Grammar

Grammar

Guosa is an isolating language with subject–verb–object word order. Most grammatical meaning is expressed through particles that precede the words they modify, such as é (plural), ng (present progressive), lá (perfective aspect), and kà (volitive). There are no articles. Adjectives follow the noun. There is no grammatical gender or noun class system. Guosa is generally prepositional.

Phonology

The exact phonological values or amount of distinct phonemes in Guosa is unknown. It does, however, have a relatively large consonant inventory, as Guosa adopts several consonants that are featured in only a relatively small number of its source languages.

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar Palatal	Velar	Labiovelar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	(ɲ)	ŋ
Stop/Affricate	voiceless	p	t	tʃ	k	k͡p
	voiceless prenasalized	([ᵐp]])	([ⁿt]])	ⁿtʃ	ᵑk	(ᵑ͡ᵐk͡p)
	voiced	b	d	dʒ	ɡ	ɡ͡b
	voiced prenasalized	ᵐb	ⁿd	ⁿdʒ	ᵑɡ	ᵑ͡ᵐɡ͡b
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ʃ	x		h
	voiced	v	z		ɣ
Approximant			l	j		w
Rhotic			r

1. /p/ and /v/ rarely appear in words of indigenous origin. They almost exclusively appear in words with an English or other foreign source.
2. It is unknown exactly how many pre-nasalized stops are actually phonemes, and which, if any, are considered consonant clusters. Several do appear word initially in common words such as: ncha "every", nkami "my", mbí "here", njika "evil", ngate "coast", and ngbà "time". All other stops do appear with a preceding nasal word medially, but it is unclear if these are pre-nasalized stops or clusters of a nasal and a stop.
3. The rhotic is either a tap or a trill.
4. Syllabic consonants can appear as separate words, such as ng (present continuous marker). These always have the mid tone.
5. The plosives, nasals (/ŋ/ exempt), the fricatives (velars exempt), the approximants, and /dʒ/ can be geminated, though minimal pairs are rare.
6. It is unknown if the palatal nasal is a phoneme or if it is simply the cluster /nj/.

Vowels

	Short vowels		Long vowels		Nasal vowels
	Front	Back	Front	Back	Front	Back
Close	i	u	iː	uː	(ĩ)	(ũ)
Close-mid	e	o	eː	oː	(ẽ)	(õ)
Open	a		aː		(ã)

Though Guosa once had the seven vowel system similar to that of Yoruba, the vowels /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ have seemingly been merged into their closed counterparts, giving Guosa a five vowel system. Vowels can be either long or short, but the functional load of vowel length appears to be light, however, as very few minimal pairs exist when tone is taken into account. There are nasal vowels written with an ⟨n⟩ following a vowel, though this does not always indicate a nasal vowel. The functional load of these is also light and the vast majority of nasal vowels are short. No two words differ in both the nasality of the vowels and vowel length.

It is unknown if there are diphthongs in Guosa; all vowels could be pronounced as separate syllables, or several vowels could form diphthongs. The phonology of Yoruba, however, suggests that Guosa vowels do not form diphthongs, as almost all the words with adjacent vowels come from Yoruba, in which all vowels are pronounced separately.

Tone

There are three basic tones in Guosa: high, mid, and low; there are also two contour tones: low-rising and high-falling. Mid is left unmarked and is seemingly the default tone, high is written with an acute ⟨◌́⟩, low with a grave ⟨◌̀⟩. On short vowels the low-rising is written with a caron ⟨◌̌⟩ and high-falling with a circumflex ⟨◌̂⟩. With long vowels, the contour tones are split across the two vowels. With long vowels, the contour tones are written as two separate diacritics.

Elision

Elision takes place when two of the same vowels would be adjacent, or with certain grammatical particles. For example, when the plural marker é is placed before a word beginning with a vowel: é ómóntàkélé → émóntàkélé "little children". This elision can be written with an apostrophe when the two vowels are the same: ji inang → ji'nang "twenty four". It can also be written as an apostrophe when the elision spans two words that are not particles: sòngí ìsóngà → sòngí 'sóngà "sing a song".

