/r/conlangs Chat Network Relay Game - Discord Conlangers Relay the Sixth

⇐ Previous step (Drahyl Rase) | Full Relay | Next step (Speedlang) ⇒

#5Drsk by Isoraķatheð
DrskEnglish

gvᵉlmᵘfyďčtᵗdᵈŕtʲ

bcf ptʲ pþ nzŋrl
sˢltvᵉp bcfp dfp nzŋr rⁱsḱħ Ps
bcfp nzŋr dᵘħ Pl
dᵈd nzŋr pþ ktᵗszgʲsˢ þʲmᵘrⁱr
bcf nzŋr dlˡ kmᵘycnⁱt dlˡ
V tʲktlkl pþ Ps cᶜckʲ

A song of salt

[O! he who] animals come to you:
Please, continue to swim with me,
Understand me,
the seaskin goes and so breathes.
Please, capture many and all fruits,
and go to Tlk with me.

Gloss & IPA & other stuff in the form of an Imgur post mortem: http://imgur.com/a/ZPD5n

Lexemes

Nouns

Nouns always have a gender that works more as a classifier à la the taxonomic system of old. They are separated from the root word with a dot in this roster. Furthermore, in any such rosters the case is always the dictionary form tʲ (but see below for other usages) except for names, where there is no suffix.

Compounds have one gender. Its gender may not necessarily be that of any of its components, but usually is the one of the last noun morpheme (the one that ends with one of the case endings). Any noun may change its gender to emphasise different aspects of the root, for which see link.

Where there is a gender and a suffix with no intervening root, take the definition of the gender as the noun.

  • g.dᵈŕtʲ
    • a song, poem or other rhythmic speech
  • klm.ďčtʲ
    • salt
  • sˢlt.vᵉtʲ
    • instant, point in time
  • nⁱ.szgʲtʲ
    • a surface, a horizontal boundary
  • k.čnⁱtʲ
    • (wild or to-be-collected) fruit, flowers
  • tʲk.tlk
    • A mythic land from Sumric lore. Note that tʲk is part of an alternate list of genders, known as CAT*. You don’t need to know any CAT* morphemes in this translation, but tʲk means “a mythical, divine country”.

A partial list of genders:

  • g
    • speech, writing
  • gvᵉ
    • a declaration of passion
  • k
    • geography
  • kl
    • natural, terrestrial, mineral
  • klm
    • common and useful
  • ktᵗ
    • the sea
  • p
    • animal
  • n
    • “Unit” (think “person”)
  • nz
    • Artificial intelligence, anthropomorphised object
  • sˢ
    • crops
  • sˢlt
    • time
  • nⁱ
    • flat objects

Quasinouns

Quasinouns have a suffix y but no gender. They generally clarify the exact usage of some following compound component.

  • lmᵘfy
    • the next word should be a title or topic.
  • mᵘy
    • emphasises amount (a large amount)

Verbs

No gender and for the purposes of this piece uninflected.

  • pþ
    • come/go, leave/arrive (depends on case suffix)
  • rⁱsḱh
    • swim, drown
  • dᵘħ
    • calculate, understand, derive
  • þʲmᵘrⁱ
    • yawn, breathe, soften, lose attention
  • dlˡ
    • create, get, capture, produce, collect

[Editor's note: This description contains links which aren't supported by the relay summary system. For full experience, see the true form of the document here: https://gist.github.com/isoraqathedh/c4da2e2f2c1d752c6477ce3dd17b7f62
]

Non-lexemes

Suffices

These are letters at the end of a root that describe its function. They do two things: case and morpheme boundary marker.

For a listing see here and here. For the purposes of this translation ħ and tᵗ are identical.

Nouns that become dredge replace any suffix with -p.

Dredge and TAM

These are delocalised inflections — inflections that fall off and become free-floating within the sentence. Unless otherwise indicated, they change form based on the first letter of the noun they are inflecting: if it is a terminal, then place the terminal analogue of the final letter of the consonant of the dredge after it. e.g. dms hrt but dmst pþ, where dms is the root form of the dredge. If either or both letters are unpaired in the phoneme chart, then no change occurs.

Some dredge don’t change no matter what. This is a sign that it is an ownerless dredge and usually are connectives and conjunctions, for which see link for essential information about them.

A listing of those that exist in this word is:

  • <repeat verb>
    • exactly one of the arguments in this sentence is associative in number. This means that the argument consists of a “complete set” of elements.
    • Obviously, this dredge “inflects” on the verb by simply copying the verb entirely.
  • bcf
    • command, imperative (TAM)
  • df
    • along with a noun that’s become a dredge indicates a present tense, where “present” is defined by the noun. e.g. sˢltmḱcrlⁱp df means “present tense (today)”, because sˢltmḱcrlⁱp means “today” (though usually that is shortened to sˢcrlⁱp).
  • dᵈd
    • (ownerless) a chain of causation that is indirect i.e. has some “obvious” link that is missing in the causal chain. This missing link is usually through emotion, inspiration, instinct or similarly intangible behaviour.
  • cᶜckʲ
    • Desiderative

Sundry

These words have no gender unless marked (e.g. nP “I, a unit”) and usually have no suffix, again unless marked (e.g. Ps), implying a suffix of -t or -tʲ as context allows.

  • P
    • The author, the writer, the narrator, “I”
  • V
    • The listener, the reader, “you”
  • ŋ
    • The proword. This word replaces certain previously-mentioned words. As it name suggests it can replace either a noun or a verb. If the word is implied, i.e. not previously mentioned, it is written ŋr instead.

Word order

Nouns always appear in this order:

  • 1. Any TAM dredge that acts like a noun
  • 2. One of these:
    • Intransitive:
      • a. Intransitive
    • Transitive:
      • a. Ergative
      • b. Accusative
  • 3. Locatives
  • 4. Exclamations

Verbs go anywhere in the list, as can dredge. However most dredge only appears at the beginning or end, and dredge that indicate TAM are usually placed at the beginning with the TAM nouns and the ownerless dredge.

Most remaining grammar should be available scattered within the roster. Good luck!