did = "past event," the past-tense marker.
 * nau = "current event," the present-tense marker.

Examples of use:
 * Jo ed wil = "There is a future event of eating done by me" = "I will eat."
 * Jo wil ed = "There is an act of eating which is a future event done by me" = "I will eat."
 * Wil jo ed = "There is an act of eating done by me which is a future event" = "I will eat."

However, the verbs called "modal verbs" are different - they can't convey their meaning as an adverb, so they must be modified by the main verb. Example: Jo ed can = "I eat-can" = "I can eat" (The phrase ed can can be translated as "ability to eat.")

Comparison
Brefic has two comparison words - plu and min ("more" and "less", respectively.) These can modify words just like any other modifier:
 * plu werd = "more green"
 * min acwa = "less water"

Brefic's equivalent of "than" is to simply modify the comparison word. For example:
 * foil-plu werd = "greener than a leaf" (lit. "leaf-more green")
 * litr-min acwa = "less water than a litre" (lit. "litre-less water")

(The hyphens are optional. I tend to use them as markers of unusual word order.)

Comparisons of equivalence or similarity are accomplished other ways. The simplest way is to directly modify a property word:
 * sang-ruz = "blood-red" (="redness of blood")
 * montan-alt = "as high as a mountain" (lit. "mountain-height" or "mountain-high")
 * tu-haf-cwant = "as much as you have" (lit. "you-have-amount.")
 * aster-cal = "as hot as a star" (lit. "star-hot")
 * haus-grand = "as big as a house" (lit. "house-big" or "house-size")

Another way is to use the word leic, meaning "like," "similarity," etc.


 * acwa-leic cem = "water-like substance"

The superlatives are lei-plu and lei-min, meaning "most" and "least," but translate more literally to "all-more" and "all-less" (i.e. "more than all the others" etc.)

Case Marking
Brefic has optional postpositions to mark the subject and object. They are:
 * go - the subject postposition, means "done-by," "to do," or the noun "action".
 * on - the direct-object postposition, means "done-to," "to undergo," or the noun "undergoing."

Neither of these markers are obligatory. When neither subject nor object is marked, the case is either deduced from whether the nouns can act as subjects/objects/something else for the action-word they modify (e.g. "apple" is very rarely the subject of "eat"). When this doesn't make the case obvious (ex: Jo un cwan wid - "I a dog see") we follow the convention that the subject comes before the object.

Examples of use:
 * Jo-go un apl-on ed = "I eat an apple"
 * Un apl-on jo-go ed = "An apple, I eat"
 * Jo-go ed d un apl-on = "I eat an apple" (Notice the particle d - it keeps the verb ed the head of the sentence.)
 * Jo-go ed un apl-on = "An apple undergoes an act of eating done by me" = "I eat an apple." (This construction is allowed, but hinges on the assumption that the main verb ["ed" in this case] is another modifier to the case-marker ["on" in this case], rather than a modifier to something else.)

Between marking both of these cases and marking neither, Brefic allows the speaker to only mark one of them and leave the other unmarked. The unmarked noun should be the one closest to the main verb, but doesn't need to be. Some examples:
 * Jo-go un apl ed = "I eat an apple"
 * Un apl-on jo ed = "An apple, I eat"

Likewise, if both subject and object are marked but there's a third unmarked noun phrase, that noun phrase is most likely an adverb or indirect object of some sort. Example:
 * Dis dei jo-go un apl-on ed = "Today I eat an apple"

Relative Clauses
A relative clause in Brefic is simply a "verb" that modifies a "noun." For example:
 * ed hom = "a person who eats."
 * hom d ed = same as above.

This does not mean that every time a verb modifies a noun, the noun is the verb's subject or agent - rather, like all modifiers, the connection between them is "the most direct relationship that makes sense, given the context." For example:
 * ed haus = "restaurant" (eating-house, i.e. a building for eating)
 * ed apl = "eaten apple"

However, the relationship can be clarified by inserting a content word between the verb and noun:


 * ed por haus = "house of the purpose of eating"
 * ed on apl = "apple of undergoing eating" (i.e. eaten apple.)
 * ed go hom = "person of doing eating" (i.e. person who eats.)

Note that the words on and go are not acting as case-markers for ed in the above examples (i.e. they're not rendering "eating" in the nominative or accusative case.) Rather, like all content words, they are nouns, and they are behaving as part of a noun compound. If one interprets on and go as mere stand-ins for case suffixes, then ed on apl would mean "the apple which is done to the act of eating." But in Brefic, if there's a way to interpret a construction that makes sense (in this case "the apple which undergoes the act of eating"), then the construction is allowed, and nonsense interpretations are eliminated in favor of the interpretation(s) that make sense.

