Letanis Reference Grammar

Contents

• 1 Introduction
  • 1.1 Typology
  • 1.2 Goals
• 2 Phonology
  • 2.1 Vowels
  • 2.2 Consonants
  • 2.3 Syllable structure
  • 2.4 Stress
• 3 Morphology
  • 3.1 Word classes
  • 3.2 Word boundaries
  • 3.3 Numbers
  • 3.4 Advanced numbers
  • 3.5 Variables
• 4 Syntax
  • 4.1 Basic statements (I)
  • 4.2 Quantification (II)
  • 4.3 Temporal quantification (III)
  • 4.4 Temporal conjunctions (IV)
  • 4.5 "Wrapping" (V)
  • 4.6 Nested conjunctions (VI)
• 5 Pragmatics
  • 5.1 Copula
  • 5.2 Pronouns
    • 5.2.1 Personal pronouns
    • 5.2.2 Demonstrative pronouns
  • 5.3 Possession
  • 5.4 Questions
    • 5.4.1 Polar questions
    • 5.4.2 Content questions
    • 5.4.3 Quantity questions
  • 5.5 Negation
  • 5.6 Imperative
  • 5.7 Causality
  • 5.8 Spelling
  • 5.9 Past and future tense
  • 5.10 Greetings
• 6 Lexicon
  • 6.1 Nouns ("-s" words)
  • 6.2 Other words ("-m" words)
    • 6.2.1 Locative verbs
    • 6.2.2 Conjunctions
  • 6.3 Lexical symmetry
  • 6.4 Online dictionary
  • 6.5 Extensibility
• 7 Appendix
  • 7.1 Syntax summary
• Abbreviations

1 Introduction

Letanis is an a priori constructed language created by Thomas Heller in 2020.

More information about Letanis can be found on the Letanis website:

https://tmh.conlang.org/letanis/

1.1 Typology

Letanis exhibits an isolating morphology and SOV syntax.

1.2 Goals

The goal of Letanis was to explore several features that could be beneficial for an IAL¹:

• a simple phonetic inventory and syllable structure
• a self-segregating morphology
• a minimalist, experimental syntax
• a topological lexicon structure

With a simple phonetic inventory and syllable structure, Letanis should be easy to pronounce for most people on Earth. It is also relatively easy to write down, because only fifteen distinct symbols are required.²

The self-segregating morphology helps listeners of spoken Letanis to recognize word boundaries, even if they have not yet memorized the whole lexicon.

The rules of syntax are greatly reduced, so that the syntactic structure of a text can be understood with little effort.

Furthermore, the topological lexicon allows learners to focus on memorizing short words first, and longer words later, and they will still be able to understand the gist of a conversation, even if they don't fully comprehend all of its long words yet.

A secondary goal of Letanis was to allow for experimentation with computer speech recognition. Letanis' verb-final syntax is intended to give real-time speech parsers an additional clue as to whether they should wait for further input or a sentence is complete.³ It is debatable if this feature is really all that helpful for Letanis, as statements are often followed by a conjunction and another statement.

2 Phonology

Letanis has fifteen distinct phonemes that can be represented using the Latin alphabet:

a b d e g i k l m n o p s t u

2.1 Vowels

Letanis has five vowels:

Front vowels are unrounded, back vowels are rounded.

2.2 Consonants

Letanis has ten consonants:

Plosives to the left of each column and "s" are unvoiced, other consonants are voiced.

2.3 Syllable structure

The syllable structure of Letanis is "CV(C)".

Onset consonants are: "b", "d", "g", "k", "l", "n", "p", and "t"

Optional coda consonants are: "m" and "s"

This results in the following 40 permissible syllables, plus 80 more syllables with "-m" or "-s" coda ("bam" through "tus"):

2.4 Stress

Stress falls on the first syllable of a word.

3 Morphology

3.1 Word classes

Letanis has four primary word classes:

• nouns
• verbs
• numerals (digits and quantifiers)
• conjunctions

Nouns end with the consonant "-s".

