Dosogbuian

...and he stood holding his hat and turned his wet face to the wind... bú u haʻu utúsi shú dædu bú yúbu shú mato kesúnu kpapa gbi Pronunciation: /by u ˈhaʔu uˈtysi ʃy ˈdædu by ˈjybu ʃy ˈmato keˈsynu ˈkpapa gbi/ Dosogbuian word order: and he stood holding hat his and turned his face wet the wind to

Spelling & Phonology

Consonant inventory: /b d f g gb h j k kp m n p s t w ʃ ʔ/

↓Manner/Place→	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palato-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		n
Stop	p b		t d			k g	ʔ
Fricative		f	s	ʃ			h
Approximant					j

Co-articulated phonemes

↓Manner/Place→	Labio-velar	Labial–velar
Stop		kp gb
Approximant	w

Vowel inventory: /a e i o u y æ/

	Front	Back
High	i y	u
High-mid	e	o
Near-low	æ
Low	a

Syllable structure: (C)V Stress pattern: Penultimate — stress is on the second last syllable Word initial consonants: b, d, g, gb, h, j, k, kp, m, s, t, ʃ Mid-word consonants: b, d, f, g, gb, h, j, k, kp, m, n, p, s, t, w, ʃ, ʔ Word final consonants: N/A
Phonological changes (in order of application):

• {k,g} → [+palato-alveolar] / _E
• N → ŋk / _V
• k → g / _ʔ
• k → Ø / _#
• u → w / _a

Spelling rules:

Pronunciation	Spelling
j	y
y	ú
ʃ	sh
ʔ	ʻ

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Grammar

Main word order: Subject-Verb-Object-Oblique. "Mary opened the door with a key" turns into Mary opened the door with a key. Adjective order: Adjectives are positioned after the noun. Adposition: postpositions

Nouns

Singular

	Masculine	Feminine
Definite	Suffix -mu gbebamu /gbeˈbamu/ the man	Suffix -bæ hahebæ /haˈhebæ/ the woman
Indefinite	Suffix -gæ gbebagæ /gbeˈbagæ/ a man	Suffix -wa hahewa /haˈhewa/ a woman

Plural

	Masculine	Feminine
Definite	Suffix -fe gbebafe /gbeˈbafe/ the men	Suffix -pe hahepe /haˈhepe/ the women
Indefinite	Suffix -bo gbebabo /gbeˈbabo/ some men	Suffix -ju haheyu /haˈheju/ some women

Articles

Dosogbuian encodes definite article ‘the’, and indefinite article ‘a’ in noun affixes. See Noun section.

Pronouns

1st singular	sú /sy/ I, me, mine
2nd singular	do /do/ you, yours
3rd singular masc	u /u/ he, him, his
3rd singular fem	mu /mu/ she, her, hers
1st plural	gbu /gbu/ we, us, ours
2nd plural	dæ /dæ/ you (all), yours
3rd plural masc	shæ /ʃæ/ they, them, theirs
3rd plural fem	yú /jy/ they, them, theirs

Possessive determiners

1st singular	ba /ba/ my
2nd singular	i /i/ your
3rd singular masc	shú /ʃy/ his
3rd singular fem	u /u/ her
1st plural	kpe /kpe/ our
2nd plural	bo /bo/ your
3rd plural masc	e /e/ their
3rd plural fem	kpa /kpa/ their

Verbs

Present	No affix ufúpe /uˈfype/ study
Past	Suffix -su ufúpesu /ˌufyˈpesu/ studied
Remote past	Suffix -gbo ufúpegbo /ˌufyˈpegbo/ studied (long ago)
Future	Suffix -wa ufúpewa /ˌufyˈpewa/ will study

Perfect aspect

The perfect aspect in English is exemplified in ‘I have read this book’, which expresses an event that took place before the time spoken but which has an effect on or is in some way still relevant to the present. Dosogbuian uses the word for ‘already’ gbuyu for the perfect aspect.

Numbers

Dosogbuian has a base-10 number system:
1 - mu 2 - tu 3 - du 4 - yo 5 - súdu 6 - tuwæ 7 - súfe 8 - kekpæ 9 - túno 10 - shænu 11 - shænumu “ten-one” 100 - mu suso “one hundred” 101 - mu suso bú mu “one hundred and one” 200 - tu suso 1000 - mu gegbæ “one thousand”

Derivational morphology

Adjective → adverb = Suffix -su Adjective → noun (the quality of being [adj]) = Suffix -na Adjective → verb (to make something [adj]) = Suffix -su Noun → adjective (having the quality of [noun]) = Suffix -kpy Noun → adjective relating to noun (e.g. economy → economic) = Suffix -ti Noun → verb (to create [noun]) = Suffix -su Verb → adjective (result of doing [verb]) = Suffix -ti Verb → adjective (likely to do [verb]) = Suffix -ti Verb → noun (the act of [verb]) = Suffix -kpu Verb → noun that verb physically produces (e.g. build → building) = Suffix -gæ One who [verb]s (e.g. paint → painter) = Suffix -hæ Place of (e.g. wine → winery) = Suffix -ke Diminutive = Suffix -ho Augmentative = Suffix -ʃæ

Dictionary

4328 Words.