Pahana

==Overview==
Pahana is a machine-parseable, natural-language representation, encoded in a pronounceable form. It consists of a dictionary of ground-words and building-words. All ground words are semantic units and these can also be combined with building words, in accordance with certain rules, in order to form new semantic units.
==Consonants==
 type hard soft range(English)
 ---------------------------------
 labial p m bmpw
 dorsal k h cgkqx (silent or glottal-stop)
 dental t n djlnt
 fricative s - sfvz
==Vowels==
 a ah - uh
 e eh
 i ee
 o oh - oo
==Syllables==
 pa ka ta ma ha na
 pe ke te me he ne
 pi ki ti mi hi ni
 po ko to mo ho no
==Word construction==
A word always begins with a short consonant (p,k or t)
and short consonants may only begin a word, that is, may 
not occur within a word.
Building words are distinguished from ground words by 
the suffix -s.
A building word which ends in -a or -e takes one semantic unit
A building word which ends in -i takes two semantic units
A building word which ends in -o takes two or more semantic units
==Syntax==
There are two types of words in pahana:
# ground words
# building words
A ground word is a word whose meaning does not depend on any other words
in a sentence. For example, "car" is a ground-word. "Happy" is also
a ground-word.
A building word is any word which is not a ground-word - it is a word whose
meaning depends on the words before it in the sentence.
Pahana is a postfix-language, meaning that it works like Reverse Polish
Notation or a stack-based computer language. Each building word in Pahana 
requires a specific number of semantic units.
A semantic unit is a ground word, or a syntactically valid combination of 
ground words and building words.
==Examples==
General notes on grammar:
 - Adverbs and adjectives are not distinct when used as building words
==Ground words==
http://www.wordfrequency.info/files/entriesWithoutCollocates.txt
Compounding:
An adjective-noun pair or adverb-verb pair can be formed from two such
ground words by simple concatenation. So fast can be joined to car for
fastcar or hard can be joined to run for hardrun. This reduces the need
to pepper sentences with the "of" building word.
==Building words==
Walk before you fly...
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13853/13853-h/13853-h.htm
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7841/pg7841.html
 does-os
 X Y does-os -> "Y does X" where X is any activity, particularly verbs. 
 "Run John does-os" -> John runs.
 
 of-os
 X Y of-os -> "Y of X", e.g. "house of red", "red house of-os"
 
 since/when/after/if-os
 X Y if-os -> "If Y, then X"
 
 so-that-os (in order to)
 X Y so-that-os -> "so that X, Y"; "Y so that X"; "Y in order to X"
 
 decl-os
 X Y Z decl-os -> "X does Y to Z"
 X: noun
 Y: verb
 Z: noun
 
 who-os
 X Y who-os -> "Y who does X"
 
===Adverbial Clauses===
 
 Group 1 - Y is the dependent clause
 
 Time 
 X Y when-os -> "X when Y is/has come"
 
 Conditional 
 X Y if-os -> "X if Y"
 
 Reason
 X Y because-os -> "X because Y"
 
 Concession
 X Y although-os -> "X although Y"
 
 Place 
 X Y where-os -> "X where Y is"
 
 Manner
 X Y like-os -> "X like Y"; "X similar to Y"
 
 Group 2 - X is the dependent clause
 
 Purpose
 X Y so-that-os -> "X in order to Y"
 
 Comparison
 X Y as-much-as-os -> "X as much as Y"
 
 Result
 X Y so-much-so-that-os -> "X so much so that Y"; "X with the result that Y"