Lojban-like orthography and phonology. No diacritics (at the moment), not because I'm viscerally opposed to them (though I would like to avoid them if possible), but I have no need at this point.
a psAlm b Bad c ? (not used) d Dull e bEd (e or epsilon, even diphthong should be tolerable) f stuFF g Give h aHoy (only allowed between vowels) i machIne j Yes (semivowel) k Kill l Leaf, fuLL (clear or dark) m Mice n Nose (permitted to be ng before g or k, even in next word) o mOsaic (not so horrible if you use diphthong) p Pick q ? (not used) r vocalic r, like in "burn" (American) (uncommon? difficult? Cope.) also consonantal r, see below. s Seem t Tell u prUne v loVe w Wish (semivowel) x loCH (Lojban x, Klingon H) y u-umlaut (ü) z buZZ
Glottal stop is non-phonemic, in case you were wondering, and may freely be used for vowel-initial words, or not, as you like.
I'm finding in my own speech that y is often coming out as more like IPA barred-i or maybe even turned-m. I think these are acceptable allophones.
Since "h" as a true letter is permitted only between vowels, there is no ambiguity in using:
sh SHip zh aZure
Maybe lh for Welsh ll.
Since vowels cannot touch, there is a consonantal r as well. Any r that touches a vowel has to be a consonant. Vocalic R followed by consonantal r (in this paragraph and in rare situations where context is lacking, R will be used for vocalic and r for consonantal) would be prohibited as a diphthong (though it could occur across morpheme boundaries), but otherwise it would work, since we require the epenthetic h between vowels. So, with hypothetical words "ak" and "rak", there would be a clear difference between "rhak" and "rrak", and similarly with "a" and "ar" there's a difference between "ahr" and "arr" (all disyllables; -rr must be -rR and rr- must be Rr-, since rR is not a permissible initial, nor Rr a permissible final). The "arr" also different from the hypothetical trisyllable "arrhr" (arRhR). I suppose theoretically a word like "rrr" would then have to be "RrR", but that is forbidden by fiat. That's too close to phonemic vowel-length for me.
Optionally, you can use this R/r writing convention to distinguish vocalic/consonantal in printed texts, if you're really concerned. It leads to a problem with names, since capitals ordinarily show stress. In non-ASCII environments, r-circumflex (or r-hacek, or generally some nice-looking diacritic) is also permitted (perhaps even encouraged, where possible) for the vocalic r.
aw cOW ew E-o nEUXtrala, Welsh mEWn iw Welsh YW aj rYE oj bOY uj E-o tUJ wa WAnt we WEll wi WEEp wo WOn't ja E-o JAm je YEt jo YOlk ju YOU ar, er, ir, or, ur; ra, re, ri ro ru, etc. Not sure about ry/yr.
The real point of this list is to say that ow, uw, ej, and ij are not valid diphthongs, nor are any diphthongs in y or R). They may wind up happening with vowels after them in compounds, straddling morpheme boundaries, if the morphology goes that way. No vowel-vowel hiatus is permitted within a word.
Initial ji and wu are impermissible as well.
The stress seems to sound best on the penultimate syllable. Borrowings may have abnormal stress, which may optionally be marked by capitalizing the stressed vowel.
The morphology is slightly self-segmenting but not perfect. Reserved vowels for content words (a,i,u) and for affixes and particles (o,e,r,y). Use interpolated "h" to prevent hiatus. So you can often tell where words start and end, but not neccesarily.
Generally, the morphology pretends that everything starts and ends with consonants, which may or may not be the case. So prefixes will end with vowels, and suffixes begin with vowels. Interpolate "h" between vowels to prevent hiatus, as mentioned.
There is some noun/verb flagging, but it is imperfect. Nouns will always be declined to end in vowels, and verb-conjugations will always end in consonants, but a given root might be verbal or nominal (see below for nominalizing verbs and verbalizing nouns): no overt flagging.
Passing thought: "prefix" u-, acting like Esperanto mal-. Not generally used, not so productive as the E-o; yf rgalin will in general have separate words for opposites. But for occasional use to form shorter relative clauses maybe. Distinguish E-o mal- and ne- probably. Note that it's an unusual prefix in that it has a content vowel. This is because it indicates a fundamental change to the meaning of the word, really coining a completely different content-word. Also note extra marking due to the epenthetic h that will often be necessary. Not sure about this.