Phonotactics

A syllable in Guosa is generally of the form (C)(A)V(C), though more specialized loanwords may have the structure (C)(C)(C)V(C).

Orthography

The Guosa alphabet contains 23 single letters, and several digraphs. The letters ⟨q⟩ and ⟨x⟩ are not used, and the letter ⟨c⟩ only appears in the digraph ⟨ch⟩. There used to be two vowel letters that seem to have almost completely disappeared from the current draft of the language: ⟨ẹ⟩ and ⟨ọ⟩. Other than these abandoned letters, diacritics are only used to mark the tone of vowels. The digraph ⟨ng⟩ represents /ᵑg/ word-initially and possibly word-medially, but word-finally it represents /ŋ/

Letter	IPA
a	a
b	b
d	d
e	e
f	f
g	ɡ
h	h
i	i
j	d͡ʒ
k	k
l	l
m	m
n	n
o	o
p	p
r	r
s	s
t	t
u	u
v	v
w	w
y	j
z	z

The confirmed digraphs are:

Digraph	IPA
ch	t͡ʃ
gb	ɡ͡b
gh	/ɣ/
kh	/x/
kp	k͡p
ng	/ŋ/, /ᵑk/
sh	ʃ

Morphology

Nouns

Plural

The plural is marked by è:

• Lions are animals - è zàkí wù námà, or èZàkí wù námà

When writing Guosa plural words in small letters you write: è zàkí and èZàkí when writing plural words that begins with a capital letter.

Gender

Generally speaking, Guosa does not specify gender. To distinguish the sexes, the adjectives miji and mache can be used:

• prince - omo baize miji
• princess - omo baize mache

However, there are certain words that are different depending on gender, for instance, family members:

• father - uba, baba, mahaifi
• mother - uwa, mahaifiya, mma, mami
• brother - m’uba
• sister - munwa; monwa; sista
• uncle - kawu; rafani; babani
• aunt - inna, gwaggo, baba

Determiners

A determiner is a word that modifies a noun.

Guosa has no articles.

Demonstratives

Demonstratives are words that indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others.

• This - eyi; kayi
• That - yien; kpe; kayien
• these - e kayi
• those - e yien; e kayien

Interrogatives

The interrogative determiners are one of the different ways in Guosa to make questions.

These interrogative determiners are:

• mèní (what?)
• wòdú (which?)
• ùaní (who?)
• èlóì (how much?)
• báwó (how?)
• ngbà (when?)
• mbó (where?)

Possessives

There are two ways of expressing posse possession in Guosa:

• Using nke (of) plus the pronoun:
  • That house is mine: gídá yíen wù nkè mi
• Adding the pronoun after the noun being possessed:
  • That is my house: yíen wù gídá mi

Quantifiers

Quantifiers are determiners that help express the amount or quantity of the noun’s referent:

• dáyá - one
• ejì, ètá, ìnàng – two, three, four…
• risi – many, much
• kele – few, little
• risi, yensi – more
• risi kha – most
• kiene – less
• kinin; tufien, tine, tintin – least

Descriptors

Adjectives and adverbs are not separate classes in Guosa and are jointly called descriptors, following whatever they modify. Some descriptors only act as adjectives or adverbs, however.

In Guosa there are four regular degrees of comparison. The word jù "more" is used to form a comparative from an adjective: rámá "good" → rámá jù "better". The superlative simply combines the adverb khà "very" with jù: rámá jù khà "best" (lit. very more good). Finally, there is a forth degree of comparison above superlative. Though the superlative might indicate the highest of value in a certain group, the degree indicated by the category higher than the superlative shows that the indicated noun is the absolute best in its entire category; this is done with the khàkáa: rubi "bad" → rubi jù khàkáa "the very worst".

