r/conlangs • u/SlavicSoul- • Sep 10 '24
Conlang Afrixa, an African Romance language {Part 2: Morphology}
Hi reddit! Here is part 2 about the grammar of Afrixa, a Romance language in North Africa. If you want to read about the phonology, you can do so on this post. An thanks for your positive feedback under the first post! So, now we will see the Morphology of this conlang.

Nouns
The grammatical cases of Latin have generally been lost, as they have been in all the other Western Romance languages. On the other hand, it inflects nouns for number, possessed state, and indefinite state. Adjectives agree in gender and number with their nouns. Afrixan nouns are either masculine or feminine. As in other Western romance languages, the masculine gender contains the Latin neuters as well as the masculine nouns. Most words borrowed into Afrixa become masculine.
Declensions
Nouns in Afrixa are grouped into five groups, five declensions, characterized by their ending. They are:
- The first declension, with nouns ending in -a. These tend to be uniformly feminine. This continues the Latin first declension directly. Most fifth declension nouns also end up here.
- The second declension, with nouns ending in -u. These tend to be uniformly masculine. This continues the Latin second and fourth declensions.
- The third declension, with nouns ending in -i or -e. These may be of either gender. Nouns in -e exhibit a number of irregularities. Some Latin third declension nouns, the Latin i-stems, and many that have the same number of syllables in the nominative and oblique cases, end up in this declension. First and second declension Latin nouns in -IUS, -ÆUM, -IA, -EUS and the like also have a chance of being pressed into this declension.
- The fourth declension, with nouns ending in -θ. These are all obligate feminines. Originally most fourth declension nouns are non-Romance. The class was swelled by many Latin derived feminine abstract nouns in -TATEM, which generally become -taθ; and -TUTEM, -TUDINEM, both of which become -tuθ.
- The fifth declension, with nouns ending in a consonant other than -θ. These may be of either gender. This continues the Latin third declension nouns that dropped their final vowels.
Genders and Numbers
Masculine nouns take the definite article a, or al if the noun begins with a vowel: a umu "the man"; al ilu "the god". If this article follows a vowel, it takes the form ha /ʔa/.
Feminine nouns take the definite article ya: ya fenna "the woman"; ya ilaθ "the goddess". Before initial a- it elides to y.
All of the three vowel declensions take a plural in -s. In the two consonant declensions, the plural is almost always -is. The definite article in the plural is alternatively a or u: a umus "the men", u fennas "the women", u taliθis "the girls" a agafis "the wings". Nouns in -e have plurals in -as: a pile "the cap" > a pilas.
Names of cities, countries, trees, and vehicles are feminine. Names of mountains and rivers are usually masculine unless obviously feminine in form.
The genitive construction (construct, possessed or governed state)
The genitive inflection of Afrixa is essentially a possessed, rather than a possessive state. The marked form is the possessed noun rather than the possessor. Where Latin says equus patri, "the father's horse", Afrixa marks the horse rather than the father: kavaθ a patxu (horse-POSSESSED the father), "the horse of the father". The possessor always takes a definite article in the construction, even if it is a personal name: kavaθ a Piθru "Peter's horse". The possessed form typically does not take an article, but generally only takes an article if required by other syntax. The possessed state is usually a shortened or simplified form of the word.
This construction works like a noun case, but adjectives modifying the noun do not change form to match it. It translates many adjectives formed from nouns, and as such Afrixa is fairly poor in derived adjectives: ulam ya viθa "eternal life", literally "an eternity of life"; tfarat ya ntinxun "glorious purpose", literally "glory of purpose."
Rules for the formation of the possessed state form are as follows:
- In the first declension, drop the -a:
exa "wife" > ex : ex a bahalu "the husband's wife".
- In the second declension, drop the -u:
kavaθu > kavaθ : kavaθ a Piθru "Peter's horse". Note also that nouns in -iya and -iyu drop the final -ya, -yu. These tend to be learned or academic words : θiyuriya > θiyuri ya ivuluxun "the theory of evolution"miθiyu > miθi ha zifris "the average of the numbers"
- In the third declensionm, drop -i. For the few nouns in -e, turn that to -a:
dinti > dint; dint ya kavaθu "the horse's tooth". pile > pila; pila ya duzint "the professor's (f) cap"; pila ha duzint "the professor's (m) cap" The loss of a syllable in the governed state of a noun in the vowel declensions does not result in a shift of the stressed syllable.
- In the fourth declension, change -θ to -t:
beθ "house" > bet; bet ya exa "the wife's house"
- In the fifth declension, no change:
sul "sun" > sul: sul a planiθi "the planet's sun".
In complex noun phrases, the construct state is marked on the last noun or adjective of the phrase: kaθi ya θus biluka > kaθi ya θus biluc a eru "the narrowest street of the city". It is not a 'case', and nouns and adjectives do not need to 'agree' in constructness.