Flagged with a special particle (precede with "yf", grammatically nouns. Decline the particle and otherwise treat it as a pronoun, so the genitive suffix can go on it too). Borrowings should be transliterated to usual phonology (not reserved vowels, but the basic sounds) and orthography in an undefined way. That is, there's no explicit way to transliterate; the transliterator is the judge of that. Transliterations should not have vowel hiati, forbidden clusters, etc.
All proper nouns are considered "borrowings"; the particle "yf" precedes all proper nouns.
lagev yfe mark Mark was seen. lamov ome yfr mel zhoj lagov ylr kene Mel, whom you see, loves me.
Distinction between personal and inanimate in sing. and pl. Mixtures are to be avoided (i.e. use "em ezh rm" for "they" which is "she and it"), use both pronouns conjoined. Technically the personal form predominates, but this is deplored usage. Decline as nouns.
The structure is almost "normal" first/second/third person structure, with exclusive and inclusive 1st-person plurals, and pronouns in all three numbers. The person varies by vowel, the number by consonant:
Sing Few A Lot 1st(excl) om ol os 1st(incl) -- ojl ojs 2nd ym yl ys 3rd(sentient) em el es 3rd(nonsent.) rm rl rs
Reflexive (usable in any person, though in 1st and 2nd ordinary pronouns also permitted): sen (invariant as to number). Reciprocative (obviously, only meaningful in plurals): "len". Note that these can be absolutive or ergative or objects of prepositions, making "self" or "each other" not necessarily the "object".
Use the numeral/noun "kalil"/one (may be pluralized to kalilel/kaliles, unlike most numeral/nouns) for "one" in general, like E-o "oni". Also use as a generic antecedent for relative clauses to get "that which."
Also lambda-variable for relative clause (see below). "ken": invariant as to number, more or less mandatory.
Retain sing/pl distinction. Singular, a few, and a lot. If you *must* be nonspecific, conflated with "a lot." Cope with ambiguity. No article.
The number-marker is added before case-ending:
Singular: no marker A few : -el A lot : -es
Upon reflection, the number suffixes may also be added to the particle "yf" for borrowings: wint omr yfele kok/I want a few Cokes.
Thought: maybe have a mass-noun suffix (-er) also? Would it make sense? I suppose count-noun plurals on mass-nouns wouldn't work well either. Worth doing? Is "-er" a good choice? Allow it in pronouns too (poetically, if nothing else)? (using -r would be pretty rough for the non-sentient pronouns.) I think I really want the mass suffix, trouble is finding the right consonant. n? Perhaps lh?
n is likely best... Is that a problem with things like ken and len? Probably not: they, too, are devoid of number. Confusion between ym and yn? Hey, they are distinct phonemes. But can I define what I mean by "mass"?
Absolutive and ergative, and prepositions govern the absolutive. Cases are represented by suffixes.
Absolutive: -e Ergative: -r
Vocative case, when needed, is the stem-form of the noun (no case-ending). Note that this is potentially ambiguous with untensed verbs. Deal.
Hrm. The bare form for vocative? That's an awfully rare case to give to the unmarked form. Maybe a vocative prefix and some other sort of meaningful use for the bare stem?
A side-note: I have attempted not to go the route of simply making my verbs two-place predicates, and choosing the arguments that seem best for each predicate to fill them. I am trying to make the ergative case truly an "active" case, by my own subjective criteria. It is the case of transitive subjects; the case of action. Maybe some verbs would be cleaner with more freely-chosen arguments, but that's not yf rgalin.
Any nouns (or pronouns) may be compounded, including nominalized verbs, etc. Maybe borrowings can be compounded... but not commonly.
Generally, compounding is head-first, with modifying nouns following the noun being modified (as adjectives follow their nouns). So a "person-book" (i.e. a book which is associated with persons somehow) would be ordered as "buk"+"pum".
