Ban'si

General information
Ban'si is the language of the raccoon-ish inhabitants of Bassa, who were originally human, but were the victims of a widely propagated transformation virus. They are slightly shorter than humans, and are known for being swift, agile and ressourceful.

Ban'si descends from the Romance languages that its once human speakers used to speak. It has evolved a lot from there, and grammar in particular has become very different. It has also had some limited influence from asian (a bit of vocabulary) and african languages (mostly grammar-related).

Phonetically, Ban'si is a fairly dense language, so it has moderately short words despite having a relatively simple phonemic inventory. It has 15 consonants, 7 vowels (plus nasal variants), phonemic length in both vowels and consonants, and a tone system that isn't based on levels or contours but rather on upsteps and downsteps.

Grammar-wise, Ban'si has the unusual feature of using upsteps and downsteps between words to convey grammatical information (possessive and copulative are expressed this way). Ban'si also relies on reduplication and a wide variety of pronouns and clitics to indicate information such as person, voice, transitivity, negative, plural, verb tense and mode, and so on. It is generally a rather analytic language - not completely isolating, but it still has very few true inflections. The sentence order is SVO, and modifying adjectives and adverbs always follow what they are modifying.

Consonants
- The variation between [ɾ] and [ʁ] is regional. Long [ɾ] is pronounced as [rː]. [ɾ] is alveolar.

- All consonants can also be long (except word initially), spelled with a double letter (ex: "anno").

Vowels
- Ambiguous sequences are separated with a silent "h" (ex: "ohu" /oɨ/).

Tone
- Tone step up is spelled with an appostrophe (ex: ka'mi).

- Tone step down is spelled with a dash (ex: ra-son).

- Words without any tone steps fall into the category of "toneless" words, and will have a small step added before the last syllable. For instance, the word kolimaso will be pronounced as kolima'so (non sentence-final) or kolima-so (sentence final), but with the step about half as large. However, sometimes no step is added if the next word starts with a step (ex: kolimaso' men) or if the previous word ends with a step (ex: gande' kolimaso), especially in non-sentence final position.

- Some upsteps might be ignored in sequences with more than 2 or 3 upsteps. The same applies to downsteps.

Phonotactics
- Permitted syllables are (C)V only.

- Long consonant cannot follow a long vowel or nasal vowel (so sequences such as taasso or tansso are not alllowed).

Word order
Word order in Ban'si is SVO, with adverbial phrases and locatives coming at the end, and expressives at the very end of the sentence. Possessors/adjectives/relative clauses following the noun. Ban'si is strongly head-initial and has lots of prefixes, and very few suffixes.

Possessive
In Ban'si, possessive is indicated in one of two ways:

- With a step up. For instance, "Ka'mi' papa" ("Dad's truck").

- With the "na" particle: "Ka'mi na papa" ("Dad's truck"). "Na" is mostly used in longer noun phrases or with relative clauses or following words that use upstep.

- Attributive adjectives also use this construction: "Ka'mi' bile" or "Ka'mi na bile" ("Blue truck").

- Relative clauses also use this construction: "Ka'mi' o ve" or "Ka'mi na o ve" ("The truck I see").

- Locatives also use this construction: "Ka'mi' Pari" or "Ka'mi na Pari" ("The truck in Paris").

- This is also used with possessive adjectives, demonstratives and interrogatives, as in "Ka'mi' men" ("My truck"), "Ka'mi' ga" ("This truck"), "Ka'mi' wa" ("Which truck?").

- An emphatic form of possessive can be constructed when adding a possessive pronoun between the noun and possessor: "Ka'mi' nen' papa" ("DAD's truck").

- Possessive pronouns are generally used with the step up possessive. Ex: "Papa' men" ("My dad).

Copulative
The copula ("to be") is expressed with a step down.

- This is used with adjectives: "Ka'mi-bile." ("The truck is blue").

