My Folksprak Grammar (WIP)

This is a dense summary of the intergermanic auxlang I’m proposing, which is more comparable to Idiom Neutral than Esperanto. Some key points are: long and short vowels are a feature, but not front-rounded vowels; there are absolutely no irregular plurals or verbs; there is no POS-marking besides POS-specific endings (e.g. plural, past tense); linguistic purism is not an objective, i.e. Romance and other non-Germanic roots are allowed.

I mainly use Google Translate, Wiktionary and Verbix. 

PDF download available here

Alphabet and Pronunciation

The following consonants are straightforward in the language: B, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N (also NG, NK), P, R, T, V, X (which equals KS). S and Z are allophones, where the choice of letter is usually the suggested pronunciation, but where when adjacent to a voiced or unvoiced consonant, the S or Z should harmonize with that. The cluster SJ is a special case, in that it is expected – and gently encouraged – that it should be pronounced as English “sh”.

The following letters are defined but not used natively: C, which is guttural; SC, which equals English “sh” and German “sch”; W, as semivowel; Y, as front rounded vowel, equalling Ü; and Ø, which equals Ö.

The five cardinal vowels (A-U) are used in the language, having short and long versions when followed by consonants, but otherwise having only one version. The long versions are written using a bar-type accent (e.g. grave) or by doubling. E is special because its short version has two values – regular and schwa – and when it is the last letter of a word, it is the schwa, which forces the use of an accent (or doubling) to denote a final long E. Rules governing the exact occurrences of these two values aren’t really defined, and indeed sometimes the vowel can disappear altogether if ambiguity wouldn’t arise, so users must follow their intuition. Having said this, in the dictionary, if an E should not be reduced, it’s marked with a dieresis. Also, a tiny number of nouns and adjectives end with A, which pluralizes as AE, and this should probably be pronounced AJ.

Stress is not formally defined either, and any stressing should probably be both light and implemented according to common sense.

The names of the letters of the alphabet are, for vowels, simply the vowel itself, and for consonants, usually the consonant followed by A (e.g. B = ba). Exceptions are as follows: C = sja, Q = kva, S = sa or za, W = vua, X = ix, Y = upsil, Z = zed, and Ø = oer.

 

Nouns and Adjectives

Definite article de, indefinite singular article en (also the numeral one), plural suffix –e, possessive/genitive suffix –s. If the latter can’t go on directly (usually if the word ends with a sibilant) then a bridging apostrophe is used; this means that in this situation, the possessive singular and the possessive plural aren’t distinguished in the spoken language.

Adjectives agree with nouns in number when they are attributive, but when they are predicate, they are deemed invariant so needn’t take the plural.

There are no irregular plurals, no irregular adjectival forms, and no grammatical gender.

An adjective with no articles or suffixes generally acts as an adverb, and a similarly bare noun or pronoun may have a special meaning, e.g. “tomorrow” from “morning” (morgen). The adverb nit (not) should probably be placed before nouns, adjectives, and prepositions, but after verbs and object-pronouns (and perhaps optionally any object).

The comparative adjective suffix is –er and the superlative is –est. For the negative forms, the adverbs minder (less) and minst (least) are used. Note that many roots end with the letters ER (with no comparative meaning) but the language is designed to avoid actual ambiguity here.

 

Pronouns and Determiners

The language is nominative-oblique in the personal pronouns.

First-person singular: ig, mig, mìn. Plural: vi, os, or.
Second-person singular: du, dig, dìn. Plural: ji, ju, jer.
Third-person male singular: han, ham, hans.
Third-person female singular: hun, hum, huns.
Third-person singular: det, dèt, dets (neuter) and hen, hem, hens (epicene).
For the generic third-person, singular by default, man is used.
Third-person reflexive, all numbers (no nominative form): sig, sìn.
Third-person plural: di, dem, dèr.

Some quantifiers/determiners are: al (every), sum (some), ingen (no, not any); translation of the English word “any” is an open question. Other roots include: bisk (a little, a bit), mang (much), minder (less), minst (least), mèr, (more), mèst (most). All of these occur in the plural as well, e.g. ale (all), mange (many).