The normal compound is done by interpolating the vowel "e" as a verbal and written hyphen to join the elements of the compund (bukepum). Remember that an epenthetic h is added between vowels. This comes into play f one of the words conjoined is a nominalized verb, for example (lover-book: bukehrlam; beloved-book: bukehelam). The case-ending of the compound comes at the end of the whole compound, of course (even though this is a little counter-intuitive, since bukepum is a type of buk, why am I declining pum? But such is life. Ugh, I'm starting to hate this. Maybe compounds with head last? Is that inconsistent with adjective placement? Looks that way. Can I get used to it? Which way?) Generally nouns are in their root form (no endings, etc) when compounded, but you can, in exceptional cases, compound, say, plural nouns. Of course, a plural attached to the final element is much more likely to be interpreted as pluralizing the whole noun than the last element (i.e. bukepumel is "(few) person-book" but could conceivably be, in specific contexts, "a few-people book"---which might then be pluralized bukepumelel. Ugh. But you wouldn't want to do that.)
The "e" link is ambiguous. It just means there's SOME relationship between the first noun and the second, with the second modifying the first; it doesn't say what the relationship is. It's much like the verb vuj, really (yet another short form of it, sort of). Perhaps use the other three possible link-vowels for more explicit types of compounds?
Compounds can have any number of members, with no explicit grouping.
Numerals are basically normal nouns; they end with the marker -il (not a suffix, or it would not have the content-word vowel "i". It's just the distinctive mark of numeral/nouns). Except for "kalil"/one, they cannot be pluralized. Actually, they can, to get "pairs," "trios," etc. They are all used with preposition "dyt" to enumerate nouns (mutil dyt bukese/two books; note that bukese is in many, even though there are only two books, since the set of books from which they are selected is many. If I were discussing a set of five books and referring to two of them, I might say mutil dyt bukele), or they can be used alone (mutil/a pair; ganil/a trio, etc)
Hmm, but if I change the preposition system to be verb-based, what then? I might want the monosyllable enough to make an exception or a new grammar rule.
nulil none, nothing (n) kalil one, a singleton (n) mutil two, a pair (n) ganil three, a triple (n) duril four, a foursome (n) kinil five, a quintet (n) zakil six, a sextet (n) vupil seven, a septet (n) lukil eight, an octet (n) wanil nine, a 9-tuple (n) padwil ten, a 10-tuple (n#) skanwil hundred (n#) klapwil ten thousand (n#) wiftwil hundred million (n#)
Technically, "compound" numbers are not compounds at all, but words in their own right. But they are derived from their elements systematically. (if they were true compounds, they could not be joined internally with the content-word vowel "i"). The numbers are joined into a large compound number by removing the final "l" from the internal elements. Powers of ten (marked as (n#) and ending with "-wil") are not strictly full numeral/nouns in and of themselves, since they must always occur with a multiplier before them. Note that each power of ten is the square of the one before it; smaller powers can multiply higher ones. Order is always from highest to lowest, so it winds up unambiguous:
10 kali-padwil 15 kali-padwi-kinil 99 wani-padwi-wanil 512 kini-skanwi-kali-padwi-mutil 1000 kali-padwi-skanwil 7627 vupi-padwi-zaki-skanwi-muti-padwi-vupil 65536 zaki-klapwi-kini-padwi-kini-skanwi-gani-zakil 1048576 kali-skanwi-duri-klapwi-luki-padwi-kini-skanwi-vupi-zakil 268435456 muti-wiftwi-zaki-padwi-luki-skanwi-duri-padwi-gani-klapwi-kini- padwi-duri-skanwi-kini-padwi-zakil
The hyphen is optional, just a notational convenience to help the eye, but probably should be written for those long, long words.
No current support for numbers 10^16 and larger. Probably arbitrary words for squares as you go up, MAYBE regular formation-rules for the elements at some point.
No current support for decimal point. Eventually.
Reciprocals?
Noun "zhagil" is used with preposition "dyt" for "all of..." (I love all people/everyone: lam omr zhagile dyt pumese). Note that "zhagil" is pretty much a numeral, though it doesn't participate in compounding.
After many false starts...
Numeral/nouns happen also to be verb-roots (perhaps anomolously), meaning "be first, second, third, etc." As such they can be used adjectivally (mutiled-), adverbially, whatever. For "last," use verb forms of "zhagil." A preposition (not sure which) can be used to specify "first of what."
Multiples? (twice, ten-times)? Use a noun, or affix?
Note: Prepositions are almost certainly in line to be drastically redone when I figure out how adverbs work.
