Author: losophyp

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Diinlang 2.0: Thickness Modifiers

Version 2
The four thickness adjectives/adverbs are:
Gaung.
Dep.
Vid.
Leng.
Gaung denotes vertical distance, mainly of something that is solid or continuous. If something is tall it is “tagaung”, if someone is short the are “kogaung”. Mountains are tagaung, but so is the Earth’s crust. For altitude and vertical distances through the air you would use “up”. You could describe a thick cloud as tagaung, however.
Dep is also vertical, and covers such properties as deep, depth and deepness. Dep therefore usually describes downward directions. Water or a hole might be dep. “Kodep” is shallow, “tadep” very deep. Like any modifier these can be modified as comparisons or superlatives.
Vid is width and is laterally horizontal. “Kovid” is thin or narrow, “Tavid” is broad.
Using “ze-” or “it–” as a prefix to a descriptor makes it obvious that a statement is relative to an object’s orientation, rather than the speaker’s viewpoint.
Leng is horizontal depth or thickness. You might say that the drawers of a desk are “taleng”, for example. Leng also sees uses that in English we might use “long” for. If a trip is a long way through a deep forest in Diinlang taleng would be used for both “long” and “deep”.
Gaung, dep, vid, leng.
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Diinlang 2.0 Prepositions Group 2

Version 1.4

Here is the second group of updated prepositions for Diinlang 2.0. These are probably the class of words Ogden called “directives”. To facilitate learning the prepositions will be given in clusters of no more than seven items. 
Up/lo are the Diinlang words used for “up” and “down”. Their use is a little more general than their English homophones. One possible option is to have a single term for vertical height/altitude and use “ko” for low/decreasing properties and “ta” for high/increasing. This may still need another property for things below the observer. In the system below up and lo are relative to the observer or another reference. If you look up you would describe something using “up”, if down, “lo”. “Ta” and “ko” then describe if the distance is large or small, respectively. Up and lo can be used with the words “ta ”(large/big) and “ko” (little/small) to make positives, comparisons and superlatives. This gives twelve potential combinations but some of these will see less use than others. The potential combinations are as follows:

taup            very high/ high above
artaup        more higher
ustaup        highest/ top
koup           not very high/ just above
arkoup       less higher
uskoup       least highest

talo        very low/ low down
artalo    more lower
ustalo    most lowest/ bottom
kolo       not very low/ just below
arkolo   less lower
uskolo   least lowest

Dek/lev are right/left, collectively called “siy” (side(s)). If necessary these can become positives, comparisons and superlatives, as can other directives. Dek/lev often combine with pronouns to make the Diinlang equivalent of “my left”, “your right”. When the third person pronoun is used (ze, zo, za or it), zelev means “port” and zedek or itdek means “starboard”. Directions are relative to the front of the object, creature or vessel, assuming it has an obvious front.
Van/hin are front/back. These can be combined with pronouns, positives, comparisons and superlatives if necessary.
In/eks are in/out. These four pairs of words can be remembered by visualizing a cube or box. It has six sides and also an inside and outside. Diinlang  uses “in” for some uses not commonly seen in English. “In” is used as a preposition for travelling to geographical and physical locations. The Diinlang for “Are you going to France?” is “Ke (yu) bi go in Franca?” It could be said this is a contraction of “into” in English. Rather than travelling “on a train” or “by a train” Diinlang uses the more logical “in un trayn”, although “on un trayn” may also be used.
The words above can combine with other words for related meanings. The word “do” (pr. doh) means a place or location. “Usta-up-do” is thus the highest part of something. “Indo” is inside of something. In an older post I suggested the word “ru” for surface, and this could be used like do. The prepositions ad, po and di can be combined with the words mentioned above, to describe a location in relative terms. “Ad/po zedev” means to/from portside. “Ad syn” – “beside/to the side”. Inad =into, although “adin” may be more logical.
The directives can be combined with “go” to describe movement in a particular direction. “Upgo” is to move upwards/ascend, “eksgo” is to move outwards. This mechanic extends to other words. “Trago” would mean “to move-through” and “imigo” “to move between”.
Sub/ov respectively mean under/below and above/over.  “Sub” is used with this meaning in many languages, but its antonym “super” has become fuzzier in its meaning, and is a little long, so “ov” can be used instead. There are alternate terms that can be constructed using the words above. “Up po”, literally “up from” can mean above, and “lo po” down-from, or under.
A related system to the above will be constructed for describing height, depth, width and thickness.
Group 2: Up/lo, dek/lev, siy, van/hin, sub/ov.
Since I first wrote this page I came across the Novial adverbs subu (down, downwards), inu (inside) and eku (out, outside), derived from the prepositions sub (under), in (in) and ek (out of, out from). These are simple and clear. To these I suggest up/upu for up/upwards, above.
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Language

