That should be enough for an introduction to Aurem. I will try and incorporate it into further prompts I do this month and next alongside Phorī. That said, it is still early in its development, so questions or suggestions would be appreciated!

#linguistics #conlanging #aurem

...and the suffix that makes it past tense uses its lax alternation, -död, as well. Also, while definite designations such as "the" are used as determiners (and subject to concord), indefinite ones like "a" are omitted.

However, due to how concord works, tense and lax words can coexist sometimes.

First off, like most romance languages, the word order is SVO, which allows for easy one-to-one glossing.

The key distinction here is that the verb, "hear", is initially a tense stem (ako-). Since the specifier is a plural pronoun, it transforms into a lax stem...

As for orthography, lax vowels are marked with an umlaut above them, while tense and neutral ones are not.

That said, let's analyze a sample sentence in #aurem.

Mïhrh ägödöd ävïn.
[mɪʁə ægodod ævɪn]
"We heard a songbird."

This is important to note with verbs, as their infinitive affixes differ between tense and lax stems. Tense vowels end in [-et], while lax vowels end in [-ət], both of which are written as "-et" in orthography. Without the schwa, the lax affix would instead be *[-ɛd].

While schwa and the two glides are neutral, they serve different purposes.

/j/ and /w/ are considered "wild cards" in that they can appear with both fortis and lenis stems freely without need for concord.

Schwa on the other hand can *block* concord on either side of it.

Tense stems: [-voice], MASC, SG
Lax stems: [+voice], FEM, PL

As for how agreement between words is applied, adjectives agree with the gender (MASC/FEM) of the head noun, while specifiers agree with the count (SG/PL) of the noun. Verbs agree with the count of their specifier.

...Vowel Harmony! Or rather Fortis-Lenis Concord. Not only are there pairings of tense and lax vowels, but this extends into affecting the nature of the consonants of a word as well.

Tense/Fortis: /i/ /e/ /ø/ /ɯ/ /a/ /ɹ/ /l/
Lax/Lenis: /ɪ/ /ɛ/ /o/ /ʊ/ /æ/ /ʁ/ /ɬ/
Neutral: /ə/ /j/ /w/

This means that most of its lexicon is derived from Latin and/or Greek (with a few exceptions). Generally, most of the word classes are Latin-based, but verb infinitives are for the most part Greek-based.

Additionally, there is another aspect that is worth noting...

(2/2)

Other notable terms:
"Aigi᷈rē" - Good Luck/See you soon
"Barde" - Excuse me
"Be᷈gòn" - Go away/Begone
"Eym" - Perhaps
"Oka᷈te᷈" - Help me!
#conlanging #linguistics

Also, the person-suffix, -ī, is now specifically an agentive suffix that "bestows" animacy to its stem. Conversely, the patientive suffix, -i᷈r, "suppresses" animacy in the stem. These can be seen as [+animate] and [-animate] respectively. #conlanging #linguistics #syntax #semantics

If the stem ends in a vowel, the preceding consonant is reduplicated with the affix (e.g. [døɾí-ɺɪ]). This also affects the voicing of the reduplicated segment if they are not approximants or nasals. Animate devoices, while inanimate adds voicing.

Addendum to this! #phori now distinguishes these kinds of terms semantically as Proximal and Distal. Additionally, the modern dialect states that indirect objects specifically are fronted while direct objects remain in-situ. In these cases, p/b/rem is the direct LOC object. #conlanging #linguistics

A few more key sound changes! The infamous word-final "R-Snarl" has shifted, now a voiced uvular fricative, [ʁ], and the verb-endings have gone from [u] and [uː] to [ɯ] and [ʊ]. All others I will note as I recall them. #phonology #conlanging #linguistics

...Prosodic rhythm of vowels. Most vowels follow a falling-rising rhythm (I.E. V1 is a falling tone, V2 rising tone, V3 falling, etc) by default. However, if a vowel either precedes a nasal consonant or is a reduced vowel, it is considered a "hiatus" vowel, or one bearing a mid-tone, instead.

Aspiration and Palatalization are no longer distinctive in modern Phorī, although labialized-/k/ in the word-initial position is still present. However, a new distinction has emerged...

In preparation for #lexember, I plan to make note of a few key aspects of #phori that I have developed in the meantime. Stay tuned :)

Incidentally, these words are the few objects that remain in-situ, even when taking indirect object case, and lack postpositional usage for the most part.

E.G. Dokc rem? (Where's the toilet?) -> Dokc pem/bem. (The toilet is here/there.)