"Roumant", or whatever it will be called. PART I

Well, as I have some time now (and to enjoy the fact that I'm on a Macintosh,
and thus can have access to all accented vowels I want - I hope you'll be able
to read them correctly), I will present a bit of my Romance conlang temporarily
called "Roumant" (until I find the name of the people who speak it or its place
of existence...).

"Roumant" is written with the usual 26-letter Roman alphabet (but k, w and y are
quite rarely used) and some accents: the acute ´, the grave `, the circonflex ^,
the tilde ~, and the trema ¨. The last two are quite rarely used. The grave
accent marks generally a stressed vowel in the last syllable of a word (it can
also mark a different pronunciation). The circonflex accent has the same use as
the grave accent, but for vowels not in the last syllable of the word. The acute
accent sometimes marks stress, but mostly marks a different pronunciation than
usual. The tilde marks nasalisation, but is rarely used. The trema gives back to
a vowel its normal status (it has it pronounced where it's normally silent).
There is one general rule of pronunciation in "Roumant": if a word ends with a
consonnant, this one is not pronounced, unless phenomenon of liaison. But here's
a list of the different pronunciations of letters, di- and tri-graphs (the IPA
transcription is supposedly SAMPA :) ):

VOWELS:
a, à, â: /a/
ã: /a~/
e: not pronounced in the last syllable of a word, /E/ in front of two
consonnants, /@/ otherwise (e without accent is never stressed)
è, ê: /E/
é: /e/
i, ì, î: /i/
o: /O/ in front of two consonnants, or one consonnant at the end of the word,
/o/ otherwise
ó, ô: /o/
ò: /O/
õ: /O~/
u, ù, û: /y/

DIPHTONGUES: (I call "diphtongues", digraphs and trigraphs with a vowel value)
am, an: /a~/ in front of a consonnant or at the end of a word
ae: /e/
ai: /E/
au: /o/
aim, ain: /E~/ in front of a consonnant or at the end of a word
aum, aun: /O~/ in front of a consonnant or at the end of a word
em, en: /a~/ or /E~/, in front of a consonnant or at the end of a word
ei: /E/
eu: /9/ in front of two consonnants, /2/ otherwise
im, in: /E~/ in front of a consonnant or at the end of a word
ie: /i/
om, on: /O~/ in front of a consonnant or at the end of a word
oe: equivalent of 'eu'
oem, oen: /9~/ in front of a consonnant or at the end of a word
ou: /u/
um, un: /9~/ in front of a consonnant or at the end of a word
ue: /y/

SEMI-VOWELS:
i followed by another vowel: /j/
u followed by another vowel: /H/
ou followed by another vowel (or o when followed by a or i): /w/

CONSONNANTS:
b: /b/
c: /k/ in front of a, o, u or a consonnant, /s/ in front of e, i
ce: /s/ in front of a, o, u
cu: /k/ in front of e, i
ch: /S/, /x/ or /k/
d: /d/
f: /f/
g: /g/ in front of a, o, u or a consonnant, /Z/ in front of e, i
ge: /Z/ in front of a, o, u
gu: /g/ in front of e, i
h: not pronounced
j: /Z/
k: /k/, rare
kh: /x/ or /k/, rare
l: /l/
lh: /L/ (palatalised /l/) or /j/
m: /m/
n: /n/
nh: /n_j/ (palatilised /n/)
p: /p/
ph: /f/
qu: /k/ in front of e, i (equivalent of 'cu')
r: /r/ (trilled)
s: /s/, /z/ between vowels
ss: /s/ between vowels
sh: /S/, rare
t: /t/
v: /v/
w: /w/, rare
x: /S/
y: /j/, rare (and also very rarely used as /i/)
z: /z/

OTHER RULES:
- double consonnants are pronounced like their simple equivalent, but they are
pronounced even at the end of a word (note that 'mm' is: nasalizing of the
previous vowel + /m/, and 'nn' is: nasalizing of the previous vowel + /n/)
- nasal diphtongs are written with: 'm' in front of 'b', 'p', 'f', 'v', 'm', at
the end of words, and sometimes in front of 's' and 'z', 'n' otherwise.

LIAISON:
This phenomenon (quite similar to what happens in French) triggers the
pronunciation of the last consonnant of a word, when this one is followed by a
word beginning with a vowel (or h + vowel). In this case, some consonnants have
a particular behaviour:
- b is always pronounced as [p]
- c is always pronounced as [k]
- d is always pronounced as [t]
- g is always pronounced as [g]
- v is always pronounced as [f]
- s is often pronounced as [z]
- m is sometimes pronounced as [n]

STRESS:
I won't repeat what I already said in an earlier post. See that post for a
glimpse at stress marking in "Roumant".

THE ARTICLE:
In "Roumant" nouns are rarely found without a determiner. This one is generally
an article.

The definite article:
It corresponds roughly to "the" and agrees in gender and number with the noun it
completes:
masculine singular: e /@/
feminine singular: a /a/
masculine plural: ès /E/
feminine plural: as /a/
There is also the neuter article o: /o/, used to use adjectives or verbs as
nouns, or in other cases where English would use a demonstrative.
In front of a vowel or h + vowel, e, a and o become l' /l/

The indefinite article:
It corresponds to "a", but exists as well in the singular as in the plural:
masculine singular: um /9~/
feminine singular: une /yn/
masculine plural: ums /9~/
feminine plural: unes /yn/

The partitive article:
It corresponds roughly to "some" and is used with uncountable nouns, where
English uses no article at all:
masculine: ne /n@/
feminine: na /na/
In front of a vowel or h + vowel, it has a single form nel' /n@l/.

Contractions:
Except the partitive article, all articles have special contracted forms when
they follow the prepositions â /a/, de /d@/, em /a~/, im /E~/, com /kO~/ and
pêre /pEr/. I won't show them all because it would be a little boring, but here
are some examples:
â + e: ae /e/
de + as: das /da/
em, im + une: nune /nyn/
com + ès: coes /k2/
pêre + a: apêre /a'pEr/

THE NOUN:
Like in other Romance languages, nouns are of one of two genders: masculine and
feminine, and can be singular or plural. Like in French, it's not easy to
determine gender of a noun from its form, but as a rule of thumb words ending
with a silent 'e' are generally feminine. Also, many words that apply to people
are animals are often identical in masculine and feminine (and when they're not,
the feminine is often derived from the masculine by adding an -e).
Plural is generally formed by adding -s (not pronounced except in case of
liaison). But words ending with two consonnants have often their plural in -es,
words ending with an accented vowel or a diphtongue (except nasal diphtongues in
-m) make their plural in -x, and finally some words (mostly ending with a voiced
consonnant or a -m) make their plural in -z. Words already ending in -s, -x or
-z don't change in the plural.

Wow! That's enough for the first part. Next part will deal on the adjective,
adverb, and the pronouns. But for now, it's enough! :)

Christophe.