The monosyllabic roots have changed since when I first introduced them. After working on disyllabic roots, my feelings about my original monosyllabic roots changed a bit, and I wanted to make them fit my Hamming distance philosophy better. Previously, the words had the right distance from one another, but the roots didn’t always because I didn’t derive each possible word out of each root. However, when I got to the disyllabic roots, it was easier to focus solely on making sure the roots had the right distance from one another, and creating them that way made more sense because it left the language open for flexibility down the line.
All of the ideas and rules from the original post should still apply because I have gotten a bit more strict in how these were generated. Also, most of them are pretty similar. Now, the differences are quite different because I have allowed for monosyllabic roots with four phonemes/letters in them whereas I tried to keep the limit to three phonemes/letters originally. The more phonemes/letters in a syllable, the ‘heavier’ it feels (to me, at least). Take the word ‘strength’ in English. It is very heavy for just one syllable—there are seven phonemes in that single syllable: /stɹɛŋkθ/. I’m trying to avoid words like that. If I am remembering correctly, words with ‘simpler’ or ‘lighter’ syllables are easier to speak clearly and quickly, which would be why Spanish word equivalents might have more syllables but still be spoken as fast and as clearly as the equivalent word in English. Honestly, I could be talking out of my ass, but I’m pretty sure that’s right—it makes sense, doesn’t it?
Anyway, the reworked roots are «ma, sa, ka, tla, yal, klam, slal, myan, pam, pya, nam, kyan, pal, nal, yam, lan, mlam, nya, ha, syan, mlal, slam, nul* klal». Now, technically, «ha» isn’t far enough away from «ka» because the «h» in «ha» can be pronounced like a glottal stop, but I am fine with that as the derived words should never really end up getting mixed up.
*As I am about to explain, «nul» translates into English as ‘and’.
«ma» is the root for the first person singular. «me» is the pronoun form, and it translates into English as ‘I’ or ‘me’, depending on the whether it’s the subject or the object.
«sa» is the root for the second person singular. «se» is the pronoun form, and it translates into English as ‘you’.
«ka» is the root for the third person singular. «ke» is the pronoun form, and it translates into English as ‘it’, singular ‘they’, or singular ‘them’. Of course, it could also be ‘he’, ‘him’, ‘she’, or ‘her’, but gender and sex don’t matter as this pronoun is not gendered/sexed. Again, the translation may depend on whether it’s the subject or the object.
«tla» is the root for the mediopassive. «tle» is the pronoun form. As a subject, it is a passive or impersonal construction. As an object, it basically means ‘myself’, ‘yourself’, etc. For example, let’s say «lomtam» is a verb that translates into English as ‘to love’. «tle lomtam me» means ‘I am loved’. It can be thought of as ‘[blank] loves me’. It’s almost an even more abstract version of «ke» in this context, but it puts the focus on the object instead of the subject. «me lomtam tle» is a bit simpler, and it means ‘I love myself’.
«yal» is the root for the demonstrative. «yel» is the demonstrative pronoun form and «yil» is the demonstrative modifier form. They both translite into english as ‘this’, but they are used in slightly different ways. «yel» would just translate as ‘this’, but «ke yil» would translate as ‘this one’.
«klam» is the root for the past tense. «klem» is the noun form, and it translates into English as ‘past’ as in ‘the past’. «klim» is the modifier form that, as an adverb, functions as the past tense, and it can also be translated as ‘earlier’.
«slal» is the root for the present tense. «slel» is the noun form, and it translates into English as ‘present’ as in ‘the present’. «slil» is the modifier form that, as an adverb, functions as the past tense, and it can also be translated as ‘now’.
«myan» is the root for the future tense. «myen» is the noun form, and it translates into English as ‘future’. «myin» is the modifier form that, as an adverb, functions as the future tense, and it can be translated as ‘later’.
(As I’ve said before, these tenses are not obligatory—i.e., they are optional. Context clues can make up for a lack of tense. But what tense is an un-tensed sentence in? It’s not really a tense, it’s more of a grammatical mood. Specifically, I’d say this particular mood in my conlang is the indicative, declarative, or realis mood. More or less, it expresses something true. When people say something like ‘I love you’, it doesn’t necessarily express the present tense like ‘I love you right now’. It tends to be more of a declaration of the truth—the truth being that I love you.)