A fair number of these, more or less strictly defined. They mostly end with -t.
byt to, towards (spatial) (prep) vot from, away from (spatial) (prep) net near (spatial) (prep) sot at (spatial) (prep) fest before (spatial) (prep) post after (spatial) (prep) nyn in (spatial) (prep) prt before (temporal) (prep) melt after (temporal) (prep) vyst with, by, by means of (instrumental) (prep) -- NOT used for "passive" kont with (accompaniment) (prep) dyt of (partitive) (prep) selt of (made of) (prep) lewt according to, as perceived by (prep) mot along (spatial) (prep) kylt because of (prep) vert for the benefit of, for the purpose of (prep) (purpose clauses)
Prepositions of location and motion may be compounded:
nen dumine in the house byt dumine to the house byt nen dumine into the house
Note the order: to (in-the-house)
Mmm. On one hand, I don't like all these preps. I am starting to like the idea of deriving all prepositions and adverbs alike, from verbs. After all, an adverb is just a prepositional phrase that's only one word long. Then again, some of them would get too tiresome if multisyllabic. And I like the compounding of location and motion. Maybe allow prepositions, but only a very few of them? Nah, that's a slippery slope.
OK, time I invented some terminology. Verbs in yf rgalin come in two flavors: simplex and duplex (for lack of any better words). Simplex verbs are those that translate into "intransitive" verbs in languages like English; verbs that properly have no object, and duplex verbs are like "transitive" verbs, with a subject and an object. It would be misleading to call them transitive and intransitive, since, as shown below, simplex verbs can take ergative and absolutive subjects (in causative), and duplex verbs can be found with only absolutive subjects (in impersonal). In a sense, simplex verbs can be seen as duplex verbs meaning "to cause to...," but that would be misleading. Simplex and duplex will be abbreviated "sx" and "dx" respectively, and verbs will be referred to as "v.s." and "v.d." for simplex and duplex, if it's unclear.
Maybe distinguish classes of verbs, e.g. verbs of perception, like colors, take the observer, if any, in ergative, since the causative is less useful for them?
No true copula verb. The verbalizing suffix "ewn" is added to a noun-stem X, yielding a verb meaning "be the same as a/the X" (note that the verb is simplex, since the "object" is baked into the verb). So "bukewn" is "to be a book" (or "the book"). This suffix does not fully remove the noun-ness of the base noun (or pronoun or article, actually), which can still be modified by adjectives, distance-markers, or relative clauses (but may not use the suffix "-oj"). Adjectives modifying a copulative-form noun appear in their root-form (or maybe with -ewn as well?)
bukewn mol kalile That [one] is a book. bukewn omoj mol kalile That [one] is my book. pumewnov koj lamov kene mutilr dyt pumese [rk] ome I am a person who is loved by two people. (note use of "rk" and VOS order in the relative clause). emewn ome I am s/he.
(Note unspecified tense in three examples, since they are not subject to change).
Now that I think of it, -ewn resonates well with a mass-suffix in -en, since it's sort of dealing with the mass of whatevers. Define this more clearly? Maybe distinguish between "equals" and "is-a"? The -ewn form is clearly good for is-a, making the class a verb; maybe some other way to express equality between nouns. I think I like that idea.
Use adjectives in verbal form and noun in absolutive.
Add ergative subject to simplex verbs. To make a causative of a sentence that already has an ergative subject (i.e. duplex verbs, or simplex verbs already causitivized), use the verb "zaz" (occur, happen) with the clause subordinated (see below) in absolutive and the agent in ergative.
dumev ome I slept. dumev ome rmr It made me sleep. lamov yme omr I love you. zazev rmr krpe lamov yme omr It made me love you.
See also above.
Use absolutive instead of ergative (no true "A was Xed by B" form).
lagov omr I see lagov ome I am seen lagov ome ylr You see me/I am seen by you.
For "It was made red," etc, use something like:
makev krpe radukov rme It became red/It began to be red radukev rme kalilr "One" made it red radukev rme esajnr Something-indefinite made it red
Past, present, future, and unspecified. Suffixed to the verb:
Unspecified: No marker Past: -ev Present: -ov Future: -yv
Unspecified tense is just that: you have to work it out from context. Tense is optional.
Use the vowels as general affixes? For things like "tomorrow" or better "the day after (day X)"?
Esperanto-style in scope, but not in implementation: aspect specifies the state of the action at the time given by the tense or context: completed, ongoing, or not-yet-happening (e.g. past perfect, past continuous, and future-in-the-past). Suffixed, before tense-marker if present:
Completed: -ep Ongoing: -op Not-Yet: -yp
Aspect is also optional.
