Beniten

Natively known as: benite /beˈnite/

  ...and he stood holding his hat and turned his wet face to the wind...
li e gi lihē seli yoni li nidehē we gi mazi tā wuti
Pronunciation: /li e gi liˈhə seˈli joˈni li niˈdehə we gi maˈzi tä wuˈti/
Beniten word order: and he his hat holding stood and the wind to his wet face turned  

Spelling & Phonology

  Consonant inventory: b d d͡ʒ f g h j k kʷ l m n s t t͡ʃ w z ɾ ʃ ʔ  

↓Manner/Place→	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palato-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		n
Stop	b		t d			g k kʷ	ʔ
Affricate				t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
Fricative		f	s z	ʃ			h
Approximant					j
Tap			ɾ
Lateral approximant			l

  Co-articulated phonemes  

↓Manner/Place→	Labial-velar
Approximant	w

  Vowel inventory: a ā ä e i o u ə ɨ  

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
High-mid	e		o
Mid		ə
Low	a ā	ä

  Syllable structure: Custom defined ?
Stress pattern: Second — stress is on the second syllable ?   Spelling rules:  

Pronunciation	Spelling
t͡ʃ	ch
kʷ	kw
ʔ	'
j	y
d͡ʒ	j
ʃ	sh
ɾ	r
ɨ	ī
ə	ē
ä	ā

 

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Grammar

  Main word order: Subject (Prepositional phrase) Object Verb. “Mary opened the door with a key” turns into Mary with a key the door opened.
Adjective order: Adjectives are positioned before the noun.
Adposition: postpositions ?  

Nouns

  Nouns have two cases:

• Nominative is the doer of a verb: dog bites man.
• Accusative is the done-to of a verb: man bites dog.

	Nominative	Accusative
Singular	Prefix ji- yihiyi /jiˈhiji/ dog (doing the verb)	Prefix ja- yahiyi /jaˈhiji/ (verb done to) the/a dog
Plural	Prefix ni- nihiyi /niˈhiji/ dogs (doing the verb)	Prefix mɨ- mīhiyi /mɨˈhiji/ (verb done to) dogs

 

Articles

 

	Definite	Indefinite
Singular	le /le/ the	gi /gi/ a
Plural	mi /mi/ the	ch'e /t͡ʃʔe/ some

  Uses of definite article that differ from English:

• Used for personal names in third person: ‘The Maria has left for school’
• Used for languages: ‘The English’

 

Pronouns

 

	Nominative	Accusative
1st singular	i /i/ I	yī /jɨ/ me
2nd singular	mā /mä/ you	ti /ti/ you
3rd singular masc	e /e/ he, it (masc)	ni /ni/ his, it (masc)
3rd singular fem	ch'e /t͡ʃʔe/ she, it (fem)	le /le/ her, it (fem)
1st plural	me /me/ we	lā /lä/ us
2nd plural	k'o /kʔo/ you all	wu /wu/ you all
3rd plural	li /li/ they	gē /gə/ them

 

Possessive determiners

 

	Possessive
1st singular	ke /ke/ my
2nd singular	le /le/ your
3rd singular masc	gi /gi/ his
3rd singular fem	ē /ə/ her
1st plural	yi /ji/ our
2nd plural	ge /ge/ your (pl)
3rd plural	k'a /kʔa/ their

 

Verbs

 

Present	Prefix mi- mimila /miˈmila/ learn
Past	Prefix se- semila /seˈmila/ learned
Future	Prefix mɨ- mīmila /mɨˈmila/ will learn

 

Numbers

  Beniten has a base-12 number system:   1 - ne
2 - ge
3 - sa
4 - ni
5 - gi
6 - be
7 - k'i
8 - k'e
9 - mefe
10 - ise
11 - fe
12 - ya
144 - yite
1728 - lima
 

Derivational morphology

  Adjective → adverb = Suffix -t͡ʃi
Adjective → noun (the quality of being [adj]) = Suffix -bi
Adjective → verb (to make something [adj]) = Prefix jɨ-
Noun → adjective (having the quality of [noun]) = Suffix -kʔi
Noun → adjective relating to noun (e.g. economy → economic) = Suffix -tʔɨ
Noun to verb = Suffix -wi
Verb → adjective (result of doing [verb]) = Suffix -ni
Tending to = Suffix -tʔi
Verb → noun (the act of [verb]) = Prefix be-
Verb → noun that verb produces (e.g. know → knowledge) = Suffix -ne
One who [verb]s (e.g. paint → painter) = Prefix mə-
Place of (e.g. wine → winery) = Prefix ba-
Diminutive = Suffix -hɨ
Augmentative = Suffix -na