Brexxo

## Classification and Dialects

Brexxo is a well-known language isolate, although research is ongoing regarding possible affiliations with other languages. Despite its relatives which have been confirmed, Brexxo does have some dialectal variation of its own, in the dialect of Advenara. A member of the Bijouxi language family, it is related to Bouic and Halcyonian. Mostly spoken in the Bijoux capital of Brexxon, its namesake; this standard is the form reflected in this article unless otherwise noted.

## Phonology

### Consonants

Brexxo has a fairly average-sized consonant inventory, with 19 total consonant phonemes. Its inventory is fairly standard in its contents as well, with the notable features being its series of palatalized coronals, and the phonemes which are realized in most dialects (including the standard) as affricates, of which /p͡ɸ/ and /k͡x/ are unusual.

 Fricative
 Trill

The most salient of consonantal allophony in Brexxo is the typical intervocalic voicing of non-aspirated obstruents, including affricates; this voicing also applies in clusters with voiced consonants (i.e. sonorants). The sibilants /s/ and /ʃ/ may also voice to [z] and [ʒ], respectively, when in a coda preceding a nasal stop in the following onset. Furthermore, the liquid /rʲ/ may be realized as [j] in consonant clusters in the standard dialect, while in some non-standard dialects it may be realized as such in all positions, leaving [rʲ] and [j] to be in free variation in such dialects.

In the actual dialect of Advenara, the bilabial and velar affricates are reduced to fricatives, however this is a shift unreflected in the standard form of the language.

### Vowels

Even more average than Edebro's consonants are its vowels, which form the common five vowel system.

 Mid
 Low

Despite the fairly small inventory, Brexxo vowels do not exhibit significant allophony. The mid vowels do lower, however, to [ɛ] and [ɔ] before phonetically voiced consonants (so this includes voiceless stops which have been intervocalically voiced). Additionally, non-low vowels in word-initial position receive epenthetic glides when the preceding word also ends in a vowel.

While the dialect of Advenara, and the standard form, lack diphthongs, some dialects retain diphthongs from older forms of the language. Such diphthongs include /ai/, /au/, /ei/, /ou/, /ia/ and /ua/; these have been monophthongized to /e/, /o/, /i/, /u/, /a/, and /a/, respectively, in the varieties that lack them.

### Phonotactics

Brexxo's syllables may consist of a maximum of CCVC. Syllable onsets may consist of any lone consonant or a cluster of a plosive or nasal with a liquid. A nucleus, of course, may be any vowel.  Syllable codas in Brexxo may only be a sibilant fricative or sonorant.

### Stress

Stress in Brexxo is contrastive, and plays a key role in distinguishing nouns from verbs. Nouns are typically marked with word-final stress, while verbs are usually marked with penultimate stress.

## Writing System

Stress may optionally be indicated with an acute on the stressed vowel; this is typically done in dictionaries, but otherwise omitted from writing. Digraphs, besides those involving <j>, ought to have both elements capitalized when capitalized, but this is often neglected.

## Grammar

### Nouns

Brexxo nouns are morphologically quite simple. They do not inflect for case or definiteness, although they do decline according to number. While singular nouns remain unmarked, plural nouns are marked through reduplication, of the first CV pair in consonant-initial nouns, and of the first vowel with an epenthetic glide in vowel-initial nouns. An example of both is demonstrated in the following table:

 dog

In front vowels, the epenthetic glide is [j]; in back vowels, it is [w]; and in the low vowel /a/, it is [ɦ] as seen above.
Nouns also do not have gender, although they do have an inherent animacy level. This animacy level is not marked explicitly on the noun itself, but will be relevant later for verbal conjugation.

### Pronouns

Brexxo has few personal pronouns, having only true pronouns for the first and second persons. However, demonstratives can also be used in a standalone fashion that act as third person pronouns. The pronouns are presented in the table below.

 2nd
 For
 3rd
 AnDist
 InanProx
 InanDist

When used as a standalone pronoun, demonstratives have an optional plural form formed via reduplication. These are typically only used when the context would otherwise leave ambiguity. Personal pronouns do not vary in form for case, and do not have distinct possessive forms. Possession by pronoun is instead constructed the same way as possession by a regular noun.