Diinlang 2.0: The Vocab Plan

Version 1.1

Part of the original plan for Diinlang was for words to have a “CVn” format, where “C” is a consonant, “V” a vowel and “n” a nasal such as m, n or ng. One problem is that this would give us a very limited number of words if homophones were to be avoided. The second is one of definitions. Are C and V single letters, or should they be phonemes? If the latter, what sort of consonant clusters should be permitted? The problem that “w” poses to some speakers may mean that “kv” is to be treated as a homophone of “kw”. This has yet to be finalized, but I am working with the idea that no more than two consonant phonemes occur at the start of the word. Certain double letter combinations such as th, st, sh, kw, jh are counted as one phoneme, as may be the three-letter “eks”. Thus a word such as “strong” is permissible in Diinlang.
Diinlang will have some CVC words and syllables. Hard terminal sounds such as -t and -k are useful for some words. There are likely to be CVCV words too, given currently certain adverbs are made by adding “-i” or “-li” to the end of a word. Also, certain words are gendered by adding “-o” or “-a”.
There are also lots of potentially useful words that can be formed from CV or VC. Hogben makes this interesting observation about the potential of Dutton’s Speedwords:
“One advantage of a language designed to achieve maximum word-economy in Ogden’s sense recalls R. J. G. Dutton’s Speedwords, an ingenious system of international shorthand which makes use of monosyllables in Roman script, thus cutting out the effort of learning a new and esoteric system of symbols. With 5 vowel and 20 consonant symbols we can build 100 open syllables like to or be, and 100 open monosyllables like at or up, making 205 pronounceable elements, if we add simple vowels to the list. Closed monosyllables like pat or top containing no consonant clusters add another 2,000 possibilities. Since Basic English gets along with a word-list of 850 essential items, it is clearly possible to design a language of which all the root words would be monosyllabic, like the root words of a Chinese language. A language so designed need not be compromised by a superfoetation of homophones, as in Chinese; but it could not be a language based exclusively on current international roots, many of which are polysyllables.” 
It is logical that two-letter words be used for the most common concepts and uses. This includes various pronouns, determiners and conjunctions. In actual fact I have already represented some common conjunctions by single letters. In Diinlang we have 17/18 potential consonants. The letter “c” is redundant, “q” is represented by “kw” and “x” by “eks”. The utility of an initial “w-” has yet to be finalized. In the previous post I looked at the idea of having sixteen vowel sounds. Only five of these can be written as a single letter. Also, the terminal rule states that “-a” or “-o” at the end of a word use the phonemes “ah” or “oh” and “-u” uses “uu”.
Our potential CV words are thus: “Ca, Ce, Ci, Co, Cu, Cay, Cee, Cor, Ciy, Coy, Cou, Cyu, Cuh” but only 85-90 are possible two-letter configurations. There may be less since some Ce and Ci forms may be near homophones. Some CV words using “eks-” are potentially five letters long.
85-90 gives us a useful pool of two-letter words we can use for pronouns and other suitable uses. Add to this a number of potential two letter VC words and single-letter V words.
Once these are fleshed out, more thought can be given to CVn, CVC and CVCV words. Ideally the former pair are each single syllables that represent a useful concept, permitting logical and easily understood compounds. Some of the “spare” and longer CV words will see similar use. For example, “kwa” would be a useful word for “water”. “kwamek”: “water-machine”, “kwajhen”: “water-person” and so on.
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Language

