Goldifrans

Goldifrans is the language spoken by the Goldifrans people. It evolved from Early Goldifrans and is the ancestor of Late Goldifrans.

Goldifrans TODO
Type
Agglutinating
Alignment
TODO
Head direction
Initial
Tonal
No
Declensions
Yes
Conjugations
Yes
Genders
No
Nouns decline according to...
Case	Number
Definiteness	Gender
Verbs conjugate according to...
Voice	Mood
Person	Number
Tense	Aspect

Phonology

Vowels

	front	central	back
close rounded	ʏ		u
mid rounded	ø	ʊ	o
mid unrounded	ɪ	ə	ɤ
open unrounded	ɛ	ɐ	ɑ

Consonants

	labial	labio-dental	alveolar	palatal	velar
stop	b p		d t		g k
nasal stop	m		n		ŋ
fricative		v f	s		ɣ x
approximant	ʋ		ɹ	j	w
lateral approximant			l	ʎ

Rhythm: syllable-timed

Lexical stress: All the syllables of the root of a word are stressed. No other syllables are stressed.

Vowel harmony

In each word the vowels in the word suffix align by frontness with the last vowel of the word root.

Vowel harmony diagram

front	central	back
ʏ	ʊ	u
ø	ʊ	o
ɪ	ə	ɤ
ɛ	ɐ	ɑ

example: The suffix for plural changes between ʎɛ, ʎɐ and ʎɑ

• ɡoldɪʎɛ
• kxɐʎɐ
• pʎɛsɪdɑʎɑ

Morphology

Syllable structure: [C][C]V[C] (most commonly CV)

Words are formed by one (or more) root and zero or more agglutinating suffixes.

Grammar

There is no fundamental difference between verbs, nouns, adverbs and adjectives. Most words can act as either of this depending on context and word order.

Word order can be described as V-S-O though this is not very applicable for this language.

Genders

There are 3 genders: masculine, neuter and feminine. The gender of a word can be determined by the last vowel in the root of the word.

feminine - ʏ, ø, ɪ, ɛ (front vowels)

ɡoldɪ (owner)

neuter - ʊ, ə, ɐ (central vowels)

kxɐ (human)

masculine - u, o, ɤ, ɑ (back vowels)

pʎɛsɪdɑ (star)

For words that can have multiple genders, the gender is changed by changing the vowel with its corresponding one in the new gender by openness.

The suffixes of each root agree with it by gender (this phenomenon is merged with vowel harmony).

The modifiers of each word agree with it by gender.

Numbers

There are 4 numbers - common, zero, singular and plural. The common number is used for questions or when the count is not known. Zero indicates the lack of something, singular is used for one object and plural for more than one objects.

fɹɑns - land, ground

common: fɹɑns (some land, any land)

zero: fɹɑnsɑɹx (no land)

singular: fɹɑnsɑʎɑ (one land, the land)

plural: fɹɑnsɤl (many lands, the lands)

Using a number other than the common usually also denotes definiteness. Because of this the number suffixes are sometimes also seen as suffixes for definite article.

Persons

There are 4 persons depending on whether the speaker and the listener take part in the action.

ɡoldɪ - to own

1 person: ɡoldɪm - * I own, we (me and someone else, but not you) own

2 person: ɡoldɪŋɛx - * I own, we (me and you) own

3 person: ɡoldɪsɪ - you own

4 person: ɡoldɪjɪ - he owns, she owns, it owns, they own

• Sometimes called inclusive and exclusive we. When in singular, the exclusive form is used (ɡɔldim). Sometimes in written text the inclusive form is used to indicate that the speaker is thinking or speaking to himself (as in this case the speaker is also the listener).

Numbers

Goldifrans uses duodecimal numeral system.

	cardinal	ordinal 1 person	ordinal 2 person	ordinal 3 person	ordinal 4 person
0	ʎɐn	ʎɐm	ʎɐŋɐx	ʎɐsə	ʎɐnjə
1	sɛʎɛ	sɛm	sɛŋɛx	sɛsɪ	sɛjɪ
2	tol	tom	toŋɑx	tosɤ	tojɤ
3	xɪl	xɪm	xɪŋɛx	xɪsɪ	xɪjɪ
4	pxɑl	pxɑm	pxɑŋɑx	pxɑsɤ	pxɑjɤ
5	ɐjɛl	ɐjɛm	ɐjɛŋɛx	ɐjɛsɪ	ɐjɛjɪ
6	txɑl	txɑm	txɑŋɑx	txɑsɤ	txɑjɤ
7	vʏnɪl	vʏm	vʏŋɛx	vʏnsɪ	vʏjɪ
8	ʋol	ʋom	ʋoŋɑx	ʋosɤ	ʋojɤ
9	gɛl	gɛm	gɛŋɛx	gɛsɪ	gɛjɪ
10	muʋul	muʋum	muʋuŋɑx	muʋusɤ	muʋujɤ
11	ŋɛl	ŋɛm	ŋɛŋɛx	ŋɛsɪ	ŋɛjɪ
12	sɛnʊl	sɛnʊm	sɛŋʊŋɐx	sɛnʊsə	sɛnʊjə

Ordinal numbers act as verbs (first is best translated as "to be first"). They agree in person with the word they modify.

sɛm - I am first.
sɛjɪ - He is first.