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Angos Grammar
Benjamin Wood
Feb. 2013
Phonology
Orthography and Pronunciation
Angos uses the Latin script, with no diacritics. The chart below shows the majuscule and
minuscule letters with their corresponding IPA symbol. In parenthesis are allophones.
Aa
/a/
Bb
/b/
Cc
/tʃ/
Dd
/d/
Ee
/e/ (/ε/)
Ff
/f/
Gg
/g/
Hh
/h/ (/x/)
Ii
/i/
Yy
/j/
Kk
/k/
Ll
/l/
Mm
/m/
Nn
/n/
Oo
/o/ (/ɔ/)
Pp
/p/
Ss
/s/
Tt
/t/
Uu
/u/
Vv
/v/
Ww
/w/
Diphthongs
au (final), aw - /aʊ/
eu (final), ew - /ɛʊ/
ou (final), ow - /oʊ/
ai/ae (final), ay - /aɪ/
ei (final), ey - /ɛɪ/
oi (final), oy - /oɪ/
Syllable Structures
C = consonant
V = vowel
S = semivowel (w or y)
V - a.ma.o
“love”
VC - ak.sa.lo
“letter, glyph, character”
VS - aw.ke.lo
“choice”
VSC - ayn
“one”
SV - yu.tu.so
“star”
SVS - wey.-on.do (see below)
“riverside”
SVC - was.no
“weight”
CV - is.ka
“hit”
CVC - pan.ho
“wing”
CVS - kay.so
“seaweed”
CSV - mwe
“with”
CSVC - syen
“hundred”
CSVS - (no example)
Phonotactic notes:
• The consonant l can not be adjacent to another consonant; a semivowel or vowel must
precede/follow it.
• Stress is on the penultimate syllable of the root. Thus a compound word will have more
than one stress point.
• Root-initial vowels have an unmarked /ʔ/ at the syllable onset.
• For compound words, the uninflected roots must be looked at individually. If they do
not belong in any of the above structures, then an /e/ is placed between the boundary.
Examples of /e/ usage:
aksal-pulof - /ʔak.sa.le.pu.lof/
yang-seson - /jan.ge.se.son/
aksal-ip - /ʔak.sa.le.ʔip/
Root-initial vowels will always have /ʔ/:
omo - /ʔo.mo/
mek-omo - /mek.ʔo.mo/
dawa-omo - /da.wa.ʔo.mo/
kino-omo - /ki.no.ʔo.mo/
• Consonant gemination may occur if the boundaries are identical: ays-seson - /ays:eson/.
Parts of Speech
Like Esperanto, Ido, and other Esperantidos, Angos uses a system of letter classifiers to
designate a word's part of speech. Root classifiers (o, a, i, and u) can be further inflected
with -s to denote a man-made quality.
Nouns
Nouns in Angos are static; they do not change for definitiveness, number, or case.
leisos - a/the house
le leisos - houses (the particle le signals plurality)
de leisos - to a/the house (where de signals direction towards something)
Articles (a/an, the) are not present in Angos. Instead, determiners from the correlative
table are used to indicate definitiveness.
Indirect object phrases are formed with the preposition de, and are placed after the direct
object if applicable.
Wo vema de le lo - I teach them
Pronouns
Following the use of the noun ending -o and the plural particle le, pronouns have the
following configuration:
wo
I
le wo
we
to
you
le to
you all
lo
he/she/it
le lo
they
Verbs
Verbs in Angos are ambitransitive; they can act transitively or intransitively depending
on the presence of an object or prepositional phrase. Verbs do not conjugate for person,
number, tense, aspect, or mood.
Wo ala. - I eat / I am eating.
Wo ala tofao. - I eat an apple.
Wo sona. - I sleep.
Wo sona lo. - I cause him/her to fall asleep
Reflexivity can be expressed or emphasized with the adverb idu
Wo idu sona. - I cause myself to fall asleep (I fall asleep).
Because there are no inherent verb roots in Angos, the meaning of a word with the verb
ending is dependent on the context of the noun root used. For example, ota, from the root
ot- meaning "fire", does not inherently mean "burn". It is instead any action related to the
use of "fire" in context.
Vao ota. - The tree is burning.
Wo ota momos. - I light the candle. (in this sense, applying fire to something)
A more common verb ba, from b- "grasp", is more fluidWo ba lo.
"I grasp it." (physically)
"I take it."
"I get it." (physically and mentally)
"I understand it."
"I know it."
Particles
"Particles" is a catch-all category that includes prepositions, conjunctions, determiners,
some adverbs, and interjections. All these words end in -e and, if applicable, precede
whatever they modify.