Diinlang 2.0 Participles

When creating a conlang a common strategy is to avoid inflecting verbs. This is a logical approach, since it makes a language much easier to learn. There are, of course, other approaches. Esperanto goes for lots of suffixes!
With Diinlang, I aimed for uninflected verbs, but hit a bit of a wall. To be really useful most verbs need progressive and perfect tenses. Many conlangs neglect these.
In English the progressive and continuous forms are created by the suffix “-ing”, as in “running, hoping, laughing, singing”. Unusually for English, this is a rule that applies to all verbs, without exceptions. The “-ing” form is also the active/present participle: used as an adverb and adjective, and forms the gerund, a noun derived from a verb. The progressive form is commonly used instead of the simple present for many dynamic English verbs.
For regular English verbs, the perfect is the same as the simple past tense form, and ends in “-ed” In many commonly used verbs it ends in “-en” or may take other forms, such as ending in “-t”. The perfect form is also used as the past/ passive participle for creating adverbs and adjectives, and may be used for nouns.
This gives us considerable nuance. Consider: “the open door”. “the opening door” and “the opened door!” or “We can help the falling, but not the fallen!”
This suggested that a verb in Diinlang needed a simple, continuous and perfect form.
The main way to express tense in Diinlang is using a short word before the verb. In another post I discussed that a distinct past form of some verbs would be useful. If “te” is to be used as the preverbal marker, it can also be added to the end of a verb, giving a final, past-sounding word. In many languages the perfect or continuous tense of a verb is not just signified by a particular verb form, but also by the use of an auxiliary verb. For many English verbs, the word for the perfect and simple past are the same, and they are distinguished by the perfect using “to have” as an auxiliary. For Example: “I carry; I carried; I have carried”. Continuous use of English verbs always accompanies the -ing form with “to be” used as an auxiliary: “I am carrying” not “I carrying”.
The equivalent verbs in Diinlang are “bi/bite” and “av/avte”. Using a dummy verb for an example, we have a simple past of either ze te VERB or ze VERBte, a continuous tense of ze bi VERB and a perfect of ze av VERB. Potentially we could write ze av VERBte, but this is a redundancy. The tenses are distinct, without the need to worry about the verb form.
All this is very simple, but what about those other useful applications of the -ing and perfect forms? Unlike English, the present and past participles, gerunds etc will need a different form. Many languages do this already. Hogben argues that there is merit in having the amplifiers (adverbs, abstract nouns and adjectives) of a language as distinct, giving a reader a clearer idea of which are the nouns and verbs being modified. Having the participles as separate forms to the verbal is not as simple as English, but may contribute towards greater ease of use.
For the active/present participle I propose taking the bare infinitive of the root verb and adding the suffix “-in”. I actually adapted this from Molee’s proposal for past-participles, who suggested -en or -n. Some active participles may become VERBn rather than VERBin once I work out some simple rules. English uses “-ing” for this while many other languages use a variation of “-end(e)/-ant(e)”, so phonetically this is easy to remember.
For the past/passive participle I propose using the suffix “-ge”. We already have “ge/gete” as an auxiliary verb that makes a clause passive: “ze ge VERB”, so VERBge is logical.
When used with an article or other relevant determiner, the VERBin/VERBn and VERBge forms can be used as nouns or part of a noun phrase.
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Language

Battle Language

When I started this blog I meant to write down some ideas on battle-language. I never got around to it. A friend just rattled my cage about this, so some initial thoughts:
Vocabulary. Vocabulary will be specialized and rather small, which will make the language easier to learn. Battle-language will be used in noisy and chaotic conditions so clarity is a priority. Each word will be distinct and there will be no homophones or other sources of confusion.
To facilitate learning, many words will have common roots. For example, the word for “mortar”, “mortar-operator” and “using a mortar” will have a common root. There will be specific words for different types of threat. An airborne threat will have a different noun to that from a ground vehicle or dismounted individual.
Subject. Subject, object and verb will be distinctive so there is no confusion what function a word is performing. This allows considerable flexibility in the order of words in a sentence.
Object. A noun used as an object will used the same word as used for the subject, but will have some form of marker or affix to indicate its status. In many sentences the object will be a target, so there may be a marker specifically for targets, and another for more general objects.
Verbs. Verbs will have a distinct form. There are likely to be many verbs meaning “to-shoot”, one for each class of weapon. Thus selecting the correct verb informs the listener what weapon the speaker wishes to be used. Many verbs will have a dative and ablative form. For example, one form will be an order to shoot at something, the other a warning about being shot at from something. There is also likely to be a wide choice of verbs for movement. A third group of verbs will describe more general actions such as “rest a short while”, “search”, “track”.
Modifiers. A number of adjectives and adverbs will be needed for descriptive clarity. The speaker may want to specify that the target is the red-house, tall-house, large-house and so forth.
Many of the words in battle-language will have hand-sign equivalents, allowing users to communicate information silently when needed.
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Diinlang 2.0 Possessives

There are several ways to form a possessive statement in Diinlang.

The simplest is to place the noun or pronoun for the owner before the possession, using it rather like an adjective.