Other aspects? Maybe not; likely should be handled by verbs.
A particle (jek) that indicates a will/request/command that the sentence be true. This allows for third-person imperatives, etc, but leaves open the possibility that people may not know they are being commanded. Use a vocative to indicate who is responsible: yo, you have to make this so.
(This good?)
Sounds cool to me.
Good question...
Separate these out? Need an "if" also. Notion: irrealis marker used to mark counterfactuals, etc. Hmm, probably would go both on condition and result of hypotheticals and counterfactuals. Still need if/then words for that, though. Then again, I could use actual "causation" predicates (a la Lojban "rinka" etc).
Use ending case being nominalized as prefix (possibly reversed, but so far all cases have one-letter affixes, and I don't think I'm adding any more cases) of verb.
So, for the root "lam" (love, dx):
rlamr "lover" in ergative rlame "lover" in absolutive elamr "beloved" in ergative (one who is loved) elame "beloved" in absolutive
Generally VSO. May be changed to VOS for emphasis, or for example if the subject is a long relative clause and the object is short. Actually, there's no real difference between O and S; they're just the absolutive and ergative arguments, the order between them is fairly free. I'd imagine ergative would tend to come first, if both are present and all else is equal, but emphasis can change that, as can the desire to put a shorter noun-phrase first. Other word-orders are also permitted, even SVO and SOV and OVS etc, for emphasis of the preposed element.
To help punctuate nested clauses, etc. there is a special pleonastic particle with no real meaning of its own, but which can optionally be used to indicate an explicit pause or break in the sentence structure. In English we sometimes have to use exaggerated pauses in explicating ambiguous structures, like:
I flew with the man who rode the train to Vienna.
He rode the train all the way to Vienna??
No... I flew with the man who rode the train [pause] to Vienna.
In yf rgalin, you can make this pause explicit with the verbal comma, "rk". It is never mandatory, but sometimes can come in handy if you want to make it clearer where your relative or subordinate clauses end, or where your conjugations are less strongly linked, etc. It's not a true close-bracket, like in Lojban, and it's not a cure-all (in the example above, suppose the meaning and the misinterpretation had been reversed. Application of a pause wouldn't help: you need to indicate the absence of a pause, and there's no explicit way to do that. You'd probably have to reorder the sentence). It's just a way to make sure that your listeners know there is a grammatical break in the sentence about here.
In Hebraic/Lojban style, introduced by particle that means "which is such that:" and a special placeholder pronoun, declined in appropriate place. Head noun is declined appropriate to surrounding sentence, placeholder to relative clause. Relative clause always follows head-noun immediately.
Optional close: the verbal comma, "rk" (which see).
Relativizers: koj (restrictive), zhoj (nonrestrictive)
So, "The person(ergative) whom I see": "pumr koj lagov emr kene" "The book(absolutive), which (incidentally) is red": "buke zhoj raduk kene"
Does this suffice?
Adjectives are derived by formation from verbs, if needed. Or verbs are adjectival, if you prefer.
"vuj" (v.d.): erg. pertains to abs. in some fashion.
In order to make adjectives of association with nouns. An exceptional verb: it has a suffix form, "-oj", which can be added to the end of a noun or pronoun, forming something like a genitive (which is treated like an adjective: declines to agree with thing modified).
Particles indicating distance (spatial, temporal, or conceptual), used like "kwe" to form other "table words":
tel this, near distance mol that, middle distance fyl yon, remote distance
Use the verbal form with noun in absolutive for adjective sentences.
Use a relative clause, as above. "A red book" is "a book which is such that it is red." Long-winded, but works for any form.
lag omr buke koj raduk kene (I see book which is red)
For simple adjectives in which a single verb simply modifies a noun in absolutive (or ergative) (wrt the adjective/verb, not the sentence as a whole), use verb formed into "adjectival" form, which declines to agree with the modified noun. Adjectives usually follow noun, may precede. So "A red book" becomes "book be-red-adj", where be-red-adj is the adjectival form of the verb "to be red" (not conjugated, if there are conjugations). Both "book" and "be-red-adj" are declined to whatever case and agree with each other in case (not in number). Adjectivalizing suffix is "-ed" for when the relation is absolutive wrt the adjective/verb, and "-rd" when the relation is absolutive. Adjectives normally follow nouns; may optionally precede for emphasis, etc.
lag omr buke radukede (I see red book) lag omr pume lamrde (I see a loving person) lag omr pume lamede (I see a beloved person)
Optionally can be used with tenses and such on the verb, would be highly poetic/marked usage (normally a full relative clause would be used for this). This does not permit modification by an ergative: "the person whom I saw" should have to use a full relative clause; this is a shortcut for simple cases only.
