Kartillian

Consonants
Kartillian's consonant inventory includes 20 basic consonants. The vast majority of these consonants are also present in English, meaning that at least the consonant phonology is easy to grasp for an english speaker. Every consonant can be geminated, although the geminated version of a consonant may not necessarily be in the non-geminate's place of articulation.


 * 1. The alveolar nasal /n/ is Kartillian's only nasal phoneme. However, it becomes [m] before bilabial consonants, [ɱ] before labiodental consonants, [ɲ] before palatal consonants, [ŋ] before velar consonants and lastly [ɴ] before uvular consonants. In addition, /n/ has the tendency to become [m] after rounded vowels. In most cases it is represented by the letter ‹n›, except where it represents the allophone [m], in which case it is represented by ‹m›.
 * 2. The geminate forms of /k/ and /g/ tend to be pronounced /çc/ and /ʝɟ/ respectively.
 * 3. The geminate form of /h/ tends to be pronounced /xː/.
 * 4. The geminate form of /l/ tends to be pronounced /ɮː/.

Vowels
The Kartillian vowel system is quite complicated. The vowel inventory is extensive - there are six vowels that have corresponding long vowels in slightly different places of articulation. In addition to this, there are two other vowels that do not have long counterparts, bringing the total number to fourteen. There are also numerous diphthongs and tripthongs.

Below is the table of the twelve 'main' vowels. These are six short vowels, and their long counterparts. Unlike in some languages (for example Hungarian) where long vowels do not stray significantly from their short variant's place of articulation - in Kartillian the long vowels are often articulated in a place quite different from their short counterpart. For example, the short vowel /æ/ is near-open, whereas it's corresponding long vowel /aː/ is open.

In addition to the twelve shown above, there are two other vowel monopthongs present in Kartillian. These are the two central vowels /ɜ/ and /ʉ/, represented by the letters ‹ụ› and ‹ọ› respectively. Unlike the other vowels, these two do not come in a long and a short variety.

Alphabet
Kartillian uses the Latin Alphabet with a few modifications. There are numerous letters using diacritics which are treated as distinct letters of their own, and collation order keep this distinction intact.

Syntax
Kartillian is a Verb-Subject-Object language. Therefore, it prefers the arrangement "Ate Adam Apples" to the English norm "Adam Ate Apples".

For example: Dezụr ze nenşēre nū ha şeụitt nǖzetti. "I don't want to read these books" is read literally Dezụr ze nenşēre nū "want to read not" + ha "I" + şeụitti nǖzetti "these books".

Morphology
Kartillian is an analytic language, so it uses prepositions and postpositions to indicate the vast majority of grammatical function. However, Kartillian does still posess eight grammatical cases. It is a tripartite language, meaning that the object of a transitive verb, the subject of a transitive verb and the subject of an intransitive verb are all treated seperately. The eight grammatical cases are the Ergative, Accusative, Intransitive, Dative, Genitive, Postpositional I, Postpositional II and Vocative.


 * Ergative Case

The Ergative Case is the basic dictionary-form case of Kartillian nouns. It marks the subject of a transitive verb, for example the "I" in "I read the book". The ergative case is unmarked - i.e. there is no case marker needed for marking it, much like the Nominative Case in most European Languages.


 * Accusative Case

The Accusative Case is used to mark the object of a transative verb, for example the "book" in "I read the book". The accusative case is marked by the case marker -(e)tt. For example ne nǖz "the book" becomes ne nǖzett.


 * Intransitive (Absolutive) Case

The Intransitive Case marks the agent of an intransitive verb - i.e. a verb which does not have an object. For example the verb "I left" does not necessarily need a subject. The intransitive case marker is the suffix -(e)nn. For example "I left" is written daz abōr hann.


 * Dative Case

The dative case marks the indirect object of a verb, as in "I gave the book to you", which in Kartillian "I" would take on the Ergative Case, "the book" would take on the Accusative Case and "you" would take on the Dative case. The case marker for the dative is -ehhu.


 * Genitive Case

The genitive case marks posession, with the case suffix being -(u)qq. For example "my book" would be written nǖz haqq - similar to English "book of mine".


 * Postpositional Case I

In Kartillian there are two Postpositional Cases. As the language has a great deal of grammatical information stored in postpositions, these grammatical cases are needed to indicate which noun the Postpositions are referring to. Postpositional Case I is used in conjunction only with the postpositions ven "in", tuqụr "about", kyn "with", ba "on", naskyn "without", sull "under(neath)", kọpp "above" and sērē "over", whereas Postpositional Case II is used for all others. The Postpositional Case I is marked by the suffix -(a)kkym. So for example "in the house" would be written ne kōromakkym ven.


 * Postpositional Case II

In Kartillian there are two Postpositional Cases. Postpositional Case I is used in conjunction only with the postpositions ven "in", tuqụr "about", kyn "with", ba "on", naskyn "without", sull "under(neath)", kọpp "above" and sērē "over", whereas Postpositional Case II is used for all others, including passū "for" and pōrmu "from". The case is marked by the suffix -(y)ssū. For example, for the house" would be written ne kōromyssū passū''.