Other words end with the consonant "-m".

3.2 Word boundaries

Syllables with codas appear only at the end of words, which means that the consonants "m" and "s" never occur in the middle a word:

Word: [CV] ... [CV] [m|s]

Therefore, a stream of phonemes or letters can always be split up into single words unambiguously by looking for these two consonants, which makes Letanis' morphology self-segregating.

3.3 Numbers

The ten digits are syllables that can be used to build absolute numbers. The last syllable must be terminated with "-m", as shown in the following examples:

For more advanced numbers, see the next section about Advanced numbers.

3.4 Advanced numbers

More advanced numbers, beyond positive integers, can be expressed using Letanis' advanced number mode.

The following syllables can be used within numeral expressions:

When using "pe" so witch to base 16 (hexadecimal), the syllables "ga", "ge", "gi", "go", "gu", and "ka" can be used to represent the letters "A", "B", "C", "D", "E", and "F", denoting the decimal numbers 10 through 15, respectively.

When using advanced number mode, an initial digit is always required to mark the beginning of the numeral. This is achieved by prepending "du" ("zero") to the word, for example:

3.5 Variables

A special category of nouns are the variable pronouns "tas", "tes", "tis", "tos", and "tus".⁴ Variable pronouns are similar to personal pronouns, but they can be explicitly assigned using the corresponding variable assignment verbs "tam", "tem", "tim", "tom", and "tum".

Because Letanis has no relative pronouns or cumulative conjunctions, the five variable pronouns are a useful to refer back to previous phrases.

When multiple speakers hold a conversation, variable pronouns are shared between speakers. If one speaker assigns a variable pronoun, it is implied that other speakers use it with the same reference in mind, until they reassign it.

If an assignment verb is used with multiple arguments, it assigns the group of all arguments to a single variable pronoun, for example:

Aside from its short-lived use as a replacement for relative pronouns and enumerations, the variable pronouns serve as a marker for nouns that will be a topic relevant to the discussion for at least the next few sentences.

Note that, in theory, an infinite number of variable pronouns is available by adding further syllables, for example "tatas" or "tebas". In practice, however, as few variable pronouns as possible should be used, so that speakers don't lose track of their referents.

4 Syntax

Letanis syntax can be described in six rules.

4.1 Basic statements (I)

The basic word order of Letanis is subject--object--verb (SOV).

A sentence consists of at least one verb, optionally preceded by one or more noun phrase arguments:

Statement: [Argument] [Argument] ... [Verb]

If an argument is intentionally left out, the word "lis" is inserted in its place to skip on to the next argument.⁵

4.2 Quantification (II)

A noun phrase is simply a noun.

Optionally, it can be preceded by a numeral:

Noun phrase: [Numeral] [Noun]

A numeral can be one of two types:

The four quantifiers can be used directly before the noun:

The existential quantifier should be used with care, as it refers to all matching objects in the known universe.

The ten digit syllables that can be used to build absolute numbers, as described in the section about Numbers and Advanced numbers, can also appear directly before nouns.

4.3 Temporal quantification (III)

The temporal verbs "no-" and "nu-" refer to points in time and time frames, respectively.

Statements with temporal verbs don't take regular noun phrases as arguments. Instead, they appear either without arguments (avalently) or with only absolute numbers as arguments.

The verb "nom" by itself means "now", i.e. it refers to the present moment in time:

Between one and six arguments, namely "second", "minute", "hour", "day", "month", and "year", can be added as arguments to refer to other points in time, for example:

(A 24 hour clock system is implied.)

When arguments are used, the first arguments always refers to the "second", the second argument to the "minute" and so on.

Further arguments can be omitted. If they are omitted, the current unit of time, i.e. the current minute, current hour, current day etc., is implied.

The verb "num" by itself refers to the current day as a time frame:

Optionally, the number of a day, a month, and a year can be added as arguments:

If the month and year arguments are not given, the current month and current year are implied. If only the month but not the year argument is given, the specified month of the current year is implied.