The verb can acquire subjects, objects, adverbs, postpostional phrases, etc. the same way as any other verb does - by adding them as modifiers. For example:
 * apl ed hom = "person who eats apples"
 * apl on ed hom = "person who eats apples" (clearer)
 * apl on haus in ed hom = "person who eats apples in houses"

To put the relative clause after the noun, simply use the particle d.


 * hom d apl-on ed
 * hom d ed d apl

With relative clauses that appear after the nouns they modify, it's possible to use third-person pronouns to refer back to the noun that is modified. Example:


 * haus d ta-in pitsa-on ed = "house of eating pizza in it" = "house in which pizza is eaten"

However, this only works if the relative clause appears after the noun it modifies, since pronouns can only refer to something mentioned earlier. If one were to say ta-in pitsa-on ed haus, the pronoun ta would refer to something mentioned earlier, not haus.

Nouns as Verbs
As mentioned earlier, every "noun" in Brefic can be used as an impersonal verb meaning "there is/are ." However, this leaves an unanswered question - what does it mean to attach subjects or objects to these "verbs"?

Consider the word friz, "cold." The sentence Friz. would mean "There is cold" - which is roughly equivalent to the English weather phrase "it is cold," where "it" is a dummy pronoun. Any modifier attached to friz, like all modifiers in Brefic, would be in a broad quasi-genitive case. Thus, the sentence Jo friz would mean literally "My cold-ness exists/happens." A looser and less awkward translation would be "I am cold."

Because of the broadness of the "modifier case" in Brefic, a noun Y converted to a simple intransitive verb with subject X means "X has Y" in the broadest sense. This may even encompass the meaning "X is Y," if X and Y are in the same natural category. The sentence "Ta cwan," for example, literally translates to "There is/are a dog/dogs of/which is him/her/it." Thus, it could either mean "He/she/it is a dog," or "He/she/it has a dog/dogs." To resolve this ambiguity, one can use the content words es and haf, either as the main verb or as a quasi-case-marker. Examples:


 * Ta cwan es - "There exists his/her/its being a dog" = "He/she/it is a dog."
 * Ta es cwan - "There exists a dog who is him/her/it" = "He/she/it is a dog." (This is an example of demoting the subject and main verb to a relative clause to get subject-verb-object word order.)
 * Ta cwan haf - "There exists his/her/its having a dog" = "He/she/it has a dog/dogs"
 * Ta haf cwan - "There is/are dogs that he/she/it has" = "He/she/it has a dog/dogs"

Returning to the original example with friz, it is important to note that Jo friz es or Jo es friz are nonsense in Brefic. They mean "I am coldness." It only makes sense to use es in phrases like Nul farnhait es friz - "Zero degrees Fahrenheit is cold."

Both es and haf can be used as quasi-case-markers in a wierd kind of transitive verb construction:
 * Ta haf Bob es nom - "There is a name which is Bob and which he has" = "His name is Bob."
 * Das haus haf tri-mil paund es pes - "There is a weight which is three thousand pounds and which that house has." - "That house weighs three thousand pounds."

As with other common case-markers, one or both of these can be dropped.
 * Tri-mil paund es das haus pes
 * Das haus haf tri-mil-paund pes
 * Das haus tri mil paund pes

But what about transitive verbs in general? The case markers go and on described earlier are only allowed on verb-nouns that can be "done" or "undergone." Razon, "reason(ing)," for example, can be "done" - therefore, it makes sense to say Jo go razon (though Jo razon suffices.) Zirurz, "surgery," is something that can both be done and undergone - therefore, it makes sense to say Ta go tu on zirurz.  But friz cannot be "done" - therefore Jo go friz is either nonsense, or an awkward way of saying "I'm making it cold." In any case, it does not mean "I am cold."

Beyond this, Brefic can translate the idiomatic English noun-verb conversions using compounds. For example, consider the English noun "brush" versus the verb "to brush." The latter indicates the use of the former - therefore, Brefic can translate this conversion with a compound involving the root us, to use.
 * broz = a brush
 * broz-us = to use a brush (can be written brozus or broz us as well)
 * Jo-go jo har-on broz-us = "I brush my hair"
 * Jo har broz us = "I brush hair," "My hair is brushed," "I use a hair-brush" - a strange case in which the multiple ambiguous meanings of a sentence can all be true.