 * Vocative Case

The vocative case indicates the noun being addressed. In Kartillian, it is marked by the suffix -o in nouns ending in consonants, but has been lost altogether in words ending in vowels.

Nouns
Kartillian Noun Phrase always go in order of determiner-noun-adjective-number.

Plurality
Plurality is marked by the suffix -(v)i. The plural marker is used extensively throughout Kartillian. Articles, determiners, nouns and adjectives all have to take a plural form. For example "the red car" ne ruggō rokō is changed to nevi ruggōvi rokōvi "the red cars".

Determiners
Articles are always placed before their noun. The definate article is ne (singular) and nevi (plural), and the indefinate article is ta (singular) and tavi (plural).

Kartillian uses two demonstrative determiners - these are şeụi "this", şeụivi "these", kahhon "that" and kahhoni "those".

Numbers
Kartillian follows a regular decimal system. A number can function both as a determiner and a noun standing on its own.

Numbers are placed after the noun. For example "the three cars" is written nevi ruggōvi şi, with şi "three" being placed after ruggōvi "cars".

There are also some suffixes which are used specifically in conjuntion with numbers:
 * -eje indicates types/kinds of something. deççū şakieje "four types/kinds of cheese".
 * -sbynn indicates a number of times a verb has happened. da kopon kynnasbynn hann! "I fell over 100 times!"

Adjectives and Adverbs
Adjectives are placed directly after the noun they are modifying, just before a number marker if there is one. For example ne ruggō rokō "the red car" is literally "the car red". Adverbs are, like adjectives, placed after the verb they are describing. Predicative adjectives are linked to their noun by the copula mọ, for example ne ruggō mọ rokō "the car is red". Adverbs are formed from adjectives by the addition of the suffix -(a)lli - for example vōhōn "large" > vōhōnalli "largely".

Plurality
Adjectives take on plural forms if the noun they are coupled with is in its plural form. The plural marker for adjectives is identical to the plural form of nouns, articles and determiners: -i in words ending in a consonant, and -vi in words ending in a vowel. For example "ne ruggō rokō" the red car > "nevi ruggōvi rokōvi" "the red cars".

Use with 'vaz'
The Kartillian language uses the copula vaz coupled with adjectives and adverbs to form sentences such as vaz synnụr "it's nice", da vaz synnụralli "it was done nicely".

Degree Adverbs and Adjectives
There is the suffix -okyk which demonstrates degree adverbs and adjectives:
 * vōhōn "large" > vōhōnokyk "very"
 * fem "to some extent" > femokyk "quite"

These are placed before the adjective or adverb, connected to the adjective or adverb they are describing by a hyphen. This is one of the few uses of a hyphen in Kartillian.

For example:
 * Ai! Vaz vōhōnokyk-rokō! : "Gosh! It's very red!"
 * Attū femokyk-synnụralli zēnn : "She looks quite nice".

Comparative and Superlative
The comparative and superlative form of adjectives and adverbs are represented by the prepositions ess for the comparative and qe for the superlative. They also come in predictable plural forms: essi and qevi.

For example ne ruggō rokō "the red car" > ne ruggō ess rokō "the redder car" > nevi ruggōvi essi rokōvi "the redder cars".

Tenses
There are three tenses in Kartillian: the past, the present and the future. They are represented by prepositions. Unlike in English, Kartillian does not distinguish grammatical aspect. So for example "I have been saying", "I have said" and "I said" are all represented by the same sentence: da keved hann. There are also two different kinds of Verbal nouns used regularly in the language - the gerund and the supine.

Past Tense
The most common way of representing the past tense is the use of the preposition da for verbs beginning with consonants, and daz for verbs beginning with vowels - similar to the way the words "a" and "an" are used in English. For example keved "to say" > da keved "said"; aşşela "to leave" > daz aşşela "left".

The only strays from this rule are with the verbs vaz "to be" and hoj "to do".
 * The past tense for the verb vaz takes a completely different form - mānt. For example vaz ha ta juihhen "I am a man" > mānt ha ta juihhen "I was a man".
 * The past tense for hoj "to do" is fēgg "done". For example hoj ha nevi vorotti "I do the chores" > fēgg ha nevi vorotti "I did the chores".

Future Tense
The most common way of showing the future tense is the use of the preposition vokk for all verbs. For example keved "to say" > ükk keved "will say". For the verb vaz the two-word sequence is contracted, from ükk vaz to the single word ükvaz. For example vaz ha ta lehhāhn "I am a teacher" > ükvaz ha ta lehhāhn! "I will be a teacher!".

Mood
There are a few grammatical moods in Kartillian. They are, as most things in the language, represented by prepositions.


 * The Conditional mood is similar to the use of English "if..?", and is represented by the word hē. For example menns evittel zann, hē ükk-hokküd siāụrna havi Frāncassū ba? "how would you feel if we went to France tomorrow?".


 * The Subjunctive mood is similar to the use of English "should we?" and "let's..". It is fulfilled by the word volk?. For example volk ükk-atak ha oqett? "Should I buy it?".