### Verbs

In Brexxo, all clauses (with one exception, which will be covered later) require two parts to express the function of a verb: a lexical verb and an auxiliary verb.

While the lexical verb, which carries the semantic content of the action or state being described, does not inflect for any grammatical information itself, the auxiliary verb inflects for categories of transitivity, inversivity, voice, tense, and mood. The forms of auxiliary verb appear in the chart below.

Lexical verbs may be either active or stative. While stative verbs will typically take the copular auxiliary, active verbs may take the intransitive, direct or inverse, and some active verbs, such as verbs of movement, may also take the copular auxiliary.

As Brexxo is a direct-inverse language, the auxiliary verb makes a distinction in inversivity in transitive clauses. The direct form of the auxiliary verb is used in clauses in which the more animate noun is taking the role of the agent, while the inverse form is used when the less animate noun is the agent. Therefore, a sentence like *sjúrjo anjásj tjo mas* translates to "a man saw a dog," while the same sentence but replacing *mas* with *mare* results in a translation as "a dog saw a man."

### Syntax

Brexxo is a head-final language with a mandatory auxiliary verb. As such, its underlying default word order is SOVA (subject, object, verb, auxiliary). However, as Brexxo is topic-prominent, this is often not the order that actually surfaces. Both topic and focus are mandatory in all transitive matrix clauses, except when both arguments are pronouns, as pronouns cannot be focused. Topics are fronted to the beginning of the clause, and focuses immediately precede the auxiliary verb. The auxiliary verb always appears at the end of a clause, apart from any complementizer that may be present.

Because there is no morphological case marking on nouns, and word order is complicated by the topic-comment structure, Brexxo has no morphosyntactic case. Instead, to indicate the roles of arguments in transitive clauses, nouns are inherently ranked on an animacy hierarchy; nouns higher on the hierarchy are the agent by default. In cases where the lower animacy argument is the agent, the auxiliary verb is marked with an inverse marker, *-re*, which indicates that the arguments' roles are reversed. This system is known as direct-inverse alignment.

Additionally, as there is no agreement marking on verbs, Brexxo is not pro-drop; pronouns must always be explicit. Furthermore, there are no articles such as 'a' or 'the', but Brexxo does have a set of demonstratives, *ru* 'this (inan.)', *dsa* 'that (inan.)', *ki* 'this (anim.)', and *dsjas* 'that (anim.)'; which also function as the third person pronouns. These words reduplicate for plurality when functioning as pronouns, but not when determiners.

Brexxo employs serial verb constructions, often for expressions that would be conveyed in English using adverbs. In these constructions, the clause has two or more lexical verbs, but only one agent and one auxiliary verb; there may be more than one patient, however. In cases with multiple patients, patients may intercede the lexical verbs, but only one may be focused. Other uses for serial verb constructions in Brexxo are to express causally or temporally linked actions, or actions/events with more than two arguments.

Brexxo has no true adjectives, but rather stative verbs that must occur alongside the copular auxiliary *o*. When modifying a noun, these stative verbs occur within a relative clause. Relative clauses are constructed using a gapped construction with a relativizer particle, which appears as the clitic *=m(i)*. Relative clauses, in accordance with head-final tendencies, precede their heads.

Brexxo indicates possession via a locative construction, and makes a distinction between alienable and inalienable possession. Alienable possession is expressed with the postposition *e* 'at', while inalienable possession is indicated with the postposition *no* 'on'. In possessive clauses, the possessor is expressed as an argument, and the possessee as an adpositional phrase, linked by the copular auxiliary *o*.

Simple polar questions are formed by the addition of the question particle, *sje*, to the end of the clause, following the auxiliary verb. Content questions are formed using interrogative pronouns, which are always placed in the focused position, preceding the auxiliary verb.

Imperatives are formed by omitting the auxiliary verb (or in other analyses, by use of a zero auxiliary), and in those cases directed towards a second person singular, the subject. In the latter cases, the lexical verb may appear alone, or followed by objects or adpositional phrases. In second person plural or first person plural imperatives, the pronoun always occurs before the verb (effectively in the topic position).