«pam» is the root for the interrogative. «pem» is the noun form, and it translates into English as ‘what’ or ‘whom’; «pim» is the modifier form, and translates into English as ‘which’; and «pum» is the particle form, and it translates into English as ‘?’. That last one is literal—in this greyfolk language, this root indicates a question. If «pem» or «pim» isn’t used, then the particle «pum» is used. For example, let’s say «lomtam» is a verb that translates into English as ‘to love’. «se lomtam pem» means ‘you love what?’ or ‘what do you love?’ «se lomtam ke pim» means ‘you love which one?’ or ‘which one do you love?’ «pum se lomtam ke» means ‘you love it?’ or ‘do you love it?’ In the case of «pum», it can kind of be stuck anywhere in a question, but it is usually the first word. If it follows a word, it puts emphasis on that word as what is being questioned. For example, «se lomtam pum ke» means ‘you love it?’
«pya» is the root for the affirmative and the presence preposition. «pyi» is the modifier form that works like the auxiliary verb ‘do’ as in ‘I do want to go’, and it also translates into English as ‘yes’. «pyo» is the verb form that translates into English as ‘to be’; without a subject, it can also translate as ‘there is/are’. «pyu» is the preposition form, and it translates into English as ‘with’. Furthermore, as I discussed in the previous post, they can also be used to say hi.
«nam» is the root for the negative and the absence preposition. «nim» is the modifier form that translates into English as ‘no’, ‘not’, or ‘don’t’. «nom» is the verb form that translates into English as ‘to not be’; without a subject, it can also translate as ‘there isn’t/aren’t’. «num» is the preposition form, and it translates into English as ‘without’.
«kyan» is the root for the complementizer or relativizer. «kyun» is the particle form that translates into English as ‘that’, ‘who’, or ‘which’ as in ‘people that like pie’ or ‘the pie that was eaten’. Furthermore, «kyen» is acceptable as a noun form that abbreviates the phrase «ke kyun», which would translate into English as ‘one that’ as in ‘one that likes pie’. Thus, «kyen» works similarly to an agentive affix, which, in English, is usually ‘-er’. For example, let’s say «lomtam» is a verb that translates into English as ‘to love’. «kyen lomtam» could translate as ‘one who loves’ or ‘lover’.
«pal» is the root for the possessive. «pul» is the particle form that indicates possession, and it would likely translate into English as ”s’; however, I would translate it as ‘of’ as in ‘he is the brother of my mother’.
«nal» is the root for the ‘and’ conjunction. «nul» is the conjunction form, and it translates into English as ‘and’.
«yam» is the root for the ‘but’ conjunction. «yum» is the conjunction form, and it translates into English as ‘but’.
«lan» is the root for the ‘or’ conjunction. «lun» is the conjunction form, and it translates into English as ‘or’.
«mlam» is the root for the origin preposition. «mlum» is the preposition form, and it translates into English as ‘from’.
«nya» is the root for the destination preposition. «nyu» is the preposition form, and it translates into English as ‘at’ or ‘to’, depending on the context.
«ha» is the root for the separating particle. «hu» is the particle form, and it doesn’t have a clear direct translation into English. The quick-and-dirty explanation is that it’s like a comma. It is used to separate words that, if not separated, might sound ambiguous together. Of course, a pause in speech can also produce the same effect.
«syan» is the root for the terminating particle. «syun» is the particle form, and it also doesn’t have a clear direct translation into English. The quick-and-dirty explanation is that it’s like «hu», but, instead of separating words, it can separate phrases to get rid of ambiguity.
(These special particles—«hu» and «syun»—are not obligatory; i.e., they are optional. They can help reduce ambiguity, but they are not necessary.)
«mlal», «slam», and «klal» are currently unused. However, I want to use them as I lost a few disyllabic roots in the war to get everything to fit together. That war is worth its own post.