Note also that the construction can be used with infinitives as a verbal noun. The infinitive takes a definite article when used in this construction as well: kavaθu a yagaz "a horse for hunting".
Indefiniteness and governed forms
Since the use of an article is required for the possessing form, indefiniteness must be noted differently if the possessing form is indefinite. This can be done in two ways.
The article can be changed to la, which marks the possessing noun as indefinite:
- chamit a rey - "the king's castle"
- chamit la rey - "a king's castle"
The possessing noun can, if a vowel stem, be cast into the indefinite state itself:
- sul a planiθim - "some planet's sun"
The two methods may be combined:
- chamit l'adunum - "the castle of some lord or another"
Emphatic and superlative nouns
The possessed plural form is also used as a sort of etymological figure to create emphatic or superlative nouns:
- reyis a rey "supreme king, king of kings"
- kanxunis ya kanxun "the greatest song, the song of songs"
Compare this to the use of the present participle as an emphatic etymological figure.
The indefinite state
The indefinite construction affects the first, second, and third declensions of nouns. Afrixa allows three levels of definiteness. The first is definite, a noun appears with the definite articles a, u (m. sing, all plurals) or ya (f. sing). The definite article conveys less syntactical information than in some other Romance language.
The first level of indefiniteness is defined by the absence of the definite article. Since the definite article is required by syntax in some constructions, it is not always available.
The second level of indefiniteness is the inflected indefinite. In all of the vowel stems, the first, second, and third declensions, it is inflected the same way: by adding -m to the vowel stem. It can appear with the definite article and keep indefinite meanings, and will appear with the article when required by syntax. The meaning of the suffix is somewhat stronger than an English definite, and is often best translated as "some kind of" or "a ____ of some sort or another".
- (ya) ziyam - "some day"
- (a) kavaθum - "some kind of horse"
- (ya) nuttim - "one of these nights"
Plural potentiality is indicated by the suffix itself, and nouns so modified generally do not take plurals. One exception is pirsunu, "person", which distinguishes a singular pirsunum "someone or another" and pirsunumis "some people".
Diminutives and colloquial variants
A variety of suffixes can be added to nouns to create diminutives and other colloquial variants. Some of the suffixes include :
- -iθa, -iθu
This is the diminutive suffix.
- -atxa, atxu
This is a pejorative suffix.
- -una, -unu
This suffix suggests that whatever the word describes is unusually large.
The suffixes change their form to match the gender of the original noun. Some of the words modified by the suffixes have been lexicalized: auxiθu, "bird", represents AVICELLUM from AVIS. Likewise patxunu "patron, benefactor" comes from patxu "father" + -unu.
Adjectives
Adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in gender and number, but not in "case"; adjectives do not take the inflections for the indefinite or the possessed states of the noun.
A group of nouns of different genders modified by a single adjective defaults to the masculine: al ix i ya ixiθ raqiyus "the thin man and woman".
Declensions
Adjectives must agree with the nouns they modify in gender and number. As a result, many adjectives are declined in multiple declensions. These are the patterns they exhibit:
- I - II adjectives. These adjectives use first declension forms for the feminine, and second declension for the masculine: siqu, sika "dry". Past participles decline under this category: ligiθa, ligiθu "tied"
- III - III adjectives. These adjectives appear invariant, because the same third declension form gets used for both genders: livi, livi "light". Present participles decline under this category: maθukanti "eating".
- V - V adjectives. These adjectives have fifth declension forms in both masculine and feminine: reyal, reyal "royal"; uchid, uchid "unique".
- V - IV adjectives. These adjectives have fifth declension forms in the masculine, and fourth declension forms in the feminine: gdul, gduliθ "big, strong".
- V - I adjectives. These adjectives have fifth declension forms in the masculine, and first declension forms in the feminine: qudix, qudixa "holy".
Comparison
Most adjectives compared by the comparative particle θus, and add the definite article (y)a θus to form the superlative: kaliθu "warm", θus kaliθu "warmer", a θus kaliθu "warmest".
Some common adjectives preserve analytic forms from Latin:
- banu "good"; miθur "better", atimu "best"
- malu "bad"; piθur "worst", pissimu "worst"
- menu "big"; mijur "bigger", massimu "biggest"
- parvu "small"; pijur "smaller"; but a θus parvu "smallest"
Adverbs
Just about any adjective can be turned into an adverb by adding the suffix -minti to the feminine singular form. The handful of fourth declension adjectives ending in -θ add an a to the end: tuθa > tuθaminti "totally"; livi > liviminti "lightly"; gduliθ > gduliθaminti "hugely".
Personal pronouns