There are five more words beginning with "nu-", namely "nudum", "nugum", "nulum", "nunum", and "nupum", which refer to the current year, the current month, the current minute, the current hour, and the current second, respectively:

For "nudum", the number of a year can be added as an argument:

For "nulum", the number of a month and optionally a year can be added as arguments:

If no year is given, the month of the current year is implied.

For "nunum", the number of an hour, and optionally a day, a month, and a year can be added as arguments:

If no day, month, or year is given, the current day, month, or year is implied.

For "nupum", the number of a minute, and optionally an hour, a day, a month, and a year can be added as arguments:

If no hour, day, month, or year is given, the current hour, day, month, or year is implied

For "nugum", the number of a second, optionally a minute, an hour, a day, a month, and a year can be added as arguments:

If no minute, hour, day, month, or year is given, the current minute, hour, day, month, or year is implied.

Temporal verbs are basically always used together with a conjunction and another statement, as described in the following section.

4.4 Temporal conjunctions (IV)

Sentences can be joined together with temporal conjunctions:

Paragraph: [Statement] [Conjunction] [Statement] ...

(See the section Conjunctions for a complete list.)

When multiple statements are involved, the conjunctions always refer to the nearest statement. Consider the following example with three sentences:

The statements implies the following:

1. The speaker was hungry.
2. They ate.
3. Food was prepared by the listener.

And the conjunctions imply the following:

• The speaker was hungry before they ate. (1 before 2)
• The food was prepared by the listener before they ate. (3 before 2)

If the speaker was hungry already before the food preparation started, or got hungry because of it, is intentionally left ambiguous in this example.

4.5 "Wrapping" (V)

There is a special group of verbs called "wrappers" in Letanis grammar. All "wrappers" begin with the syllable "na-". Their meaning extends to the next sentence; they "wrap around" it.

A typical example is:

When this "wrapped" statement is followed by a temporal conjunction and another statement, the "wrapped" statement is effectively perceived as a single sentence:

The second statement "des gim gababis pidem" refers to the previous "wrapped" statement as a whole, i.e. the person thought about birds in this way before the person saw penguins (for the first time). It does not mean that all birds flew before they saw penguines (and then stopped flying).

4.6 Nested conjunctions (VI)

Nested conjunctions offer a way to "wrap around" multiple statements at once.

The ordinary set of conjunctions ("lam", "lem" etc.) is mirrored in the "ga-" category (which could be seen as a prefix), allowing for utterances like the following:

Compare this to the utterance with a regular conjunction:

In theory, there can be an arbitrarily deep nesting of wrapped statements, as the conjunctions are in fact recursively mirrored under gaga, gagaga and so on. In practice, nesting beyond one or two levels should be avoided, though.

5 Pragmatics

5.1 Copula

The verb pam ("to exist in a static manner") serves as the copular verb:

It is used to express identity:

In this case, someone is apparently living in some kind of houseboat.

To express identity of multiple things, they need to be grouped using a variable pronoun first:

5.2 Pronouns

5.2.1 Personal pronouns

The personal pronouns can be summarized in a traditional pronoun table as follows:

Technically though, there are only two dedicated personal pronouns, the first person ("des") and second person ("dos"), referring to speaker and listener, respectively.

Letanis does not make a gender distinction in the third person by default, but if needed, nouns from the "di-" category can be used to refer to humans, animals and plants of specific gender:

When referring to a set of heterogenous entities, variables are used instead of personal pronouns (see the Variables section).

The third person pronouns are just monosyllabic nouns from the corresponding category, and therefore identical to what would be considered demonstrative pronouns in other languages, as explained in the next section.

5.2.2 Demonstrative pronouns

There are no dedicated demonstrative pronouns in Letanis. Instead, to refer to an object, the monosyllabic noun from the corresponding category is used, for example:

When in doubt, an object can be referred to as an arbitrary three-dimensional shape in the sense of "a thing":

In conclusion, there is no grammatical or practical difference between what would be considered third person pronouns and demonstrative pronouns in other languages.

