Borrowings (u-)

Borrowings allow importing words from other languages which would be difficult or even impossible to translate using root words, such as proper names, names of species, and some cultural concepts Eberban avoids including in its roots to be more culturally neutral.

Borrowings start with the letter u, followed by the borrowed word written in the phonology and morphology allowed by Eberban while trying to stay close to the original pronounciation.

If the borrowed word starts with u then the prefix used is u’ to avoid 2 consecutive u.

A chain of multiple borrowings will count as only one predicate composed of multiple parts. To prevent two borrowings from fusing into one predicate, you can separate them with the particle be (be can optionally appear after every borrowing group but is only necessary when separating multiple groups).

A borrowing’s meaning is not defined in Eberban, and its truth value is always undefined. It can be used to import foreign words that interlocutors will collectively understand, but using non-borrowings is always preferred if possible. Borrowings can have any number of arguments, and since it is not defined in Eberban, each of them is considered to be generic. No type inference can be informed, therefore, vie/via/... must be used for predicate equivalence bindings.

Like roots and compounds, borrowings are transitive if they end with a vowel, while they are intransitive if they end with a consonant (not only sonorants).

Borrowings can be used to import proper nouns by prefixing them with particle za, which gives it the meaning [tce* man] is named [borrowed word] (a more complete explanation of za will be given at a later chapter).

Example