User:The Language Of Lanton/sandbox

Lanton is an engineered international auxiliary language. It is created to act as a second language to make communication easier, between people of different languages. Lanton was NOT created to replace any of the natural languages spoken around the globe, the purpose of the language is instead to preserve as many languages as possible while making it possible for everybody to communicate as easily as possible.

= Grammar =

Morphology
(The way words are constructed)

Phonology
All the sounds are written as their IPA symbol and always in lower-case, except for names who always start with an upper-case. There are no diphthongs or triphthongs. Vowels do not different in length. All words are pronounced as spelled but the alveolar sounds may be pronounced as their reflexive equivalent. The stress always comes between the last and second to last syllable.

Syllables
The syllable structure is (C) V (C). All consonants are accepted in the onset and in the coda, all vowels are accepted in the nucleus. Totally there are 484 possible syllables, where 440 are root words and the remaining 44 are extra words that sometimes act as affixes, both the root words and the extra words combine to create all the words in the whole vocabulary. Lone words are not accepted, instead a compound word should be created. Compound words are created by gluing syllables together with the main word first, compound words may be created in two different ways:

Word + root word = Compound word

Affix + Word = Compound word

To create a antonym for a word the suffix /-no/ may be glued to the word.

Word classes
Words NEVER conjugate for plurals, case or gender. All words have separate meanings and synonyms rarely exist, so there are never two words that mean the same thing.

Nouns
Nouns do not conjugate for number, gender or case. Numerals are expressed via numbers or pronouns such as: “many”, “all” and “few”. If you have a verb or descriptor that you want to turn into a noun just add the prefix /as-/.

Verbs
Verbs do not conjugate for number, gender or (normal) tense. There are three different aspects: perfective, imperfective and (antiperfective), and they are expressed via prefixes. Tense is expressed with time expressions such as: today, tomorrow, now etcetera. Modality is expressed via modal auxiliaries. Imperative is expressed by using the uninflected form of the verb. Participles is expressed by using the verb as an adjective in its descriptor form, and to create a descriptor from a verb just add the prefix /is-/ at the beginning of the verb. Infinitive does not exist, instead you can use the adjective form of the verb in situations where an infinitive normally is used, ex. to swim (verb in infinitive) becomes swimming (adjective), or just use the basic form of the verb. To create a passive verb from an active verb just add the prefix /es-/ before the verb,

ex. /ma osfom mo, xe ma esosfom mi/

LIT. I eat you, and I (get) eaten (by) him

To make a verb performer from a verb the prefix /mi-/ is used before the verb if it is a human who is performing the verb, but if it is a thing that is performing a verb, for example a calculator instead of a mathematician, the preposition /ta-/ shall be used instead.

To create a verb from a noun or a descriptor the prefix /os-/ may be used.

Descriptors (adjectives and adverbs)
Descriptors come after the verb/noun they modify, and they don't have to agree with their verb/noun in any way. Descriptors can be compared in five different ways. To compare the descriptors five different auxiliary words can be used, and the auxiliary words are placed before the descriptor. For the comparative the conjunction /en/ is used, /en/ have a meaning similar to "than" in English. To create a descriptor from a verb or noun the preposition /is-/ may be used.

Prepositions
All prepositions have only ONE specific meaning, if a preposition is needed and the context doesn’t tell us what preposition to use, the preposition /je/ might be used. /je/ do not have an independent meaning just like in Esperanto.

Numbers
Base ten is used to represent the numbers of dimensions. There are names for all numbers between 0-9 and for ten, hundred and thousand, all other numbers up to 999 999 are created by combining them in the same way as Chinese. New forms of numbers may be created by adding suffixes to the number. Collective numbers do not exist instead the multiple-numbers may be used if necessary.

Articles
There are no articles for indefinite or definite form. To express focus on a certain noun one may instead use the pronoun /ta/ which has a meaning somewhat alike “that” and “this” but together, /ta/ also means “it”.

Pronouns
There are ten different personal pronouns. There are no reflexive pronouns. There is only one reciprocal pronoun and that is /xintonta/. Nominative and accusative are the same as case does not exist. To create each pronoun's possessive form just use /af-/ as a prefix, but it is allowed to separate /af/ from the pronoun if desired, so /af ma/ is equal to /afma/.

Syntax
(Arrangement of words)

Word order
Word order is relatively free but there is one rule: if the verb is in passive form the object shall come before the verb, but if the verb is in active form the subject should come first. Though SVO and OVS are most preferred and standardized to minimize confusion. Word order can be used to express focus on a subject, object or action. Passive verbs always start with /es-/, and if you remember that you can always figure out which word order is used. Direct objects precede indirect objects. Lanton is a mostly head initial language and therefore most of its modifiers take place after their heads, with exceptions for demonstratives and ad positions.

Mood marker, VERB, Adverbs

Prepositions, Demonstratives, Numerals, NOUN, Ordinal-Numbers, Adjectives, Possessor

Questions
Yes or No questions are created by putting the word /isa/ before or/and after any sentence you want to turn into a Yes or No question. To answer a Yes or No question you can say /sa/ which means true, or /sano/ which means untrue or false.

A wh-question (multiple-choice question) is created by replacing the part of the sentence that you want to ask about with a questioning pronoun.

ex. /mo xe kimi oslan kon xintonta?/

LIT. you and who talk with each other?

Conditional
There is one conditional marker /if/, and it is placed before the phrase it belongs to. If the phrase it belongs to is true then the other statement is true, and if it is false then the other statement is false. The marker should only be used on one phrase per sentence to prevent misconceptions. It works exactly as the English "if".

Negation
The negation particle /no/ is used right before the component that is being negated. Double negation is fully acceptable, ex. “I am not capable of not walking” would be a correct sentence. It is important to know how to use the negation particle in the right way because moving the particle may change the meaning of a whole sentence.

Relative clause
Relative clauses always follow the noun that they modify, and the word /kom/ is the only relative pronoun.

= Dictionary =

Lord's Prayer
= Sources =