 

Verbs

The same conjugated forms are used for all persons and numbers. There are no irregular verbs.

The stem serves as the present indicative and imperative. The infinitive suffix is –a, and for the simple past, the default suffix is –te, which has these two alternative forms: –de after voiced consonants (i.e. B, G, V, also Z sounds), and –et after T or D, and sometimes after big consonant clusters. The future tense is formed using the auxiliary skal followed by the infinitive.

Present/active and past/passive participles exist, whose suffixes are –end and –t respectively, the latter having the alternative forms of –d and –ed as per the past-tense suffix above. The passive participle is used with the verb hava to produce perfect tenses, and passive tenses are produced using the verb ara (be).

Imperatives formed by opening with the verb stem are second-person by nature, and without number. For other persons (especially the first-plural), the verb lat is used like in the Germanic languages.

It should be observed that when pluralized, the passive participle (unless in –ed) becomes identical to the simple past form, creating potential ambiguity. But this isn’t a serious problem, and is comparable to the fact that many roots serve as both nouns and verbs anyway. These words are marked as such in the dictionary.

 

Questions and Word Order (see note below)

The default word order is SVO and the V2 rule applies to main clauses only. If the subject is not immediately before the verb, it must be immediately after it. Conjunctions, interjections and vocatives don’t count in this V2 system.

Basic yes/no questions are formed by swapping the subject and the verb. Other questions are formed using pronominal (vat, vilk, vem) and adverbial (van, vàr, varfor, ho) interrogatives. When an interrogative or relative pronoun is object, the verb in its clause occupies the third position, and in non-interrogative adverbial clauses, the adverb is generally followed by SVO – these are exceptions to the norm of verbs being second or first.

Furthermore, in imperative and interrogative phrases, it is possible to start with a prepositional or adverbial clause, but in these cases the subsequent word order must be OSV (to prevent the verb from being second, wrongly).

Author’s remark: if the community/users decide that V2 is unsuitable, then I permit switching to basic SVO without V2 – although SV-reversal for questions would presumably stay.

 

Numbers

The ten basic numerals are: nul, en, tvo, dri, fier, femf, zex, sìven, ak, nìn.

Ten, eleven, and twelve are radicals – tèn, elf, tolf – but the “teens” are derived, i.e. dritèn, fiertèn, femftèn, zextèn, sìventèn, aktèn, nìntèn.

The basic multiples of ten are: tveti, driti, fierti, femfti, zexti, etc.

The ordinals (which take the plural, like adjectives) are: ferst, tvet, drit, fiert, femft, etc. Note that besides 10/11/12, the cardinal tvo and the ordinal ferst are the only irregular formations.

 

Affixes

Four prefixes are: inter-, mid-, mis- and un-.

For prefixes meaning “too much” and “too little”, slightly modified forms of the prepositions meaning “over” and “under” are used, namely òver- and onder- respectively.

The two major abstract-noun suffixes are: -ung (-tion) and -hèd (-ness, -hood).

Adjectives cannot be used as verbs; instead, the ergative suffix -en is applied, producing inchoative and causative verbs (like igi and iĝi in Esperanto, combined).

There are three adjective suffixes that are tricky to define, namely: -ig (its meaning implied by the root), -isk (belonging to, part of), and -lik (having the quality/character/nature of). Appearances in natural Germanic languages guide their usage, and examples can be found in the dictionary.

For “isms” the suffix -isme is used, which is number-invariant, giving very rare examples of singular words ending in E. For academic subjects etc. one of two suffixes is used: -ik (-ics) which is the default option, and the alternative -i, which is attached to the noun that denotes the practitioner of the discipline.

For people-who-do and other agents, including machines, the suffixes -ar and -ist are used, the former being more common. The latter is not an adjective-maker, so for those adjectives the double ending -istisk must be used.

Two more adjective suffixes are: -bàr (-able) and -los (-less).

The provisional diminutive is -kin, and there is currently no augmentative.

There is no suffix specifically for inclination/propensity (-ive) because that meaning can be expressed via the active participle.