Is this asking for trouble? Do I want to define how the verb is applied? That is, a "loving person"... is it someone characterized by love, someone loving at the time, etc? Probably ok: it's undefined just like any untensed verb is.
Not sure. Thought: allow adverbs in -esh and -rsh, for absolutive and ergative based on the base verb, and have a verb "to exceed" (and a verb "be superlative/?") and use them adverbially. e.g., "to exceed" is "?mag":
pumr magrsh lamrdr (more loving person(erg)) pume magesh lamrde (less loving person(abs))
"than" is expressed by using the other form, if needed. (i.e. stuff like "the log is bigger; the pencil is smaller").
This gets back to the whole adverb/preposition problem again.
Note: Under reorganization, probably.
Perhaps even finite ones (i.e. verbs accompanied by subjects in ergative and/or absolutive; i.e. sentences). Maybe some purely adverbial roots, but perhaps fairly few of them. Adverbializing suffix: -osh. Strict definition/function of adverb is vague, as in most languages.
Perhaps allow adverbs in -rsh and -esh, for ergative- and absolutive- based adverbs. Does this make any sort of sense?
OK, basic situation:
Clauses generally made into adverb-phrases by -osh on the verb. The clause may be a whole clause, with subjects and objects and all. Relationship of adverb-clause to matrix is not completely defined. This can give things like "Bob having seen the book, Mark was happy.": lageposh yfr bob buke, zigev yfe mark.
As a shorthand, if a "nearby" noun is the ergative or absolutive subject of the adverb clause, use "-rsh" or "-esh" respectively. "Being loved, Bob was happy": lamopesh, zigev yfe bob. (Or, "being loved by Sal...": lamopesh yfr sal...) "Loving, Bob slept"/"Bob slept lovingly": lamrsh, dumev yfe bob. Etc. A "nearby" noun is usually the subject of the matrix clause, or the noun modified by the adjective which the adverb is modifying, etc.
Maybe distinguish between adverbs that modify verbs/sentences vs. adverbs that modify adjectives. Cf. the Hebrew: very few true adverbs; verb-modification done by prepositions on verbal nouns (quickly=with speed, quietly=with silence, etc.), or in older styles sometimes with a purpose clause (cf. Micah 6:8, "hatzea` lekhet"/"be humble [to] walk," generally translated "walk humbly"). Adjective-modification done... hmm, how? I think using actually more than one adjective! Perhaps something along these lines. I kind of like the Esperanto-like gerundive use.
For negators, see below, under Yes/no questions. Negator "nok" (and emphatic affirmative "jek") precedes the verb, after the interrogative particle, if any. It may also precede another part of speech:
nok lag ome (I am not seen) lag nok ome (It is not I who am seen) lag omr buke nok radukede (I see the not-red book)
The last probably should be stated using the long-form relative clause; the form stated here is marked.
So here's one of the few true adverbs? Others perhaps "very", "enough", "almost"?
Use particle "kwe" as a verb-root: kwehosh (optionally kwehrsh or kwehesh, to be specific) for "how" (in the sense of "in what way," not "by what means/procedure"). Slightly irregular use of structure word as content, but then pronouns do it too.
Particle indicating t/f question, a la E-o "cxu" or Lojban "xu". Basically, "is this true?" Particle "xek" comes at the beginning of the sentence, or the end, or before item being particularly questioned. May be used to introduce a sentence and before an item, to flag a sentence as a question early.
xek lagev ymr ome? (did you see me?) lagev ymr xek ome? (was it me that you saw?) xek nok lagev ymr ome? (did you not see me?)