Pronouns

Some Guosa pronouns, unlike the rest of the words in the language, change depending on whether they are the subject or object. Animacy is not distinguished in pronouns, but plural is, and gender is distinguishable, albeit it is optional and only makes the distinction between female and male/neuter. The following is a known list of pronouns. Some of them are defined ambiguously, so the exact pronouns are unknown.

		subject	object/genitive
1st person singular		mò (I)	mí (me/mine)
2nd person singular		o (you, thou)	yín (you/your, thee/thy)
3rd person singular	masculine/neuter	ó (he, it)	ya (him/his, it/its)
	feminine	ta (she)	ta (she/her)
1st person plural		àwá (we)	'wá, kewá (us/our)
2nd person plural		ee (you all)	éyín (you all/all of your)
3rd person plural		ha, fa, su (they)	ha, fa, su (they, them)

An intensive form of the pronoun us created by affixing the suffix -wan. Though possessive is often indicated by simply having the object form of the pronoun follow the noun, the preposition nke "of" can be used to indicate unambiguous possession.

Verbs

In Guosa, all verbs have one form; there is no conjugation. There is a copula, wù, but it is only used with a predicate noun. With predicate adjectives however, wù is not used, and the adjective behaves more like a verb. Compare the sentences mò wù mámbézè "I am a king" with mò rámá "I am well".

There are several particles that modify the tense, aspect, and mood of verbs. These particles usually precede the verbs they modify, but the particle lá follows the verb instead.

• ng (present continual): mó sòngí 'sóngà "I sing a song" → mó ng sòngí 'sóngà "I am singing a song"

The particle lá is used in a slightly different way, creating an adjective that functions similarity to an active past participle. This form can also take a direct object.

• mó kùndé "I wake up" → mó kùndé lá "I am awake"

Verb Patterns

Tense	Prior Word	Guosa Text	English Translation
Infinitive	-	sòngí	To sing
Simple Past/Present perfect	lá	mó sòngí ‘sóngà lá	I sang/have sung a song.
Future/Conditional	má	mó má sòngí ‘sóngà	I will/shall/would sing a song
Simple Present	-	mó sòngí ‘sóngà	I sing a song
Continuous Present	ng	mó ng sòngí ‘sóngà	I am singing a song.
Imperative	-!	sòngí ‘sóngà!	Sing a song!
Interrogative	-?	mó sòngí ‘sóngà?	Do I sing a song?

Prepositions

• aboard, adv., prep. agboko
• about, adv., prep. mani, so, che
• above, adv., prep. Kaju
• against. prep. ma tumozo
• amid, amidst, prep. n’arin, n’ime, si’me
• among, amongst, prep. n'ime, narin
• At, prep. Nani
• concerning, prep. Mani, konle
• despite , prep. Sipu
  • despite the fact. Saipu ezioka
• during, prep. Na ngba, ngba
• for, prep. Fun, funli, mani
• in. prep. Menu, si, na
• into, prep. Si, simenu, sime
• mini, prep. Tuin, tini
• notwithstanding, prep. Sieba-sieba (si.eba-si.eba) (morephene), amo
• of, prep. Nke, ‘ke (ke)
• on, prep. etc. Na, nasi, (an); (fe) tonwu
• onto, prep. Sisi, sikei, fna
• Per, prep. Tu, tukon, na
• plus, prep. tia, fie, fiyen, na, tisi
• semi, prep. Sebe
• Towards, prep. Yasi; rinshien; iyasi; irinshien
• unlike; adj. prep. ai bika: lai bikai: lai kabi; ai kabi
• until; prep., conj. Siti
• unto; prep. Sisi
• up; adv., prep. nuke; ruo; sonma; (enu; - synonym) ganu-ke
• versus, prep. (lat.) fesos
• via, prep. (lat) sai; fia
• vis-à-vis nure-si: “in relation to ”; si-do: “to sit facetoface,or facing one- another”;
• with, prep. nasi kpe
• within, prep. merin (ime:irin)
• without, prep. meta (ime:”ta)
• without, prep. nifre lai wen (not having); singi

Conjunctions

A conjunction joins two things together.

