Athone ə
Atébé fhes ə osztpamé onsgs poȝeroite ba cen-toszte barror. Fra ŋgemt a’u dhʀotts śófh-d’sellt-kleifeobós-mosk śófh-arr, kelds; haudsodd amdos u-ŋgemt. Cinnfeis_ fhussté-manetetth-ŋgemt lite-əu-cófhtetthe. Conn ketȝile mosk keld þholbases haudsodd mitts keld śófh-thoszte. Fras. Nhothzeide ȝaþ alutən bamé tull þhamþammto mezaisz. Te’o ba arr z’occela bothe ŋhidhe. Zhomm mosk ba prosaffs_ nhueises mosk lazzh(s) tans_. Te’o ba ei occela fhe barorr ontən poȝeroite @anta’k’iwlyn. Athones.
Caffyt is a language spoken in the northern parts of the J.-Senlis. It is a sentence-oriented language that has some very fixed syntax which greatly resembles the Lisp family of languages.
The language’s phonology has a feature called “defective syllables”, where sometimes syllables are missing critical components like a nucleus and an onset. There are several types of such syllables:
- No onset, no rime
- The syllable can contain absolutely nothing. This is indicated by ⟨v⟩.
- Onset present, no rime
- This is an isolated consonant. Normally the isolated consonant is separated from other syllables using an apostrophe.
- No onset, nucleus present, no coda
- This is an isolated vowel. It is also separated from other syllables using an apostrophe.
- No onset, no nucleus, coda present
- This is also an isolated consonant.
- Onset present, no nucleus, coda present
- This is a bi-isolated consonant. The nonexistent nucleus is indicated using the letter ⟨ó⟩.
The orthography is regular though it can be a little bit tricky to decode. For more information, refer to (31 | 2) (31 | 3) (31 | 4) (31 | 8) and also the fact that if ⟨e⟩ is actually a real vowel and not a modification of a preceding vowel it’s written ⟨é⟩. As the broken T is not available in Unicode it’s replaced here with ⟨th⟩.
A sentence is defined by:
(verb positional-arguments ... :key1 value-1 :key2 value-2 ...)where verb is a verb and positional-arguments
is one or more arguments to the verb.
These are positional in the sense that they are dependent on order only
and are not marked in any way.
the key value pairs resemble words that have case.
Specifically, the key represents the case the value should take.
Note that all the positional arguments have to be filled
before the key-value pairs can be;
if needed the word nil (ə) can be used to do that.
All the positional arguments can be replaced with sentences too; if there is any inflection that belongs to the single word, then the first word in the sentence receives the inflection, even if it isn’t a word that normally receives such inflections. (Note: the RBR morpheme, explained below, is attached to the last word of a sentence.)
At the end of a sentence, a morpheme called “right bracket” (RBR) ⟨-s⟩ represents the close bracket which pairs with the implicit open bracket(s) opened by a verb. Brackets are also closed by punctuation, and certain verbs can only be closed by a matching “closing verb”, which is the opening verb with the RBR morpheme and a full stop. To distinguish the RBR morpheme from a word that has an s at the end purely by coincidence, a word-final s that is not an RBR morpheme is followed by an underscore.
Some verbs have a fixed amount of arguments it can take.
For instance, the word “ba” prop.get, ., takes exactly two arguments.
These do not require the second word to have the RBR morpheme
as it is implicit.
They may still appear in a sentence starting with “ba”
if it contains more sentences.
If for whatever reason one requires more arguments anyway,
one can make a sentence or word not count
by preceding it with the DELAY_RBR morpheme “z’”.
Every verb defines its own syntax (called a “convention” in the language). For instance, “ba” has the following syntax:
(. thing property)Here, . is the Lisp gloss of the word “ba”,
and thing and property are two arguments that must be supplied.
The meaning is “the property of thing”.
It is also defined that it “returns” property, that is to say,
if it is used inside another sentence the “head” is the thing
that is in the position property.
There’s also an alternate convention:
(. thing &rest more-things)where
(. a b c &rest more) === (. (. a b) c &rest more)In this case the word “ba” takes any number of arguments, and every argument from the first and the last one requires the DELAY_RBR morpheme, which distinguishes its use from the previous convention.
Conventions have additional markings, which start with &.
The ones that are common are &rest, &optional and &key.
&rest means that it can take any number of arguments that point,
&optional means that all arguments after that point may be omitted,
and &key introduces key-value based arguments.
All words are given a gender, which is entirely determinable from the form of the word. (31 | 53). For the key-value pairs, only the Greek part of the gender matters, and the paradigm is written in (31 | 49). The case labels are:
- Lative
- Go to, arrive at, head toward
- Ablative
- Come from, derive from, away
- Instrumentative
- with a tool, which is not consumed during the operation
- Benefactive and Disbenefactive
- for something, against something
- “Floater”
- (Spare case which is defined on a verb-by-verb basis)
- Optative
- with the hope of arriving at, planning toward, with … in mind, in view of
- Reflexive (1)
- T.B.D. (unused in this torch)
- Reflexive (2)
- T.B.D. (unused in this torch)
Other parts of the morphology are not used in this torch. Just as well because I haven’t worked much on it.