Jon kanis = Jon’s dog.

Jon vz kanis = Jon’s dogs.

The second way is to use the above construction but place the word “vo” before the possession. This emphasises that the statement is possessive. The plural “voz” is used when needs to be made clear there is more than one of the possessions. Note that “vz” in the example above stands for “vez” (plural definite article) not “voz”.

Jon vo kanis = Jon’s dog.

Jon voz kanis = Jon’s dogs.

The third method of construction places the possession(s) before the owner and links them with “di”. This can be shortened to “d”.

Kanis d Jon = Dog of/belong Jon

Vz kanis d Jon = Dogs of/belong Jon.

When the phrase (clause) has a verb things get a little more involved:

Jon VERB vo kanis = Jon VERB his dog.

In such a clause the object(s) denoted by vo(z) are specifically those of the subject. Compare to:

Jon VERB zo kanis = Jon VERB his dog.

Jon VERB zo vo kanis = Jon VERB his dog.

Here the Diinlang version tells us the owner of the dog is male, but not necessarily that of the direct subject of the verb. This should be clearer if we change the pronoun:

Jon VERB zo kanis = Jon VERB his dog.

Jon VERB zo vo kanis = Jon VERB his dog.

Jon VERB ze kanis = Jon VERBs their(singular person's) dog.

Jon VERB zez kanis = Jon VERBs their(other people's) dogs.

Jon VERB zez vo kanis = Jon VERBs their(other people's) dog.

Jon VERB zez voz kanis = Jon VERBs their(other people's) dogs.

“Jon VERB zo kanis” has some ambiguity, but not as much as English. “Jon VERB vo kanis” has a specific meaning. A careful writer may reserve the other constructions for when the possession is not that of the clause subject. The object is assumed to be singular unless it has voz, vez/vz, jez/jz, before it. This may become a general rule for Diinlang. Only place a pronoun before the object when it represents someone other than the subject. To understand this better re-read the above sentences replacing zez, ze, zo or za with a name  such as “Mary” or “Peter”.


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Launching Diinlang 2.0

Version 2.4
Recently I created a shorthand system for a friend of mine. This, in turn, gave me some ideas that could be applied to Diinlang. These changes are of sufficient magnitude that they constitute a new version, Diinlang 2.0.
Some of the changes that have been made include:

Articles

Articles (and other determiners) are how a common noun is identified. A verb or other non-noun is turned into a noun by giving it an article or determiner.
ve/ vez  is the definite article (“the” in English). Note that it has a singular and a plural form.  je/ jez is the indefinite article, equivalent to “some” in English. It also has singular and plural forms.
These can be shortened to “v” or “j” and “vz” or “jz” for the plurals.
un is an alternate singular indefinite article, equivalent to “1, one, a, or an” in English. It can be pronounced with a long “uu” sound like the French “une”, or short like “en” or “an”. Shortened form can be the numeral “1”, since “u” is already used for a pronoun. Un may also be used when an impersonal pronoun is required. It is the equivalent of the English use of “one” in context such as “One should always brush one's teeth”.
ve and je can be optionally gendered to indicate the gender of the noun. The forms are “veo, vea, jeo, jea”. Potentailly un might be “uno” or “una”. 

Plurals

Nouns are made plural by changing their determiner, rather than infecting the noun. Many natural languages pluralize both the article and the noun, but this is redundant and can lead to ambiguity when there is an error. Using a number higher than “1” for a determiner makes the noun plural. Using a plural article (vez or jez) makes a noun plural.
Uncount/ mass nouns use the singular form of article.

Bi and Av

The verb “bi” (to be) has the short form “b”, the verb “av” (to have) has the short form “h”. Verbs are named by combining their bare infinitive and past forms. Hence “to be” in Diinlang is called “bi/bite” and “to have” is “av/avte”.

Personal Pronouns

The personal pronouns are now based upon “em”, “yu” and “ze”, with the short forms “m”, “u” and “z”. These are, respectively, the first, second and third person. The plural forms add “-z”. Optional objective marker is “-em” or “-m”. The gendered forms of “ze” remain “zo” and “za” and “it” remains third person impersonal. For the moment I intend to retain “mi” as an alternate to “em”, both using “m” as a shorthand. Mi and em are fully interchangeable. “Tu” will be retained as an alternative to “yu”, and this may be more comfortable to the speakers of certain languages. Note that there is no formal/informal distinction between tu and yu in Diinlang. They are fully interchangeable.
The plural pronouns are made by adding “-z” to the singular forms. All male or all female groupings can be emphasised with “zoz” or “zaz”. “Yu” only needs to be pluralized if it needs to be emphasised that more than one person is being addressed or referred to.
If needed, an “inclusive we” pronoun can be constructed as “ yu-em/ yu-emz”.
The objective nature of a pronoun can be emphasised by adding the ending “-m” or “-em” to give, for example “zem” or “zemz”.

