Fren'mfen

Name: Fren'mfen

Type: Agglutinative

Alignment: Nominative-Accusative

Head Direction: Mixed

Number of genders: No

Declensions: Yes

Conjugations: Yes

Nouns declined according to
Case	Number
Definitiveness	Gender
Verbs conjugated according to
Voice	Mood
Person	Number
Tense	Aspect

	Gender	Cases	Numbers	Tenses	Persons	Moods	Voices	Aspects
Verb	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Nouns	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Adjectives	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Numbers	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Participles	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Adverb	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Pronouns	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
Adpositions	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Article	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Particle	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No

Setting[]

Spoken by the people of Ormes. There also exists a major group of speakers to the far south in Ilmaq, with some dialectical differences. Fren'mfen serves as a lingua franca across the region and its use encompasses a long history, resulting in a large corpus of important Fren'mfen texts.

Phonology[]

Consonants[]

	bilabial	labiodental	alveolar	postalveolar	palatal	velar	uvular	glottal
stop	p, b (p, b)		t, d (t, d)		k, g (k, g)	q (q)
affricate				tʃ, dʒ (ch, j)
fricative		f, v (f, v)	s (s)	ʃ, ʒ (sh, jh)				h (h)
nasal	m, m̩* (m, 'm)		n, n̩* (n, 'n)
trill			r (r)
tap			ɾ (r)
approximant					j (j)	w (w)

*These are the syllabic counterparts:

don [don]

do'n [do.n̩]

ch'm [tʃm̩]

Vowels[]

	Front-Tense	Front-Lax	Back
High	i (ii)	ɪ (i)	u (u)
Mid		ɛ (e)	o (u)
Low	a (a)

Fren'mfen lacks diphthongs, except for some dialects which pronounce a+ɛ as [ai]

Phonotactics[]

Stops palatalize before i+V:

/dio/ --> [dʒo]

Basic Grammar[]

Nouns and Adjectives[]

Nouns and modified by adjectives or other nouns by adding -e (MODified) to the first segment (usually the head):

"The/a tasty pie"

ambroskii.e jel
pie-MOD tasty

"The/a apple pie"

ambroskii.e epol
pie-MOD apple

However, it is equally grammatical to reverse the order (resulting in inherent ambiguity):

"The/a tasty pie" (or "The/a tastiness of pie")

jel.e ambroskii
tasty-MOD pie

Adjectives may be modified in a similar fashion:

"The/a delightfully tasty pie"

ambroskii.e jel.e opru
pie-MOD tasty-MOD nice

To form phrases in which multiple things modify the head, use '-ep' instead of '-e':

"The/a delightful, tasty pie"

ambroskii.e jel.ep opru
pie-MOD tastyHEAD.MOD nice

The plural is formed by suffixing -a. Style prefers X-ae Y over Y-e X-a:

"(The) tasty pies"

ambroskii.a.e jel
pie-PL-MOD tasty

"The/a pie [made from] tasty apples"

ambroski.ie epol.a.e jel
pie-MOD apple-PL-MOD tasty

A collective plural is formed by -arm. -arma conveys a broader notion of 'all':

"All the pies [here] are tasty" (or "The entire pie is tasty")

ambroskii.arm jel
pie-COLL.PL [null copula] tasty

"All pies [everywhere] are tasty"

ambroskii.arm.a jel
pie-COLL.PL-PL [null copula] tasty

Verbs[]

Verbs are conjugated for number, person, tense, and mood. Here are the conjugations in present (=progressive, habitual):

Person/Number	Present Tense Conjugation
1P	-em
2P	-en
3P	-et
1P.PL	-emf
(2/3P)PL	-ef
?P	-elch

To form past (=past progressive, perfect), replace 'e' with 'o'. To form future, replace it with 'a'. Note that the plural form is not distinguished between 2nd and 3rd person. Furthermore, the 1st person plural only exists for specification, and will often take the simple plural form itself. The final form is used when the subject is unknown. Generally corresponds to "someone" or the passive voice. The conjugations above are the "referenced" forms, meaning the sentence contains a separate subject. When the verb conjugation alone accounts for this, use the "unreferenced" forms, which are made by repeating the vowel after the consonant in the suffix:

"Bob ate pie" (or "was eating", "had eaten", ...)

bob.oriin ambroskii tabel.o.t
bob-NAME pie eat-PAST-3P

"(S)he ate pie"

ambroskii tabel.o.t.o
pie eat-PAST-3P-UNREF

This distinction is important because nouns are not marked as direct objects. (Nonetheless, in casual speech the vowel before or after the person conjugation is often dropped in the unreferenced forms.)

"The/a pie ate"

ambroskii tabel.o.t
pie eat.PAST.3P

Verbs are modified by suffixing -o (corresponding to the noun's -e):

"He ate quickly"

tabel.o.t.o.o forn
eat-PAST-3P-UNREF-MOD quick

"You are eating annoyingly quickly"

tabel.e.n.e.o forn.e chip
eat-PRES-2P-UNREF-MOD quick-MOD annoy

"I always eat pie quickly"

ambroskii tabel.e.m.e.o forn.ep sims
pie eat-PRES-1P-UNREF-MOD quick-HEAD.MOD always

Dictionary[]

Example text[]

tahus anok'nkelch om tahus
ardae diin tahuse diinjhan
tahus atriiof lorm'nep lorm'nek

arda kartuljhane lorm'nep lorm'nek
iirelcheo fon'm iip fob'niisii arda
iialn iirelcheo fon iip druv'niisii arda

niir oglo tahus jhom
fniiof oglo ardajhan fob
ke iira tahus'n
iskilite ugpiisep chishpiisa ardapiis'm enope'm fic

The Tao that can be known is not Tao.
The substance of the World is only a name for Tao.
Tao is all that exists and may exist;

The World is only a map of what exists and may exist.
One experiences without Self to sense the World,
And experiences with Self to understand the World.

The two experiences are the same within Tao;
They are distinct only within the World.
Neither experience conveys Tao
Which is infinitely greater and more subtle than the World.

buchiiv tiil fiinone siionep jolae iigliiarma:

iigliiarma onolko qom forsh ii jhome hesenep jol. erun iip iimal fniiog ii qarmot sodefo lone valesii.

Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Also, see the Swadesh list for Fren'mfen.