Angos uses a correlative table to construct determiners, treated morphologically as
particles. Correlatives are placed where their morphological counterparts would be. For
example, "What do you want" would be written as "You want what".
The X and Association act as nouns or noun modifiers.
Wo desa ba fove dalo
I want to get this gift.
Ce fove moce mafteos?
Is this someone's key?
The Time and Place correlatives act as action modifiers and precede the verb.
Wo osue selenu hod-hayas
I always drive carefully.
Wo foye me gia
I walked here.
The Verb correlatives are undisclosed or general actions and act like normal verbs.
To kewe?
What are you doing?
Nae dewe
Don't do that.
Syntax
Angos uses Subject-Verb-Object word order, with direct modifiers preceding what they
modify.
Mao ala nesumo.
[The] cat eats [the] mouse.
Thus a sentence with modifiers would follow the pattern [subject adjective]-Subject[adverb]-Verb-[object adjective]-Object.
Bali mao hilosu ala lavi nesumo.
[The] big cat quickly eats [the] small mouse.
For modal verbs such as bisaa "can" or desa "want", the secondary verb (if there is one),
is placed after the modal.
Lo bisaa aksala.
He/She can write.
Descriptors will still precede each of the verbs.
Lo bisaa hilosu aksala
He/She can write quickly.
The passive voice in Angos is formed with the particle te, placed immediately in front of
the verb.
Kalimo te aksala dave ipos
[The] word is written on [the] paper.
Vindawgos me te tayla ve wo
[The] window was broken by me.
Multiple Modifiers
This is a list of priorities in case there is more than one modifier:
Nouns:
le + -ov- correlative + adjectives + noun
Examples:
•
fove ni-omo -this woman
•
seyni ni-omo- old woman
•
fove seyni ni-omo - this old woman
•
le fove seyni ni-omo - these old women
When using possessive pronouns (wi, ti, li, etc.), the order changes slightly, in that the
possessive pronoun (although an adjective) will precede all other modifiers. This is to
prevent confusion with the plural possessive pronouns (le wi, le ti, le li):
•
wi sang-ami bukos - my red book
•
wi le sang-ami bukos - my red books
•
le wi sang-ami bukos - our red book
•
le wi le sang-ami bukos - our red books
Verbs:
adverb + (se, nae) + (me, ke) + te + verb
Examples:
•
•
•
•
Bukos te via - The book is read
Bukos me te via - The book was read
Bukos nae me te via - The book was not read
Bukos value nae me te via - The book was not often read
Prepositional Phrases
Prepositional phrases are formed with a preposition, modifiers of the object, then the
object(s) of the preposition.
Los ine leisos
It [is] in [the] house
Mao ala nesumo ine leisos.
The cat eats the mouse in the house. (describes the position of the action)
For the purposes of literature, prepositional phrases may begin the sentence.
Relative Clauses
Unlike some languages, Angos does not use any interrogative correlatives to form a
relative clause. Instead, the particle lae is used.
Na-omo lae wo me via - The man who I saw
Oyo lae me cea - The place where it happened
Leisos lae (lis) vindawgos tayli - The house whose (its) windows are broken
Forming Questions
Questions can be formed with the question particle ce or an interrogative correlative
(who, what, when, etc.).
Ce demands a yes/no answer:
Ce lo leisos? - Is it a house?
Ce to kala gi-gola? - Do you like to play soccer?
An interrogative correlative demands an answer that matches its function in the sentence.
Lo kove omo? - Who is it? ("It is what person")
-Lo bali omo. - It is a big person.
To kue gia de semyao - When are you going home? ("You when go (to) home")
-Wo post-hiu gia de semyao - I'm going home tomorrow ("I tomorrow go (to) home")
Compounding
Angos employs heavy use of endocentric compounding, in which the head of the
compound modifies the following root. Compounds are formed by root junction, with a
dash (-) separating each root. The root at the end of the compound is the focus, and is the
one that inflects for part-of-speech. Compound words may have as many roots necessary
to form the idea, though the majority of compounds are between 2 and 3 roots in length.
tesem-leisos
dog house
With the root tesem (dog) + leis (shelter) + artificial noun ending os. House is the focus
of the compound, and dog describes the purpose or quality of the following root. In this
context, it is a man-made shelter for a dog.
yel-hay-oyos
airport
yel (sky) + hay (vessel) + oy place + os. Air describes vessel (airplane), and air vessel
describes the place.
If two compounded roots break a phonological rule, an unmarked reduced vowel sound
/ɛ/ may be placed between the roots. Thus yel-hay (airplane) in the previous example
would be rendered phonetically as /'jel(e)'haj/, as the consonant l must be succeeded by a
vowel or semivowel.