Sallia

Phonology
Sallia uses an alphabet of 17 letters: A [ɑ, a] B [b] K [k] D [d] E [e, ɛ] F [f] H [h] I [i, ɪ] L [l] M [m] N [n] O [ɔ, o] P [p] R [r] S [s] T [t] U [u, ʊ].

Overall, the letters sound the way you would expect them to be, regardless of their placement. When it is not stressed, the letter "i" tends to form diphthongs [aɪ], [eɪ], [oɪ] and [uɪ], as well as [ɪa], [ɪe], [ɪo] and [ɪu] when it comes in contact with another vowel. Other vowels are pronounced separately from each other.

Phonotactics
The Sallia syllable structure is described by the (C)V(C)(C)(C) pattern. Out of all consonants, only L, M, N, R, S and T can be syllable-final, and only L, M, N or R can precede them.

Stress
The stress usually falls on the last syllable of the root or a stressed suffix. For example

suobó river

falhúofáni (falhu + o + fa + ni) on the top of the tower

tía (ti + a) arrives

méniot (men + i + ot) about people

men tíasi (ti + a + si) if he comes

It can happen that stress is essential for recognizing the word correctly, e.g.

punasé -- "tree"

púnas -- "because it is hard"

Basic Grammar
Sallia is an agglutinating language. It has a lot of cases and compound words.

Verbs
Sallia verbs and adjectives always have the final -a (sometimes substituted by -l, see below):

Nunamen duna - The boy plays.

Punase faltetia - The tree grows.

Nunahei dunsdana - The children laugh.

Aspects
The verbs do not change according to tense, but can be put in three different aspects: prospective, imperfective and perfective. The perfective aspect is marked by -ns, which is attached to the -a ending. Similarly, the prospective aspect is marked by -a followed by -nt. Thus,

Miadasobo tia - The train comes/The train arrives

Miadasobo tians - The train has arrived

Miadasobo tiant - The train is going to arrive

Passive Voice
Verbs can be put inot passive voice by adding the suffix -er. E.g.

Me sia miadasobou - I see the train

Ka ia miadasobole sierans med - This is the train I've seen.

A case prefix can be added to the verb in passive voice when the subject is not the direct object in the active voice. For example:

Ka ia hule ni-huera med - This is the house in which I live.

Negative
To negate a verb, the particle es is placed before it:

Me es miant -- I am not going

Me deu es kia siat -- I can't see you.

Moods
There are four moods in Sallia, indicative, subjunctive, conditional and imperative. While the indicative mood has all three aspects, the other moods has only one aspect each.

The subjunctive describes an action (imaginary or in the past) that could have occured but did not. It is indicated by verb ending -ars. It is often followed by a noun or gerund in the Causal case:

Me miars de tiathias meu -- I would have come if you called me.

The conditinal mood describes an action that may or may not occur in the future, depending on the circumstances. It is indicated by verb ending -art. It is usually followed by a noun or gerund in the Conditional case:

Me miart de tiathiasi meu -- I'll come if you call me.

The imperative mood conicides by ending with the prospective aspect, but a verb in the imperative takes no subject. Thus,

De miant. -- You'll go.

Miant! -- Go!

Es miant! - Don't go!

Rules for adding suffixes and endings
When a suffix or and ending is added to a Sallia root that ends with a vowel, special rules may apply. The reason for it is that such roots used to end with the letter -l- that is dropped in modern speech but makes a reappearance in certian situations.

Namely, when the root ends with a vowel, and the suffix/ending starts with the same vowel, the second vowel is dropped and replaced by -l.

For example:

ti + a --> tia (no change)

pa + a --> pal (final -a is dropped and replaced by -l)

Cases
Sallia nouns can be put in many different cases by adding different endings to the root word.

Nominative/(Absolutive with passive verbs) - (zero ending)

Accusative -u

Ergative ("by", agent of passive verbs) -d

Genitive/Posessive ("of") -o

Dative ("to", indicates direct recipient) -ti

Benefactive ("for", indicates indirect recepient, purpose or goal) -t

Causal ("because of", "as a consequence of") -s

Conditional ("if") -si

Comparative ("than", "out of") -re

Equative/Essive ("same as", "as", indicates assumed equality or role) -le

Partitive ("of" with amounts) -ol

Topical/Oblique ("about", "concerning", "with respect to") -ot

Comitative ("with") -uli

Abessive ("without") -usli

The following four cases deal with location but can also be used to indicate time.

Allative ("to") -nit

Locative ("in") -ni

Ablative ("from") -nis

Perlative ("through") -nist

The following cases are stressed at the penultimate syllable.

Instrumental/Instructive ("with"/"using", "by") -ulali

Semblative ("like", "as") -usanai

Comitative II ("together with") -ulanai

Abessive II ("apart from") -uslanai

Suffixes
To further specify location, nouns can be augmented with the following suffixes:

inside -one-

top -ofa-

front -oso-

bottom -ofar-

back -osor-

neighborhood, place near -oke-

away -oker-

surface -oten-

place outside, around -oner-

These suffixes are placed before the case marker, and are stressed.

The following suffixes transform other words into location or time indicators. They are also stressed.

place of -ona-

time of -oto-

To form the plural, the suffix -i- is added after the root and before the case markers:

kolhon - a bird

kolhoni - birds

kolhonti - to the bird

kolhoniti - to the birds

and so on.