5.3 Possession

Possession is expressed using the verb "pilam" ("to have, to possess sth.").

Another option -- depending on context -- would be the locative verb "kakem" ("to be near sth."):

5.4 Questions

5.4.1 Polar questions

Questions are not marked by any special grammatical rule. Instead, questions about the truth of a statement are expressed using the "wrapper" verb "nagem" ("I wonder if..."):

If another speaker wants to answer positively, they may respond with:

If they don't know (yet) either, they would respond with:

Finally, to answer negatively, they would have to make a contradicting statement:

See also the upcoming section about Negation.

5.4.2 Content questions

When something that could be referred to using a noun is unknown to the speaker, but they would like to inquire about it (content question), a sentence with the interrogative noun "los" is used:

5.4.3 Quantity questions

Pragmatically, the use of "gem" (unknown quantity) implies a question:

If another speaker knows the answer, they would respond with:

If they don't know the answer, they may repeat the question:

5.5 Negation

It is not possible to negate a statement in Letanis. The philosophy of Letanis is that either something is true and you say it, or it isn't true and you don't say it at all.

If another person says something you believe isn't true, and you want to challenge its validity, you need to come up with a contradicting claim.

Consider the following statement:

If a speaker is not sure if that's actually true, they could say:

If a speaker knows that there is no food inside the house (or can't find it), but they would actually prefer it if there was some food, they may say:

5.6 Imperative

The imperative is not marked by any special grammatical rule. Instead, the "wrapper" verb "napam" (to want sth., to desire sth.) is used:

5.7 Causality

Letanis follows the philosophy that the true cause and effect of events in the universe is ultimately hidden from mortal observers. As beings bound by linear experience of time, all that we can say is that events happen within a certain chronological order.

Therefore, causality is expressed in Letanis using temporal conjunctions. (See the section Conjunctions for a complete list.) For example:

5.8 Spelling

Letanis has a comparatively small phonetic inventory. To help with referring to objects in a world dominated by names which can be spelled using the Latin alphabet or some variant thereof, the "lela-"⁷ noun space is reserved for names from languages using a Latin alphabet variant.

Letters of the Latin alphabet can be transcribed according to the following table:

Because these names count as nouns, they must be terminated with "-s", for example:

5.9 Past and future tense

A generic, unspecific past and future tense is expressed using "lam nom" ("before now") and "lem nom" ("after now"):

5.10 Greetings

There are no interjections in Letanis. Instead, the verb "pitabam" ("to greet") without arguments is used as a universal greeting:

6 Lexicon

All words in Letanis begin with a syllable that indicates the semantic category they belong to.

Shorter words stand for general categories of meaning, while longer words stand for more specific concepts -- hence the lexicon is called "topologically" organized.

The same "root" syllables are used for nouns and "other words", therefore the meaning remains ambiguous until the final consonant ("-m" or "-s") which indicates word class.

6.1 Nouns ("-s" words)

Nouns are organized in categories beginning with the following syllables:

6.2 Other words ("-m" words)

So-called "other words" (verbs, numerals, and conjunctions) are organized in categories beginning with the following syllables:

The "b-", "d-", and "g-" (except "ga-") words are numerals, the "l-" (and "ga-") words are conjunctions, and the other words are verbs.

6.2.1 Locative verbs

The following table lists all locative verbs of Letanis:

For example:

The verb kakem ("to be near sth.") used with a single argument serves the function of the adverb "here":

6.2.2 Conjunctions

The following table lists all temporal conjunctions of Letanis:

Word	Symbol	Definition
lam		A before B
lem		A after B
lim		A when B
linim		A during B
litem		A exactly when B
lom		A overlaps with the beginning of B
lum		A overlaps with the end of B
lolom		B continues after A (progressive aspect)

The conjunctions "lam" and "lem" describe strictly separate events. Maybe they happen right after each other, but they must not overlap.