Subject-Verb-Object (and Object-Verb-Subject) without Particles
In a Brefic sentence with no particles, the "head" of the sentence is always the last word. That is, X Y Z is a "kind of Z", and saying X Y Z as a declarative sentence means that kind of Z exists/happens. Particles can create equivalent sentences, such as X Z d Y, which is still a "kind of Z" because the particle d subordinated the Y to Z. But a sentence X Z Y is something different - a "kind of Y."

In Brefic, it is possible to "imitate" Subject-Verb-Object word order by saying the equivalent of "There is which is by ." Likewise for Object-Verb-Subject - "there is which ." This works for many sentences, and produces something functionally identical to the SOV equivalent - but there is an important limitation. As soon as the universal quantifier "all" gets involved, the meanings of these seemingly similar constructions begin to diverge.

Consider an example:
 * Jo wid lei cos - "Everything that I see exists."
 * Jo lei cos wid - "I see everything."

There are two ways to avoid this:
 * Use the particle d to create a legitimate right branch from the verb. Example: Jo wid d lei cos - "I see everything"
 * Use a case marker at the end of the sentence, and hope that it's understood that the verb modifies that case marker rather than the object noun. Ex:  Jo wid lei cos on.

Generally, the first option is preferable because it doesn't add any ambiguity (in fact, it reduces it.) The second option actually increases ambiguity, since it leaves the original interpretation still possible.

=Sounds=

Where more than one sound is indicated, the pronunciation of the letter is the free choice of the speaker.

Vowels:

 * A = [a] as in father
 * E = [e, ɛ] as in great or set
 * I = [i, ɪ] as in machine or sit
 * O = [o, ɔ] as in so or sore
 * U = [u, ʊ] as in rude or push

Brefic has an unwritten schwa sound - see below.

Diphthongs: ai, au, ei, eu, oi, ou, ui, iu

Consonants:

 * B = [b]
 * C = [k]
 * D = [d]
 * F = [f, v]
 * G = [g]
 * H = [h, x] ([x] is not in English)
 * J = [j] like y in yes
 * L = [l]
 * M = [m]
 * N = [n]
 * P = [p]
 * R = [r]
 * S = [s, z]
 * T = [t]
 * W = [w]
 * Z = [ʃ, ʒ] like sh in show or z in azure

Every consonant carries an optional, unwritten schwa after it if it appears without a following vowel. For example, a string of consonants such as "csrlpctrz" is pronounceable as /kəsərələpəkətərəʃə/, or any variant with some of those schwas removed (e.g. /kəsrəlpəktərʃ/.) Many Brefic words contain consonant clusters that appear in European languages, but pronouncing them as a cluster is not obligatory.

=Dictionary=

Main article: Brefic Dictionary

Pronouns

 * Jo = I, me, my
 * Tu = you (singular)
 * Ta = he, she, it, they(singular)
 * Se = oneself (which can mean "myself" "yourself" "themselves" etc.)
 * Wos = you (plural)
 * Tam = they, them
 * Nus = we
 * Ses = each other
 * Dis = this
 * Das = that
 * Dise = these
 * Dase = those
 * Cwe = what, which

=Numbers=

Digit words:

 * 0 = nul,
 * 1 = un,
 * 2 = du,
 * 3 = tri,
 * 4 = cwar,
 * 5 = cwin,
 * 6 = siz,
 * 7 = set,
 * 8 = oit,
 * 9 = nof

des = "more than one," a plural quantifier which can be used as a digit in its own right. Ex:

des haus = houses

desmil = thousands

Powers of Ten:

 * dec = 10
 * cent = 100
 * mil = 1000
 * wan = 10000

Suffixes:

 * -jon = ^2  ex: miljon = 1000000
 * -jard = ^3
 * -li = ^-1
 * -op+number = ^(number), where number is a single digit or power of ten.

Ex: milopsiz = 1000^6, wanopwan = 10,000^10,000

When powers of ten, or words constructed from them using the above suffixes, are placed next to each other, the result is the multiplication of the two. Ex: decwan = 100,000, cenwanypwan = 100*(10,000^10,000)

Multi-digit numbers are constructed as follows:

First digit (unless it's 1) + Power of Ten + The rest of the digits listed sequentially (unless they're all zeroes.) If the first digit is 1, then saying "un" is not necessary - the power of ten will suffice.

Ex: 947 = nofcent-cwar-set

12 = decdu

20 = dudec

68,295 = sizwan-oit-du-nof-cwin

767,598 = setdecwan-siz-set-cwin-nof-oit

If there is a long string of zeros in a number, the number can be constructed using multiple powers of ten:

649,000 = sizcent-cwar-nof-mil

649,000,070 = sizcent-cwar-nof-miljon ei setdec

=Example text= ...