In infinitive/unspecified time/etc, either plain or negated (with "nok") or with emphatic affirmer ("jek"). No simple "yes" or "no", though affirmer and negator can be used in isolation as exclamations. If the questioned element was not a verb, it too can be used as an answer, preceeded by the affirmer or negator.
xek lagev ymr ome? [jek] lag / nok lag xek nok lagev ymr ome? [jek] lag / nok lag [xek] lagev ymr xek ome? [jek] yme / nok yme
Generic question particle that (kwe) specifies what's being asked for (should probably go on verbs etc. as well as nouns and adverbs). Sort of like "what" or "which" or Welsh "pa."
"Where?"->"in ?place" (or whatever prep appropriate to meaning) (nyn kwe dupe); "who"->"?person" (kwe pum); "what"->"?thing", (kwe najg/kalil); "which" is pretty much the question-particle alone; "why"->"because-of ?thing/?reason/etc" (kylt kwe kalile); "whose"->"of ?person/?thing" (kwe pumoj/kaliloj); "when"->"at ?time/?locus-of-time"; "how much"->"?amount".
I think I may be overusing "kalil." Perhaps "esajn-"? Or something special?
Perhaps will need to permit forming the question-particle into a verb to get "what kind of"->"?question-verb-adj" (adjectival form of questioning verb) and "how"->"?question-verb-adv" (adverbial form of questioning verb)--not to be confused with "how"->"by using ?method" (See above). Or is there a more general way, by using a sort of generic non-questioning verb that can be used for things other than questions and made questioning for these? There should be, if I can think of a definition for it.
Standard AND, OR... no specific XOR (never works right in long strings). Maybe distinguish noun-conjunctions from clause-conjunctions
Actually, have an XOR, but not a strict one. Technically, "XOR" will be not a true XOR, but a "NOT ALL". It means that of the things conjoined, AT LEAST ONE is true, BUT NOT ALL. That works well in large strings and reduces to plain XOR in just two.
No order of operations among conjunctions; ambiguity reigns. I suppose the verbal comma could be used to help punctuate.
(noun) AND: ezh (noun) OR: of (noun) "XOR": ozh
Introduce subordinate clause with "pronoun" "krp". Usually no termination, though the verbal comma "rk" may be used at need. Pronoun can thus function as subject, object of preposition, etc.
zigev ome krpr lagev omr pume
Seeing the person made me happy
(Note the reversal to VOS because the subject is so long. It's not necessary, just more natural.)
vilov omr krpe lavyv omr pume
I want to see the person
Tense in subordinate clauses is as in Esperanto (so-called "logical"). Basically, the subordinate clause's tense is relative to that of the matrix clause.
birt be female (v.s.) buk book (n) byt to, towards (spatial) (prep) daval live, dwell (v.s.) dum sleep (v.s.) dumin house (n) dup place, location (n) dyt of (partitive) (prep) el they (few, sentient) (pron) em he/she (pron) es they (many, sentient) (pron) ezh and (conj) fest before (spatial) (prep) fyl yon, remote distance gam go (v.s.) jek affirmator (adv) jek imperative particle ken lambda variable (pron) koj relativizing particle (restrictive) kont with (accompaniment) (prep) kwe question particle lag see (v.d.) lam love (v.d.) len reciprocative (pron) mak begin (v.s.) <-- note simplex meaning. melt after (temporal) (prep) mol that, middle distance najg non-sentient being (n) net near (spatial) (prep) nok negator (adv) of or (inclusive) (conj) ojl we (few, incl.) (pron) ojs we (many, incl.) (pron) ol we (few, excl.) (pron) om I (pron) os we (many, excl.) (pron) ozh XOR/some-of (conj) post after (spatial) (prep) prt before (temporal) (prep) pum person, sentient being (n) raduk be red (v.s.) (-uk is common on verbs of color) rk verbal comma rl they (few, nonsentient) (pron) rm it (pron) rs they (many, nonsentient) (pron) sajn be indefinite (v.s.) selt of (made of) (prep) sen reflexive (pron) sot at (spatial) (prep) sulk acquire (v.d) tarb be male (v.s.) tel this, near distance vil want (a situation or event; cf. "wint") (v.d.) vot from, away from (spatial) (prep) vuj pertain (v.d.) vyst with (instrumental) (prep) wint want to acquire/obtain/possess (short for vil krpe sulk) (v.d.) xek y/n question marker xum human being (n) yf borrowing quote yl you (few) (pron) ym you (sing.) (pron) ys you (many) zaz occur (v.s.) zhagil all, entirety (n) zhoj relativizing particle (nonrestrictive) zig be happy (v.s.)
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