The conjunction "lim" denotes a temporal overlap in the broadest sense: There is some overlap between both events, but it is not specified when or for how long.

The conjunctions "linim" and "litem" are more specific: "linim" says that first event was strictly shorter than the second event and happened within the second event, and "litem" says that both events happened at exactly the same time for the same duration.

The conjunctions "lom" and "lum" signify a specific temporal overlap at the beginning or end of the other event. These conjunctions are typically used in a locative sense, as in the following example:

Or:

The conjunction "lolom" denotes a continuing event with unspecified duration, for example:

6.3 Lexical symmetry

Letanis is a humble attempt at creating a topological language, and far from being perfect. Nonetheless it attempts to aid its speakers to mentally navigate the lexicon by providing a certain degree of symmetry.

Some words are "mirrored" in other categories, for example, the words for body parts of humans and body parts of animals are similar, even though they are in different categories, i.e. have different prefixes.

Similarly, symmetry appears on a smaller scale in several places of the lexicon. For example, the words

• "sun [of solar system currently referred to]" ("babubus") and
• "star [outside of solar system currently referred to]" ("babubes")

as well as

• "moon [of planet currently referred to]" ("babibus")
• "moon [not of planet currently referred to]" ("babibes")

both end in "-bus" and "-bes", respectively.

In general, the 40 "root" syllables are reused with similar meaning inside longer words where possible. For example, the word for "volcano" ("bobobus") was created from the word "bobos" for "mountain" and the root syllable "bu" referring to a light/heat source. While this is, strictly speaking, not the same as noun compounding found in other languages, this lexical principle will hopefully make words more memorable despite Letanis' lack of actual compounding rules.

Another pattern that is sometimes recognizable, is reduplication of the last syllable to indicate "a smaller part of the aforementioned", as well as the syllable "du" (substance, element) as the final syllable for "extremely small part of the aforementioned". The final syllable "tus" is sometimes used to refer to something as a whole, as, for example, in "batus" ("sky"). These rules do not apply in all cases, however.

6.4 Online dictionary

A complete dictionary of Letanis can be found online at:

https://tmh.conlang.org/letanis/

6.5 Extensibility

Some of Letanis' root syllables are marked as "reserved" in the Lexicon tables given above. These may be used in the future, in case it turns out that Letanis needs some additional grammatical structures after all. Regardless, if speakers of Letanis wish to add new vocabulary that is related to a specific field and not considered general knowledge, it is recommended that they add them below the prefix "go-" for nouns and the prefix "po-" for verbs, respectively.

7 Appendix

7.1 Syntax summary

The following is a summary of Letanis' six syntax rules:

1. Statement: [Argument] [Argument] ... [Verb]
2. Noun phrase: [Numeral] [Noun]
3. Statements with the verb "no-" or "nu-"
4. Paragraph: [Statement] [Conjunction] [Statement] ...
5. Statements with "wrapper" verbs ("na-") and their following statement are considered single statements in regards to conjunctions.
6. Conjunctions can be nested inside wrapped statements by using the prefix "ga-", recursively if necessary.

Any text following these six rules is considered syntactically valid. Numbers made from digit syllables, and names spelled with Latin letters ("lela-") must be evaluated on a morphological level.

Abbreviations

1. international auxiliary language, or auxlang for short ↩︎
2. plus spacing and/or punctuation ↩︎
3. This could be considered a "self-segregating syntax". ↩︎
4. Lojban speakers will recognize this as the "ko'a"/"fo'a" series ↩︎
5. Lojban speakers will recognize this as "zo'e" ↩︎
6. plus any further gender-inclusive pronoun referring to humans ↩︎
7. mnemonic: "la" for "Latin" ↩︎
8. covering not only literal flames, but also light and heat as abstract concepts ↩︎
9. and "ga-" prefix for nested conjunctions ↩︎