/r/conlangs Chat Network Relay Game - Discord Conlangers Fifth Relay

#5Alvalu by Joel
AlvaluEnglish

(flatsit
(qpa (sit (gjan ~~ ~~ ~~ ftus))
(< ~~)
(gueri ? ?xeri{qoqup})
latqa{kuspi}){sit ~~{kwa 10 dela}};

tuliqux[
(ton
(?qux)
(khur (tuli{quihi, (khur henda} tuli{quihi, (khur sarla)}))
(?quxan)
(latqa)))]
(fola
tuliqux
(ton
(xu (nasit (waqpu ~~)) (kar ?vu)[(?traib (?vu quxan)] ){qoqup}
(khur ?)
(nai (kar ?vu~~~~)) )
(bego {klai (patzig bego)} ? … ?) )
)

At first there was a human female living a walking distance of beatiful nature, for about ten years. But then the flower-happening happened: Things changed into the color of bright red flowers and bright white flowers, by means of nature.

This in turn caused the unborn person, that is first in the hierarchy of some tribe (a female) to change into color, without her having any volition in that. That in turn allowed someone to decide freely.

{
(chronological-events
(near (time (travel ~~ ~~ ~~ foot))
(< ~~)
(person ? ?body{female?})
nature{elegant}){time ~~{cons 10 years}};

flower-happening[
(transform
(?thing)
(color (flowers{bright, white} flowers{bright, red}))
(?cause)
(nature)))]
(cause
flower-happening
(change
(and (before (born ~~)) (car ?members)[(?traib (?members ?qux))] ){female?}
color
(before (car ?members~~~~)) )
(decide {negligible (contrain decide)} ? … ?) )

}

Lexicon {

  • qux
  • (thingie)
  • "thingie"
  • often used as a metasyntactic variable
  • xu
  • (and thingie1 thingie2 … thingieN)
  • logical and
  • nai [sometimes naj]
  • (not thingie1 … thingieN)
  • negation
  • qpa
  • (near space condition (thing1 thing2 … thingN) agent instrument)
    • things are near / are made to be near in the specified sense (e.g. euclidian space) where near means fulfilling the given condition
  • sit
  • (time action)
  • (time point1 point2 … pointn)
    • depending on the clitics this either means "the duration of some object with an inherent timespan" or "the difference in time between these points in time"
  • khur (c
  • olor color-name patient agent instrument)
  • (define (name clitic1 … cliticN) explanation)
    • creates a new word with the following explanation. Compare the alternative construction (name [explanation]), which is more colloquial.
  • ton
  • (transform x into-y agent/cause instrument)
    • change, transform, jury-rig, make x into y, etc.
  • /kw(a)/
  • (cons head tail)
    • group the following things into a pair
  • (list element1 element2 element3)
    • creates a non-hierarchical list (without any name)
  • fola
  • (cause causing-event caused-event caused-by-caused-event-event …)
    • e.g. (cause earthquake (break (gas pipeline)) fire)
  • flatsit
  • (chronological-events first-event second-event … nth-event)
    • consider that a slot might be filled with a list, e.g. (chonological-events (simultaneos-event-1 simultaneous-event-2) third-event)
  • latqa
  • (ecosystem energy-source location/time periodic-things)
    • ecosystem, living things, nature
    • usually needs quite elaborate description
  • nasit
  • (before event threshold)
  • the event happened before the threshold
  • kuspi
  • (nice thing by-standard)
  • something is elegant, beautiful, aesthetically pleasing etc. by the specified standard
  • gueri
  • (person persona body indentifies-with skills)
  • xeri
  • (body species appearance)
  • gjan
  • (travel starting-point destination agent instrument/vehicle)
  • ftus
  • (foot posessor which-one?)
    • the specified foot belonging to the posessor
  • tuli
  • (flower species variety)
  • waqpu
  • (bear child parent)
    • to give birth
  • sangi
  • (tribe name members law)
  • members and law are usually hierarchical lists
  • qoqu
  • (female? thing … nth-thing)
  • nini
  • (constrain what how whith-what)
  • dela
  • (year)
  • a year
  • <
  • kli
    • (< number1 number2 … numbern)
    • "smaller than"
  • vu
  • (subset-of set subset)
  • subset belongs to set
  • (subset-of set)
  • a member of set; an element of set; an arbitrary subset of set
  • (subset-of)
  • a member; an element; to belong to
  • quihi
  • (bright thing)
    • "the things brightness"
  • (bright patient agent instrument)
    • to illuminate the patient
  • henda
  • (snow)
  • bego
  • (decide what agent algorithm reasons)
  • sarla
  • (blood) or
  • (bleed bleeding-person cause instrument)
  • klai
  • (negligible neglibible-thing)
    • very small; negligible; has a very weak effect
  • patzig
  • (constraint of-thing is-thign by-metric)
  • ~~
    • this is a rather colloquial thing that basically means: "imagine I said any number of sensible words instead of this, I can't be fucked to actually say them though because they are either very obvious or of no importance"
  • ??
    • is suspected to be an important thing, but is not known to the speaker