Reflexive constructions (“myself”, “himself”) are made by repeating the related pronoun or by use of the pronoun “se/ sez”. Se is used in this manner in several languages. English speakers can remember this from their phrase “per se”.
Jon VERB himself = Jon VERB zo/ze or Jon VERB se.
“Su/ suz” is a relative pronoun used to join two clauses. This can be remembered from the English word “subject”. It is the equivalent of the English “who”, “what”, “which”, or “that” when used in a non-interrogative sense. For “whose” it combines with “vo” as “su vo”.

Comparative and Superlative

Comparative and superlative change once again. “ar-” forms the comparative suffix, “us-” the superlative. These combine with “ta” and “ko” or other terms as “e-” and “o-” did. Hence, “arta, usta, arko, usko”. This will hopefully avoid confusion with terms like “email”, “econference” etc. As in English, “us-” has to be preceeded by the definite article to be a superlative. On its own “us-” it is a pronoun meaning “more/less than half”.
For the word “than” for comparison Diinlang can use “as, imi or di”. The construction “as…as” is used when two items are the same in some respect. Alternately the word “iyso” (same, equal) may be used. 

Yes and No

In addition to “ya” and “no” for yes and no the alternates “yay” and “nay” will be permissible. Short forms for both forms of each are “y” and “n”. This should help add variety and euphony. When “no” is prefixed to a vowel it becomes “non-”.
More changes and new ideas to follow.
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Language

Possession in Diinlang

Following the latest changes to Diinlang I will cover how possession is dealt with. There are several ways to do this in Diinlang.
The first way is to use an “X of Y” construction as is used in most Romance languages. In Diinlang “the book of Jon” would be “de buuk da Jon” and “the books of Jon” is “dez buuk da Jon”.
As in English, the possessor can be placed before the possession. In English this uses the apostrophe that so mystifies so many users. In Diinlang the system is simpler and uses the connecting word “vo”. “Jon’s book” is “Jon vo buuk”. To say “Jon’s books” “vo” can be pluralized to make “Jon voz buuk”. The same mechanisms are used with pronouns, which do not change other than being placed with “da” or “vo”. “De buuk da mi”, “mi vo buuk” are “The book of mine”, “My book” and so on.
“vo” effectively marks as noun or pronoun as being the possessor of the thing discussed. Therefore “buuk Jon vo”, “buuk mi vo” and “dez buuk Jon vo” are viable constructions.
Note that the use of “vo” is effectively optional. It can be omitted when the meaning is clear. Looked at another way, it is applied when clarity is needed. Such a construction is most likely to be used with a pronoun or proper noun. With normal nouns the meaning may be less clear. Thus, “Jon’s book” can be simply “Jon buuk”.
The third mechanism is to use the possessor as an adjective for the noun of interest. “The Jon book” = “de Jon buuk” or “de buuk Jon”. This can also be done with a pronoun: “de mi buuk” or “de buuk mi”. This system is most useful when the possessor is designated with a pronoun or proper noun. With other nouns the meaning may become unclear and one of the other schemes should be used.

