Welp, been off the project for a few days because of busy work, but today I put in a half hour and am happy to say that my lexicon is coming along. I'm aiming at an intentionally simple language (more or less based on toki pona) but it's not so minimal as that. So far I have a few formality distinctions in which grammar particles you use (<li> is a formal predicate marker, <wa> is informal). Also I decided to go with a distinction between temporary and intrinsic ownership! I'm considering putting nouns into noun classes... but I haven't decided on that yet.
Now there are noun classifiers! And tone! Tone marks parts of speech. Function words have a neutraltone, verbs have a high tone, and noun phrases (which are all two-syllable) have rising-then-falling. Not sure about pronouns yet--maybe positionally determined?
- / \ | for neutral, rising, falling, high
la? wa- gha| ding| ka- ding/ ku\
She wants to eat wheat.
Or... something like that.