Atemu

Syntax

Atemu has 25 consonants similar to Ezirandi. These include pharyngeal and emphatic consonants, voiced and voiceless stops, voiceless fricatives and voiced and voiceless affricates. It has three long and three short vowels. The basic word in Atemu, similar to Ezirandi, is a triliteral or biliteral root of consonants and semiconsonants. Suffixes are added to form words. The verb conjugation corresponds to the person. For example, the triconsonantal skeleton S-Ḏ-M is the semantic core of the word 'hear'; its basic conjugation is sḏm, 'he hears'. If the subject is a noun, suffixes are not added to the verb: sḏm ḥmt, 'the woman hears'.
Adjectives are derived from nouns through a process called nisbation because of its similarity with Ezirandi. The word order is predicate–subject in verbal and adjectival sentences, and subject–predicate in nominal and adverbial sentences. The subject can be moved to the beginning of sentences if it is long and is followed by a resumptive pronoun. Verbs and nouns are negated by the particle n, but nn is used for adverbial and adjectival sentences. Stress falls on the ultimate or penultimate syllable, which can be open (CV) or closed (CVC).

Root Languages

• Ezirandi

Spoken by

• Atemu Ezirandi
• Haphric Ezirandi