Yatian
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script and grammar
This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 3 Jan 2018, 17:19.
[comments] divgrammaryatiancomplete grammar Yatian (eata) is a conlang of which the purpose was to experiment with verblessness. The project later evolved into a "divine language" (spoken by gods in my fictional context). When it became a "divine language" I also decided to cut back in terms of precision, thus making it highly ambiguous in terms of vocabulary. One noun has many meanings, though all are related to one another, they are not the same. However, this idea has changed and has now become a more human language, with more specific words.
This was designed to be a "reverse abugida", ie. an abugida in which the base is the vowel, not the consonant. There is, however, no "inherit consonant". Consonants have two forms, word-initial and 'other'. There are no numerals.
Vowels
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Consonants
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Punctuation must be placed on both sides of a sentence, except for the comma, apostrophe, colon and semi-colon. There are no spaces.
There are four sentence "types": stative, negative stative, transitive and negative transitive. They are indicated by particles that go at the start of the sentence.
Stative: X is Y. It has no particle.
Negative stative: X isn't Y. Particle: Ku, ku
Transitive: X is becoming Y. Particle: elu, elu
Negative transitive: X is becoming something other than Y. Particle: ely, ely
There are two connector, one expressing addition (ae, ae) and one expressing opposition (Tesa, tesa). The connector follows the sentence type marker.
There are seven cases. Like the vocabulary of the language, they have a general usage, not a specific one, ie. case usage can vary depending on the speaker's judgement. The particles go before the noun.
Case 1: this is sort of equivalent to the nominative case, or the ergative, and stuff like that. The general condition for this case is that the noun is (relatively) in control of the situation. Particle: La, la
Case 2: this is equivalent to the accusative, or the absolutive, etc. This noun generally has no will in the situation. Particle: asa, asa
Case 3: this is an optional case that can be replaced with Case 2. It basically represents an indirect object (it is generally used to add more clarity to the sentence). Particle: Tei, tei
Case 4: this case expresses the means, ie. instrumental. Particle: Ma, ma
Case 5: this is equals to the genitive. Particle: Lome, lome
Case 6: this expresses something's state. Again, it is used for more clarity, and is an optional replacement of Case 2. Particle: Tia, tia
Case 7: "other". This case's purpose is to code for things that may not concord with the above cases. Particle: aka, aka
These distinguish in person, but not in number or gender. In the latin transcriptions, pronouns are 'glued' (I don't know the correct term) to the case marker, eg. asa+a (asa + a) = *asa a (*asaa) = asa' (asä)
| Person | Pronoun |
|---|---|
| 1 | a |
| 2 | i |
| 3 | e |
All particles follow the noun except for those expressing time.
Time
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Position
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Movement
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Plurals are generally not used, as they don't really serve much of a purpose. However, when the specification is necessary, the particle eme, eme, is used. The definite article is Ta, ta, but is often omitted as well.
Other than the position of particles, no places are preset. One can arrange things as they wish to put emphasis on different words.
Example sentences:
'God wills it' (Deus lo vult): .asae Lome Temesa Tei iatama Pei., asae lome temesa tei iatama pei.
'No man is born evil': .Ku asa atily Tia itiomu Pei aka akale Pei., ku asa atily tia itiomu pei aka akale pei.
'I will kill you': .o La' ama Tilyma Tei' Lapi., o lä ama tilyma teï lapi. ✎ Edit Article ✖ Delete Article
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