amman iar Reference Grammar (original) (raw)

ámman îar reference grammar

ámman îar îarbampárma
(ammanyar yarparam)

Disclaimer: ámman îar is an artlang that I have been playing with off and on for nearly 30 years. It will never be an IAL, nor does it have any pretensions in that direction. It was not designed for ease of learning or recognition. It makes no attempt at a simplified grammar or syntax. It has been purely an indulgence in my peculiar personal linguistic æsthetics. There has been no attempt to cull words from any natlang. The vocabulary of ámman îar, except for conscious borrowings from Elvish languages due to the early influence of the Dunedain, is based on a set of roots that are computer generated. The software used to generate the ámman îar vocabulary was developed by me and was used to enforce a phonological shape of the morphemes that pleases my eye and ear as well as a hypothesized derivation from a protolanguage called vulánayal I have no formal training in linguistics. Never took a single course. I have read and enjoyed dozens of books on linguistics and what little I know, stems from my understanding of those sources. If I misuse a linguistic term or concept, I welcome the correction. However, I have not attempted to be linguistically rigorous (whatever that means), but have followed my sense of what feels right for the language. As is the case with most conlangs ámman îar is still under construction and will probably remain so forever. It is precisely this construction that intrigues me

Dedications

Hildegard von Bingen

This grammar is dedicated to Hildegarde von Bingen (1098-1179), Abbess of Rupertsberg, and the earliest recorded conlinguist, in the hope that it will continue the tradition she initiated with the creation of Lingua Ignota (Unknown Language) so many years ago.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

Secondly, I dedicate this grammar to the memory of that consummate language cobbler, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973), who's 'Secret Vice' I have shared for so many years. His Eldarin languages were an early inspiration and continue to be a significant influence on my own constructed language work.

Internet Constructed Language Lists

I would also like to dedicate this text to those stalwart conlinguists of the conlang, langdev,and LANGMAKER mailing lists whose very existence confirmed and legitimized this odd passion of mine as a widespread, indeed international preoccupation. The work exhibited on these lists has both inspired and invigorated the development of ámman îar over the last several years.

Marlis Hundertmark-Bell

And last but never least, I dedicate this text, as I have my life, to my soul-mate, my life and raison d'être, my wife Marlis Hundertmark-Bell who has so gracefully accommodated the many hours I have spent in front of my computer cobbling this grammar into creation. It no accident that the ámman îar word for beauty is marlis.

I LOVE YOU!

Conventions

All examples in this grammar are presented in the following standard format:

English sentence. amman iar translation (nathya translation) __________________________________________________________________________________________

amman iar translation morpheme parse glossed parse part of speech parse free translation

For example:

Galdor slew the dragon i galdranne eleth en i feng ernurgoraen galdor fengeir erucoreth __________________________________________________________________________________________

i galdranne eleth en i feng i galad =an -e el- -eth en i feng -0
the galad =masc -[A] assertive- -past agt.to.pat the dragon -[P] det nam =gnd -erg mood- -tense ptp det n -abs the Galdor did agt.to.pat the dragon

ernurgoraen er- en- ur- coiro -ae -n
do- cause- not- live -agt/pat -actn/proc agt- caus- neg- v -val -vc
slay

In presenting the syntactic descriptions in the examples in this grammar, I was faced with two possible alternatives:

1. Parse only that portion of the example relevant to the subject under discussion; or
2. Parse the entire example.

It seemed to me that the former was preferable; as it would highlight the exemplar without undo clutter and distraction. However, as my fluency in the language is something less than perfect, a fact that shames me deeply, I found that I needed to perform the latter in order to verify the grammaticality of the examples. This was compounded by the availability of an excellent tool for generating interlinear translations, ShoeBox, available from SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics) at www.sil.org.

I have, therefore, consistently used the above format to provide full parses of all examples. I have, however, highlighting those portions of each parse that are relevant to the current context in red . I am of two minds concerning the efficacy of this approach and may revise this scheme in future editions of the grammar if sufficient negative feedback is received.

The nathya translations that are included with each example are not parsed. This language is still too little understood to permit rigorous parsing. I include these examples to give the flavor of this related language and to serve as a starting point for a complete reference grammar for nathya.

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