- This is also used with nouns: "O-papa." ("I am a dad").

- This is also used with locatives: "O-Pari." ("I am in Paris").

- This is also used with possessive pronouns: "Ka'mi' ga-men" ("This truck is mine").

Existential
The existential is expressed with a locative pronoun + the noun group.

- If the object is is close, the pronoun "Ga" ("Here") is used: "Ga ka'mi." ("There's a truck here").

- Otherwise, the prounoun "La" ("There") is used: "La ka'mi." ("There's a truck").

- This is also used with impersonnal verbs: "Ga pile." ("It's raining here"), "La pile." ("It's raining").

Negative
Negative is indicated with the "kou" prefix. This can be used with verbs, adjectives, nouns, locatives or pronouns:

- Verb: "O kou ve i." ("I don't see it").

- Adjective: "O-kou bile." ("I'm not blue").

- Noun: "Kou kami-bile." ("No trucks are blue").

- Locative: "Ka'mi-kou Pari." ("The truck is not in Paris").

- Pronoun: "Kou me!" ("Not me!").

Plural
Plural is indicated by reduplicating the first syllable (but without the long or nasal vowel) and is similar to the negative. If the word doesn't have a step up (or the next step), a step up is also added. Plural is optional in Ban'si. It can be used with verbs, adjectives or nouns (pronouns form their plurals differently):

- Verb: "O ve've." ("I see them"). This can indicate plural object or intensive or rarely plural subject, depending on transitivity and context.

- Adjective: "Ka'mi-bi'bile." ("The truck is very blue"). Plural adjectives generally indicate intensive rather than the plural of the attached object.

- Noun: "Kaka'mi-bile." ("The trucks are blue"). Note that plural is optional in Ban'si.

Locatives
Locatives are a special kind of noun that always has a locative meaning. For instance, "Pari" always means "in Paris", never just "Paris". To form a non-locative expression, you must use a possessive: "Li' Pari" ("the place of Paris"). Locatives generally follow the object in a sentence (so they are generally at the end).

Ban'si doesn't have prepositions: all prepositional meanings are expressed using locatives in a possessive phrase. For instance, "in" is expressed with the locative "Nan" ("inside"), forming phrases such as "Nan' ka'mi" (inside the truck).

Some locatives also indicate time information, such as "Aye" ("yesterday").

Ban'si doesn't distinguish adverbs from adjectives: adverbs are simply adjectives used as if they were locatives. For instance, the adjective "san" means "together", and can be used as an adjective ("Me e papa-san." - "Me and dad we are together"), an adverb ("Si ve i san." - "They see it together") or, using the possessive, as a preposition ("Me ve i san' Papa" - "I see it with dad").

Expressives
Expressives are sentence-final particles that modulate the expression of the whole sentence. They often have strange tone patterns such as rises and falls. Some common expressives are:

- "Ne": interrogative. Yes/no questions end with this expressive, ex: "Ti ve ka'mi ne?" ("Do you see the truck?"). It is also used in other questions, ex: "Kami-wa ne?" ("Where is the truck?"). "Ne" is pronounced with a rising intonation (it could be spelled as "ne'e").

- "Da": exclamative. Statements expressing new, urgent information often use this, ex: "I ve ka'mi da!" ("He sees the truck!"). "Da" is pronounced with a high intonation, sometimes falling.

- "Jo": forceful. Statements expressing self-gratification or a sense of self-superiority often end with "Jo". Ex: "O-ni'niki jo!" ("I am very strong!").

Conjunctions
Ban'si has conjunctions that are rather similar to European ones:

- "E": "and". Ex: "Oto e ka'mi" ("The car and the truck").

- "Jou": "or". Ex: "Oto jou ka'mi" ("The car or the truck").

Verbs
Ban'si verbs are conjugated using a wide set of pronouns, auxiliary verbs and other tense clitics. The verb stem itself is invariable. Imperative is formed using the lone verb stem.