Morphology

The morphology of Eberban is composed of 16 consonants (n, r, l, m, p, b, f, v, t, d, s, z, c, j, g, k), five vowels (i, e, a, o, u) the letter h, the hyphen - and the quotation marks [ and ], for a total of 24 symbols. Among the consonants, n, r and l are designated as (alveolar) sonorants, and play an important role in Eberban’s morphology. The alphabetical order is hnrlmpbfvtdszcjkgieaou. The same letter appearing multiple times in a row is considered identical to the letter not being repeated, but can informally be used in written media to convey length of sounds in speech. Any other character is considered a space, and quotation marks are also considered a space outside of foreign quotes syntax (explained later).

Strings of multiple vowels and h appear a lot in Eberban’s morphology, and thus are coined vhowels in this book. Note that in vhowels, h can only appear between two vowels.

Words are usually written separated by spaces, however this is not mandatory. Spaces are only mandatory before words starting with a vowel or a sonorant.

Eberban text is usually written all lowercase (outside of foreign text quotes), but uppercase can informally be used in written media to convey volume (such as yelling). No punctuation symbol is used but informally punctuation from other languages can be used as long as the proper Eberban grammar is also used. . is commonly used to visually join two words that must have space between them, while one or many . surrounded by spaces usually convey a longer pause in speach. Hyphen can be used at syllable boundary to make them stand-out without breaking the word in two, and also allows a word to continue on the next line.

Word types

Particles

Particles are words exerting grammatical functions. They can either:

  • start with a single non-sonorant consonant, followed only by vhowels, like zi, mio or tiho.
  • start with a sonorant or vowels, and be a string of vhowels and sonorants. They can end either with a vowel or sonorant. Exemples: a, ol, ahu or nu.

Particles are themselves categorized into families having identical grammar but different meanings. Those families are usually designated using a particle in capital letters (like MI or VEI), which is by convention the first particle in this family in alphabetical order.

All other words are predicate words and express intrinsic meanings, such as “cat”, “language” or “teach”. They are grouped into the following categories :

Roots

Roots are the building blocks of the language and express meanings that would be hard or too long to convey otherwise. They can either:

  • start with a single non-sonorant consonant followed by a mix of vhowels and at least one sonorant or medial consonant pair, like ban, mana, cuina or marne.
  • start with a valid initial consonant pair followed by a mix of vhowels and any number of sonorants or medial consonant pairs (even none), like bju, cpena or djin.

A sonorant can appear only between two vowels or at the end of the root, while a medial pair can appear only between two vowels, but not at the end.

The following chart shows initial pairs in light blue, medial pairs in pink, and invalid pairs in dark gray (with a short explanation for why they are invalid):

Chart of valid initial and medial pairs

Borrowings

Borrowings allow importing foreign words or names. They are prefixed by the vowel u, and have more relaxed rules about consonants than native Eberban words. Mainly, they can contain consonant triplets which must obey the following rules:

  • Consonant pairs must either be initial pairs, medial pairs or sonorant
    • consonant.
  • Consonant triplets C1C2C3 are valid if C1C2 is a medial pair and C2C3 is an initial pair.
  • Alternatively, consonant triplets can be a sonorant followed by an initial pair.

After the u prefix the borrowing can start by a vowel, a single consonant, a initial or medial consonant pair, a consonant triplet or h. If this first letter is a u it must be prefixed with a ’ to separate it from the the prefix.

Borrowings must end with a vowel, or a vowel followed by a single consonant (not only sonorants). In written media, borrowings must be followed by space(s), which is realized in speech by pausing after the borrowing to properly separate it from the following word.

Similarly, the initial u must be preceded by space(s), and realized orally as either a pause or a glottal stop.

Freeform variables

Freeform variables allow defining predicates with a custom name. They follow the same morphology as borrowings but use the i prefix instead of u.

Compounds

Compounds allow making new words from multiple other kind of words. They start with either e, en or er and follow the same rule as the u of borrowings. Their structure will be detailed later in this book.

Example

With spaces : a za umia tsen eberban
Without spaces : aza’umia’tsen’eberban

Particles : a, za
Borrowing : umia
Freeform variable: ibar
Root : tsen
Compounds : eberban

Reasoning

Outside of borrowings and assignable names, encountering a non-sonorant consonant or a pause means it is the end of a word; unless it the first letter of a medial consonant pair which cannot be misunderstood for the start of a new word. Spaces prevent words starting with a vowel or sonorant to “merge” into the previous words.

These simple rules prevent any ambiguity of word boundaries, which is called a Self-Segregating Morphology.