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Chinese into Diinlang

Yesterday’s post got me thinking further about importing Mandarin/ Standard Chinese words into Diinlang. The main problem is that many words are rendered the same in English, the only distinction being the tone marker. On the plus side, the potential exists for a consistent system to derive a word dependent on the tone value assigned. For example, for the word rendered in pinyin as “ma” the first tone, meaning “mother” would be “ma”, the second, for “hemp” would be “mab”, the third for “horse” would be “mak” and so on. In practice some of these words and meanings already have other assignments, but that is an example of how the mechanic might work.
The following is a suggestion to get the ball rolling. The actual system is undoubtedly better managed by someone with a better knowledge of Standard Chinese than my own.
Most Chinese words are composed of an initial and a final. The initials are all consonants. Initials are combinations of vowels or semi-vowels and some may end in the codas -n, -ng or more rarely, -r/-er. In some words there is a medial between the initial and final, written in Pinyin as i-, u- or ü- but often having a y-, w- or yu- sound.
The standard system for converting Chinese into the Roman alphabet is Pinyin, which unfortunately for our purposes is not phonetic. Some of the Roman letters it uses it assigns very divergent phonemes to. More useful for our purposes is Bopomofo (Zhuyin). Interesting is that the symbol that Bopomofo uses for “en” Pinyin changes to “-in” if there is a “y-” medial before it. Similarly “eng” becomes “ing” or “ong” in Pinyin depending on medial. Just to complicate matters, the actually pronounciation of “ong” is apparently closer to “uung”.
Bopomofo has seventeen symbols for finals. Pinyin renders these as the following. I have put more phonetic renditions of some words in green. Some of these finals may be preceded by medials, which would change the Pinyin spelling:
i, yi, wu, yu, a, o, e(uh), ye, ai(iy), ei(ay), ao(ou), ou(oh), an, en, ang, eng, er
A word/ syllable in Bopomofo is therefore up to three characters plus a tone marker or number. To use this for creating Diinlang words a consistent protocol for transcribing initials needs to be adopted. –n and –ng endings work well for Diinlang, therefore any modification of the word for tone should precede nasal codas. How to handle “en” and “eng” also needs to be considered. Should these become “in” and “ing” when preceded by a “y”?
Standard Chinese has four tones and a neutral tone. If the number one tone is transcribed directly from Bopofomo this suggests we need four modifier letters that can be placed at the end of a final and before a nasal coda. Possible letters are b, l, k, r, s.
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Language

Suffixes Creating Verbs : Part Two

I have been thinking further on the affix system for Diinlang. I decided to start with the verb suffixes since these were likely to be the smallest category. Many Diinlang words become verbs simply by using them as verbs, as in English. The verbal suffixes create particular meanings.
The first two suffixes are “-ika” and “-ija”. Both of these convert attributes (adjectives or adverbs) into verbs.
-ika creates a verb meaning the action of making, causing or rendering into the root or causing an object to gain the characteristic of the root. –ika verbs are causative. For example, “redika”, from “red” means “to cause to turn red” and “duika” from “du” means “to have something done”. In the latter case the verb is formed from another verb. “ika” (or possibly “ka”) on their own mean “to cause, make or render”.
-ija means to become or begin to be in the state described by the root. It forms inchoative/ inceptive verbs. Using the same examples “redija” means “to become red” (“to blush” perhaps?) and “duija” “to start doing”. “Ija” means “to become”, “to begin”. Note that -ija verbs are likely to be intransitive. For more complex statements “ija” can be used as an auxiliary verb with other verbs. For example, the English construction “I began to cause something to be red” is simply “Mi ija redika je”.
-ika and –ija may be considered equivalents to Esperanto’s “-ig-/ -igi” and “-iĝ/ –iĝi”. In Esperanto these affixes also have the function of converting intransitive verbs into transitive (igi) and transitive into intransitive (-iĝi). Consideration of this mechanism for Diinlang needs to be made.
The next verb suffix for Diinlang is “-iza”. This creates verbs from nouns.  –iza forms a transitive verb meaning: to “cover with, add to, supply with or ornament with”. Some of its applications may overlap with –ika, as was noted for Novial’s “-isa” and “-ifika”. “to fletch” something is to add feathers, so the Diinlang verb would be created from the word for feather with an “-iza” ending. Likewise, salting something would be an “-iza” verb.
“-ifa” also creates verbs from nouns. “-ifa” means to generate or produce the root or produce as the root. For example, the Diinlang verb for “to bleed” would be created from the word for blood (“blud”, “sang”?) with an “-ifa” ending. Ifa on its own can be taken to mean construct, fabricate, generate etc. The word for blood with an -ika ending would mean “to wound drawing blood”.
“-imu” creates verbs from nouns with the meaning of turning something into the root. “mu” or “imu” have the meaning of changing or transforming. In many cases nouns can be turned into verbs without the need of a suffix. For example “the heat” becomes “to heat”. -imu can be used when clarity or emphasis is needed. Some uses of -imu may overlap that of -ika or -ija.
To create a verb that indicates something is repetitive the earlier suggestion of “-ada” is replaced by “-adre”, formed by combining “ad” (to) and “re” (repeat). For some verbs this suffix may be used before the other suffixes listed above. For example, a verb meaning to produce a constant hammering would end in “-adreifa”.
For an equivalent to Novial’s “-ira” I am going to suggest “-adu”, created from “ad” and “du” (do).