}

General

"words" consist of a root and several slots that can take other words. A typical word would look about like this:
(hit patient agent instrument) "the agent hit the patient with an instrument"
but lets say a group of three muggers beats a couple utilizing a golf bag:
(hit (list person1 person2) (list thug1 thug2 thug3) (list iron7 sandwedge iron4))

Another common type of word (although there is no formal boundary) are more object-like things, e.g. apples.
When speaking about apples in general, apples as an abstract idea, you simply use it like this: (color (apple)) == the color aspects of apples
When speaking about a specific apple, you might do something like this (color (apple (on-top-of table apple))) == the (apple that is on the table)'s color

Navigating the lexicon should be pleasant enough if your editor can highlight every occurence of a word.

Morphophonology

Clitics

These suffixes morph with the previous morpheme, loosely following the pattern that vovels and consonants should alternate.

Underlyingly they specify that the previous word is called with some specific, but unimportant/obvious/already stated arguments, like so:

  • (apple ~~ ~~ ~~)
  • /(j)a(n)/
    • unimportant but specific and well defined; i.e. a concrete physical thing, that has a considerable x-aspect. (e.g. "an apple (whose color, shape etc. are not important")
    • Often used in conjunction with "{}" to mark topicality. (the thing said first is the topic)
  • /(j)u(m)/
    • obvious from context/shared knowledge
    • (e.g. "an 'apple-thingie', you know what I mean")
  • /(s)e(n)/
    • already stated
    • (e.g. "the apple (that I have talked about previously)")
  • ?-
  • /(ə)ʔ/
    • the following thing is not known to the speaker
    • if used with a meaningful word as opposed to a metasyntactic variable it implies the thing being somewhat described by said meaningful word
  • -p
    • the previous word is a binary distinction
  • -!
  • /(a)sp/
    • the previous word acts like a filter
    • i.e. ((color aubergine)! (all fruits)) "consider all the aubergine colored fruits"

Brackets and special glyphs

  • []
    • (let x 5)
    • x [5]
    • Anne [mother self]
    • <in environment:> (define name explanation)
  • {}
    • These are used for topic marking.
    • Instead of putting it all in the main construction, they can be thought of as additional information for illustration purposes.
    • Contrast the following:
  • (hit (wearing (cap …) man) Bob) = "Bob hit a man wearing a cap"
  • (hit man{waring (cap)} Bob) = Bob hit a man (who happened to be wearing a cap)
  • "(flower species variety color othercolor leafshape … attributes)"
  • can be used in a sentence like (pick this-speaker flower{lily orange})
  • which means that I picked a flower, that happened to be orange and a lily. Since this does not influence the act of picking it to any significant amount, only the flower is the handle in the larger picture.
  • Note that these are often employed, even though some attibutes are later stated. That is for topic-marking / emphasis.
  • One might for example say:
    • (chronological-sequence
      • (eat apple-ja self){~~ sweet; red}
      • (ring doorbell (neighbour self)) )
    • "I had been eating an apple, that happened to be red and sweet, then the neighbor rang the doorbell"
  • ~~
    • thing is left to context, either because unimportant or very obvious
    • can be thought of as '[omitted]'

List navigation

Lists are quite elaborately grammaticalized, but not very important in the text.
(car (list el1 el2 el3)) means " head of the list (el1 el2 el3)", so el1
All words/utterances can also be seen as lists.

  • car == "first element"
  • cdr == "second element", "tail"
    • 11111
    • ca'ala'alar
    • 22222
    • cudududududr
    • 12212
    • cadudadr