Rortodjo

Consonants

Manner/Place	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palatal	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m	n		ɲ
Stop	p b	ⱱ	t d	c	q
Affricate			ʧ ʤ
Fricative		f v	s z ʃ ʒ	ç ʝ	χ ʁ	h
Approximants	w	ɹ			w

Phonotactic Rules

• Vowel harmony is enforced through entire word.
• Any glide can come after any stop or voiced fricative.
• No consonant clusters around nasals.
• Glides, liquids, and fricatives can be doubled.
• Glides cannot come after unvoiced fricatives.
• If clustered, an unvoiced fricative is dropped if it is next to z or š.
• A stop cannot be between a glide and a fricative.
• A voiced consonant between two fricatives becomes unvoiced.
• H cannot be followed by more than one consonant.
• Any consonant between two of the same fricative is dropped.

Onsets

• Onsets can include nasals without consonant clustering.
• Words cannot start with a glide or liquid.
• No two fricatives can be at the start of a word with no vowel between them.

Codas and Clusters

• Words cannot end with a nasal final.
• No two voiced stops can cluster in a coda.
• Coda cannot end in a glide or liquid + h.

Stress & Syllables

• Syllable structure: (C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)
• Timing: Stress-timed
• Stress: penultimate syllable unless the preceding syllable starts with a fricative or vowel.

Noun Class

Rortodjo has three noun classes: natural, artificial, and supernatural. All nouns fit into one of these categories. They are delineated by vowel domains. Natural nouns use close/front vowels, artificial nouns use close/back vowels, and supernatural nouns use open vowels. In order of domain dominance, supernatural is highest and artificial is lowest.   Natural nouns include people, aimals, plants, and elements. Artificial nouns include man-made objects, including man-made structures; inanimate objects; and abstract ideas. Supernatural nouns are used in polite 3rd person address, prayer, fiction, and for words related to physical fitness or sand.

Number

Rortodjo has three grammatical numbers: a singular, a dual, and a plural. Singular refers to one object, dual to two objects, and plural for three or more. Number is marked with affixes.   Singular: unmarked/noun stem
Dual: -x + class-specific vowel
Plural: -v + class-specific vowel
  Nouns have their noun class built into them with the vowels that are present. Any vowel ending denoting number must fall within the varying rules for noun class (i.e. a natural noun cannot have a number marker with a vowel in the artificial domain).   Example:
Stem/Singular: marq = "one prayer"
Dual: marqxá = "two prayers"
Plural: marqva = "many prayers"
 

Pronouns

There are first, second, and third person pronouns. They all specify singular, dual, or plural.   First person can be declined for all noun cases (natural, artificial, and supernatural), but in practice the artificial and supernatural first person pronouns are used exclusively in fiction and other narrative forms of storytelling where deities or artificial objects could be speaking. First person pronouns can be singular, dual, or plural.   Second person is declined for all noun cases. They can be singular, dual, or plural.   Third person pronouns are not declined for all noun cases because they are split into polite reference and casual reference. There are no third person artificial pronouns.

	Singular	Dual	Plural
First	x_	x_x_	x_v_
Second	z_ś	z_śx_	z_śv_
Third (Polite)	kaj	kaxaj	kavaj
Third (Casual)	kíj	kíxi	kívó

Word Order

• VSO: Verb Subject Object
• Adjectives precede nouns.
• Adpositions are prepositions.
• Possession is marked possessor-possessee.

Verbs

Tense

The four basic tenses are gnomic, present, past, and future. The gnomic tense implies a true fact ("dogs bark") and is the unmarked stem of the verb. The present tense has a suffix based on the verb "to be." The past has a prefix based on the verb "to force." The future has a suffix based on the verb "to run."

Aspect

There are five aspects: discontinuous, iterative/repetitive, perfective, imperfective, and conative. Discontinuous, perfective, imperfective and conative verbs are followed by auxiliary verb forms of "to break," "to finish", "to stand," and "to be able," respectively. The iterative/repetitive aspect is marked with reduplication.

Mood

There are six moods: indicative, subjunctive, optative, jussive, necessitative, and imperative.

Transitivity & Noun Class

For non-transitive verbs, there is a single vowel slot that is used to denote the noun class of the subject of the verb.
For transitive verbs, the verb is broken into two clusters. The first syllable with of verb reflects the subject's noun class. The second half of the verb depends on the object's noun class. If both the subject and object are of the same, then the verb is kept as a single word with both vowels of the same class.
If the subject and object are part of different noun classes, then the second part of the verb is moved behind the subject and placed near the object to maintain vowel harmony.

Zidi xiq nõq. The person takes the child.

Zi xiq do ksu. The person takes the rock.

Consonants*

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive	p b		t d	c	k	q
Nasal		m/ɱ/	n
Tap or Flap		ü/ⱱ/
Fricative		f v	s z j/d̠ʒ/	j/ɖʐ/ š/ʂ/ ž/ʐ/	x		h
Approximant		w/ʋ/	r/ɹ/

Vowels*

	Front	Back
High	i î/ɪ/	u
Close-mid		o
Open-mid		õ/ɔ/
Open	a/æ/ â/ɐ/

* Note: if not otherwise marked, letters refer to their IPA sound equivalent.