Adverbs
Adverbs usually have no ending or end with -i when derived from a different part of speech. Typically they follow the verb they modify, but may precede it as well.

Adjectives
Adjectives in Sallia are verbs in disguise. They do not agree with the nouns they modify, and they can take all verb forms. Adjectives always have the -a ending.

To make a superlative form of an adjective, one adds the prefix do- (lit. "more") to it. Prefixing an adjective with dor- has the opposite effect, e.g.

losia -- beautiful

dolosia -- more beautiful

dorlosia -- less beautiful

dolosia panre -- the most beautiful

Use the Semblative and Comparative cases with superlatives in comparisons:

losia tenosunusanai -- beautiful as the sun

Copula
The copula ia (root i-) is usually followed by an object in Essive case (-le).

Ka ia meo hule - This is my house.

Since Sallia adjectives are morphologically very close to verbs, no copula is required before an adjective.

Deo hu losia - Your house is beautiful.

Gerund
A verb, with its -a ending, can be treated as a gerund. In this capacity, it can have a subject, objects and adverbs modifying it, and, at the same time, it can accept case markers and be treated as if it was a noun (nomen actionis). An adjective can be treated in the same way.

Gerunds are very frequently used in Sallia; they serve as bases for all kinds of syntactic constructions.

Here are some examples:

Sia ia kensiale - Seeing is believing

Me ria de miat meulanai - I want you to go with me.

Me kia tiat de meti siatliasi misu  - I can come if you show me the way (note two gerunds here: tiat "to come" = ti + a + t, and siatliasi "if show" = siatli + a + si)

The most common use of Gerund is with a modal verb, putting the Gerund in the Benefactive case:

Me ria malt -- I am hungry (lit: I want to eat)

Me es kia miat pat dobo -- I can't go any further

The other widespread use is with -ni or -otoni (= o + to + ni "in the time of") to it:

Met tians koupenani dan - She came, breathing heavily

Met halns teu men siaotoni -- She took it when he was not looking

Compound Words
The Sallia dictionary is rich with compound words. Sometimes even the most basic words' origins can be traced to a compound, e.g.

sulema - to drink (sule - ma, "eat as liquid")

sunoto - day (suno - to, "time of light")

falhu - tower (fal - hu, "tall house")

Sallia compound words are formed by taking a well-formed phrase and fusing it together into one word. In a compound, the main word always has to be last, so when one takes a compound word apart, he would find objects placed before verbs (sule - ma), and adjectives before nouns (fal - hu).

Some of the compound words can be pretty complex, but in their formation they still follow the same pattern:

miadasobo - train (mia - daso - bo, "length of moving cars")

sunotenofaopin - east (sunoteno - fao - pin, "side of rising sun")

Some of the roots that are most frequently seen as forming compound words are:

he (person): dalhe "leader", maubalhe "cook", saltliahe "teacher", luerahe "darling"

to (time): sunoto "day", tiato "future", moattiaoto "birthday"

lon (surface): fallon "sky", taolon "writing desk", mallon "table", raolon "bed"

lan (collection, gathering): ruolan "book", dinalaobollan "cleaning brush", dorolan "dust", paolan "experience"

hon (animal): kolhon "bird", durabouharahon "sheep", konakanuluahon "bear"

li ('let"): saltlia "teaches", tiratlia "frees", siatlia "shows"

pa ("make", "cause"): lanatpal "adds", tiatpal "attracts", "attractive", dorpiatpal "cruel"

hi ("say", "tell"): sanhia "agrees", sorthia "answers", louhia "approves", bethia "argues"

and so on.

Personal Pronouns
Sallia personal pronouns can be summarized as follows: In the IIIrd person, men is translated as "he", and met as "she"; however, it is very common to use the gender-neutral he. Te is used with things ("it").

These pronouns can be put in any case; so meo means "my", met means "for me", meuli means "with me" and so forth.

Demonstrative Pronouns
Putting words ka "this", kar "that", ho "what", pan "everything", pat "something" and es "nothing" in any of the noun cases yields all sorts of demonstrative pronouns:

kani -- here

kanis -- from here

kal -- such

kaltoni -- now

karatoni -- then

hos -- why?

hoti -- to whom?

hot -- what for?

panni -- everywhere

and so on.

Example text
The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveler came along wrapped in a warm cloak.

They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveler take his cloak off should be considered stronger than the other.

Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveler fold his cloak around him;

and at last the North Wind gave up the attempt. Then the Sun shined out warmly, and immediately the traveler took off his cloak.

And so the North Wind was obliged to confess that the Sun was the stronger of the two.

Duapinoko e Sunoten bethians hoahe doroaot, misomen miaotoni duafeuli ranotenni.

Hei sanhia danisiat heu keatoni pal misomen herat durafeu doroahele buohere.

Duapinoko koumia ro kai he kiausanai oi he koumiaotoni doro misomen featpena doro durafeu ranotenni;

''e Duapinoko diratoni daonenistira paltleu. Karatoni Sunoten dursuna e misomen hera durafeu boatoni.''

E Duapinoko bia salshiat Sunoten doroau buahere.