Zearen Wover
Joined: 09 Apr 2009 Posts: 42
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Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 5:37 am Post subject: Exyan |
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Exyan
I decided to start an Exyan topic just to get the basics down. Mostly this is just grammar, though some vocabulary is introduced as well. I will add on to what is presented here as I move on. Also, I have almost no linguistic experience, so please pardon the terms.
Exyan is my first conlang. It has gone through many redesigns, but I am finally satisfied with version 6. Most of its basic structure is the result of long meditation. However, its influences include lojban, set theory and the functional programming paradigm.
The phonology is confined by the alphabet, found here. Tone is used to show the beginning of words. Since this is still relatively not well defined, it will be discussed later. Spaces in the next should be sufficient to indicate the beginning and ending of words. All grammatical Exyan text will be a transliteration into italic Latin.
A tarvel is a complete grammatical phrase. For the moment, it consists of a tehvel and two poesehs. Tehvels describe a relationship, and poesehs represent concrete things. Tehvels are similar to verbs and poesehs are similar to nouns, but it is best not to consider them this way. The prototype tarvel is:
1.1: teeel zee keh.
Teeel is an arbitrary tehvel. Zee and keh represent the first and second position respectively. All definitions for tehvels are given in terms of zee and keh. For example, jeeeng is defined as "keh goes to zee". Poesehs of the first order are the same as proper nouns in English. For the following examples, well use the poesehs Zearen and Zorban (a planet). Let us consider
1.2: jeeeng zorban zearen.
To translate, we just take the zee and keh value and plug them into the definition of teeel. So in this case, we get "Zearen goes to Zorban". Often, it is useful to gloss statements. For now, all one needs to now is that tehvels are lower case and followed by an open parenthesis, and poesehs are indicated by the capitalized Latinisation. Thus 1.2 would be glossed "go( Zorban Zearen )." The close parenthesis has no meaning text wise, and is just a clarification.
It is not often that a complex thought can be expressed as a simple binary relation. Fortunately, Exyan allows you to substitute complete tarvels into the poesent positions. For the next example, note that vahteer is "keh is at zee" and that Ziezie is Zearen's friend.
1.3: jeeeng vahteer Zorban Ziezie Zearen.
This may seem odd at first, there being three poesents in a row. Luckily, gloss helps greatly to explain the structure. The gloss is " go( at( Zorban Ziezie ) Zearen ). Since we know each tarvel contains only two poesents, the first two must belong to vahteer. This structure and Zearen then belong to jeeeng. Therefore we can attempt at the translation using simple substitution to get "Zearen goes to Ziezie [who] is at Zorban
As closing note, I'll offer this naïve EBNF definition of a tarvel.
tarvel := tehvel ( tarvel | poesent ) ( tarvel | poesent )
I'll cover second order poesnts next. But now, it is time for bed.
shoiah. _________________
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