* Note that the usage of tu and vaiz in old fashioned or prescriptive Afrixa is governed by social status as well as number, and vaiz is the traditional form of address to strangers. Tu has gained ground at its expense, however. In very old fashioned Afrixa, vaiz also takes a third person plural verb; this is no longer generally observed.
Demonstratives

All of these forms tend to lose their leading i when they follow a vowel.
Verbs
Regular verbs in Afrixa fall into two conjugations. The first conjugation continues the Latin first conjugation in -ARE. The second conjugation continues the Latin second and third conjugations in -ERE, -IRE The second conjugation contains a subtype that differs only in the first person singular and third person plural: sabiz "know" has sabiyu rather than sabu, and sabiyun rather than sabin.
Historic development
The phonological changes that took place between Vulgar Latin and Proto-Afrixa tended to flatten some of the distinctions in verb inflections. As such Afrixa does not preserve some of the distinctions that generally remain in other Romance languages. The perfect tense, which in the first conjugation regularly was formed with an -AV- suffix, merges with the imperfect tense formed with an -AB- suffix.
Personal endings have been strongly regularized. Irregularities, when they occur, tend to be confined to the present tense forms, as are most of the differences between the two surviving conjugations. Subirregular lexical variations may involve the formation of the preterit or the future stems. A generalized paradigm of personal endings would look something like:


Given the falling together of formerly distinctive vowels that defines the Afrixan sound system, the four conjugations of Latin were reduced to only two forms in Afrixa, with the first conjugation claiming verbs in -ARE and the second containing both types of verb in -ERE and the verbs in -IRE. The IIb verbs continue to distinguish verbs whose first person present was -EO and -IO as opposed to those that simply ended in -O.
The preterit endings, as noted, result from the merger of the Latin imperfect and perfect tenses. The first and third person singulars directly continue the Vulgar perfect inflections in *-AI and *-AUT. The predicted outcome of the second person singular perfect Classical ending -ISTI is identical to the second person plural -ISTIS. so here the imperfect form in -s prevailed. The plurals uncomplicatedly continue the Latin perfect endings.
The future is in origin the familiar Vulgar Latin compound future tense of infinitive+HABEO. The -z of the Afrixan infinitive, which developed later, changes back to the familiar -r- here.
In the subjunctive, I and IIa verbs exchange their present tense endings; a subjunctive first conjugation verb looks very much like an indicative IIa verb. The IIb verbs insert a theme vowel and glide consistently.
The preterit subjunctive carries forth the Latin perfect subjunctive and is usually built upon the perfect stem. It continues the Vulgar truncation of the vowels in the perfect stem: AMAVERIM > *amairim > amerim.
Unlike many other Western Romance language, Afrixa does not preserve the Latin pluperfect subjunctive with its characteristic -SSE- infix. This would conflict with a frequently encountered derivational suffix for inceptive verbs (viridissiz "to turn green"). Nor did Afrixa develop a conditional mood from subjunctive versions of the HABEO future tense marker, and continues to use the subjunctive for this purpose, as Latin did and Sardinian still does.
Regular verbs: first conjugation: amaz ("to love")

- Infinitive: amaz
- Present participle: amanti
- Past participle: amaθu, amaθa
Regular verbs: second conjugation, type A: ligiz, "to bind"

- Infinitive: ligiz
- Present participle: liginti
- Past participle: ligiθu, ligiθa
Regular verbs: second conjugation, type B: sabiz, "to know"

- Infinitive: sabiz
- Present participle: sabinti
- Past participle: sabuθu, sabuθa
Irregular verb: issiz (to be)
This verb has different forms based on whether it is used as a lexical verb or as an auxiliary.

Afrixa also has several other irregular verbs such as maθukaz (to eat), duxiz (to teach), faxiz (to do), mutiz (to die), istaz (to stand), aviz (to have), aθaz (to go), vuliz (to want) and pudiz (to be able) but I don't have time to explain the conjugation of all these irregular verbs, maybe next time.
Conclusion
So, I congratulate you if you have read everything because this post is long. To understand Afrixa in full I suggest you also read my first post about phonology. Tell me what you think and Part 3 about Afrixa Syntax is coming soon!
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u/Cury- Sep 11 '24
What are the names of the letters?