• According - tuge, bietu
• According to - bietu
• although - amp
• and - da
• but - Ama, amo
• forasmuch - Na funli
• if - Bi, bin
• lest - Hege
• nisi - Fibi unless
• nor - Abi
• or - Abi
• than - jukha; kha
• though - amo
• unless - kowu
• until - siti
• whether - woya; bi o wu

Questions

There are two main types of questions in Guosa: yes/no questions and questions asking for a particular type of information, starting with interrogative determiners such as mèní (what?), wòdú (which?), ùaní (who?) èlóì (how much?), báwó (how?), ngbà (when?), and mbó (where?).

• Mèní ó wù? - What is it?
• Wòdú nké ó wù? - Which one is it?
• Ùaní wù yíen? - Who is that?
• Mbó kà ŏ ng shìengá? - Where are you going?
• Báwo kà ó sì bìawá - How did you come?
• Kúdí èlóì k'ó wèn? - How much money do you have?
• Mèní ngbà ŏ ng shìengá? - When are you going?

For yes/no questions, the speaker just needs to rise the tone at the end of the sentence.

• Mó sòngí ‘sóngà? - Do I sing a song?

Numbers

Guosa has a base ten number system. The cardinal numerals are:

1. dáyá "one"
2. ejì "two"
3. ètá "three"
4. ìnàng "four"
5. ìsén "five"
6. ìsíì "six"
7. asáà "seven"
8. asáto "eight"
9. essé "nine"
10. góma "ten"

The multiples of ten are derived by shortening the first ten numbers.

1. gó "ten, -teen" (used in the numbers 11–19)
2. jì "twenty"
3. tá "thirty"
4. nà "forty"
5. sén "fifty"
6. síì "sixty"
7. sá "seventy"
8. sát "eighty"
9. ssé "ninety"

The number multiples of one hundred are created by using the reduplicated gogo root. These numbers are not treated as compounds, unlike the number 11–99.

• ejì gógó "two hundred"
• asáà gógó "seven hundred"

The ordinal numbers are formed by using the preposition nke.

• nke dáyá "first"
• nke sáètá "seventy third"
• nke asáà gógó "seven hundredth"

Word formation

Guosa uses a couple particles to derive words from others. For example:

ò - agent, person characterized by the root. In the plural, this is è.

• kózí "to teach" → ò kózí "teacher", è kózí "teachers"
• gwùebí "hungry" → ò gwùebí "hungry person", è gwùebí "hungry people"
• mákárántá "school" → ò mákárántá "student", è mákárántá "students"

ì - forms both the noun and adjective from a verbal or other noun root:

• bísí "to succeed" → ìbísí "success, successful"
• kózí "to teach" → ìkózí "lesson"
• rùshé "to work" → ìrùshé "work, labor"
• máchè "woman" → ìmáchè "womanhood, womanly"

Much of the word derivation in Guosa is done using just these two particles.

Syntax

The main part of the sentences is the verb, which can come alone or with modifiers, forming the verb phrase. Verb modifiers can be descriptors or prepositional phrases.

Many sentences can also contain a noun phrase, made of a noun and modifiers such as determiners, descriptors or prepositional phrases.

Sentences

The main noun phrases are the subject and the object. Generally speaking, the subject carries out the action of the verb and the object is affected by the action.

In Guosa, the subject precedes the verb, which precedes the object.

• Mǒ hùfé Naijeriya - I (subject) love (verb) Nigeria (object).

Complements

The complement is a descriptor of the subject, which appears with the copula wù. Wù is only used with a predicate noun. With predicate adjectives however, wù is not used, and the adjective behaves more like a verb.

• mò wù mámbézè "I am a king"
• mò rámá "I am well".

Clauses

Every sentence has a main clause, which can be on its own or be modified by subordinate clauses.

Also, a sentence can have more than one main clauses. In that case, both clauses are linked together by conjunctions.