In the order of appearance.
- athone
- See *athone
- ə
nil(see *ə)- atébé
(frequently verb)- fhe
(go thing-that-goes &key to from)- osztpa
(prevent verb)- onsg
(prop-loss thing property-to-lose)(see *onsg)- poȝeroite
stick, specifically that of a tree- ba
(. thing property)(see *Syntax)- cen
(plural thing), that is to say, a plural marker. If extended, must use DELAY_RBR.- thoste
parent- barorr
charcoal- fra
- See *fra
- ŋgemt
same- a’u
(not anything), a.k.a. a negator- dhʀott
hurt/insult- śófh
- See *śófh
- d’sellt
eye- kleifeo
membership, or more generally a belonging to a particular group (may not be a formal club)- mosk
*something(see *mosk)- arr
me- keld
something- haudsodd
(repeatedly verb)- amdo
(return thing). As in “come back”, “give back”.- u
(quote thing). Surroundsthingand turns it into a quotation. It also implicitly changesthinginto a noun. Can only take one argument; cannot be extended, not even using DELAY_RBR.- cinnfeis
(persist source thing), meaning ”sourcemakesthingcontinue to exist”.- fhussté
(this thing), a demonstrative.- manetetth
(dangerous thing), an adjective.- lite
(specific thing), a definite article.- əu
(no thing), a lack ofthing. An adjective- cófhtetthə
calm- conn
(and &rest things), a conjunction. This can take any number of arguments, which can be any mix of single words or sentences.- ketȝile
(clarify source thing &key for with), meaning ”sourceexplains and clarifiesthingwith the aid ofwithso thatforis better informed for it”.- mitt
(say text &key from to for)“Saytext, whose phrasing comes fromfrom, to someoneto, so thatforis better informed for it.”- nhottzeide
(link linking-thing &key from to)- ȝæþ
road- aluŋ
here, a pronoun.- tull
village- þhamþammto
(capable thing), an adjective.- mezaisz
unfamiliar-child- te’o
(setf &rest pairs), see *te’o- occela
wish- bothe
danger- ŋhidhe
lots- zhomm
(maintain maintainer to-be-maintained)- prosaffs
(previously verb)- nhueise
(make creator creation)- lazzh
machine- tans
hardness- ei
forward-reference, a cataphor.- ons
(name generic-noun the-name)(see *ons)- @anta’k’iwlyn
- A name, pronounced “an.ta.k.iu̯l.ɪn” in IPA.
(block-of-text name
&body body)This sentence surrounds multiple sentences and requires a closing verb.
It means that body is a group of sentences
that are to be treated as a single passage.
name is the name of the story.
nil
A placeholder for arguments that have to be present but semantically nothing can be placed there.
(prop-loss thing property-to-lose)
This word means that thing would lose some attribute
which is labelled by property-to-lose.
(let (&rest vars) &body body)This is a complex system that allows words to be redefined on the fly.
Each of the items in vars is of the form:
(word &optional sentence)Of which the brackets are present even if the word is a noun
(and therefore doesn’t have an implicit left bracket).
If sentence is present,
the word word then is either redefined to mean the sentence,
or word’s meaning is mixed with the meaning of the sentence.
If it isn’t, then word is just a placeholder
meaning that every time body refers to that word
then it’s guaranteed to be the same thing.
In the text, the parts vars and body is separated by a semicolon.
This word requires an ending verb.
(every thing &key having)Means “every instance of things that are named thing”.
If provided, having is a word or a sentence
that restricts the “every” to only refer to instances
that has that thing. For instance:
(every car :having red)
means “every red car” and
(every restaurant :having (sell (derive food :from China) nil))
means “every restaurant that sells Chinese food”.
having is indicated by the floater case.
*something
A “random word”, that is to say, it may refer to something different every time it is being referred to. The referenced thing however is assumed to be irrelevant to the general meaning of the sentence and therefore don’t matter.
(setf &rest pairs)setf is one of the many copula that are used in Caffyt.
It takes on pairs of arguments in pairs, e.g.
(setf a1 b1 a2 b2 c1 c2)
where we read “a1 is b1”, “a2 is b2”, “c1 is c2”.
The difference between this copula and all the other ones
is that it conveys a sense of immediacy or novelty;
“a1” is now “b1” &c., either due to action by the speaker
or perhaps the speaker has just noticed it.
Compare harr eql, which doesn’t do that, or
oty const, which is a copula that says that a1 is always b1 &c..
(name generic-noun the-name)States that the-name is a generic-noun. For instance:
(name man Bob)
means “Bob the man”.
If expanded, must use DELAY_RBR.
The above contain references to page numbers in the Book of Conworlds, written in the form (book | page). The scans of those pages are attached below, and are in book order.
