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Rokadong: Difference between revisions
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===Nouns=== | |||
Root noun morphemes are usually one to three syllables long. There are many derivational affixes in Rokadong as well, including but not limited to: | |||
* ''jan-'' - instrument of the root (occasionally also fills the role of ''-sona'') | |||
* ''-sona'' - actor or someone characterized by the root | |||
* ''vota-'' - collectivity, similarity, instrument of the root | |||
* ''-an'' - object or place characterized by the root (occasionally also fills the role of ''vota-'') | |||
* ''i(t)-''/''-(k)il'' - quality or abstraction of the root, often used to derive adjectives | |||
* ''fen-''/''fer-'' - abstraction, place (especially with ''-an''), goal, or result | |||
Nouns do not decline for gender. In fact, many Rokadong nouns for animals or people do not have a natural gender by default, especially for native words. Nouns also do not decline for plurality, using numerals instead if context demands it. Full reduplication, or numeral-like determiners like ''{{term|unya}}'' and ''{{term|tékuha}}'', could also be used to pluralize. However, full reduplication does not always result in a plural word. | |||
===Particles=== | |||
Particles generally are applied to nouns. An unmarked noun is said to be in the direct case - as Rokadong uses Austronesian alignment, both the agent and object of a verb may be unmarked if it is syntactically redundant. The other cases are marked by a particle preceding the noun (and its measure word and numeral, if present): | |||
* Genitive ''to'', used for possession, apposition, origin, reference, and description | |||
* Ergative ''ká'', used for the agent of a verb | |||
* Accusative ''pá'', used for the patient (direct object) of a verb | |||
* Locative and instrumental ''gun'', used for the location of a verb and the means by which it was performed | |||
* Dative ''laki'', used for the indirect object or the benefactor of a verb | |||
These particles become prefix-like proclitics when they apply to pronouns, with ''gun'' and ''laki'' shortening to ''gu'' and ''la''. However, they could be considered proclitics in all cases, as they frequently are pronounced as if they are prefixes, especially given that outside of careful pronunciation, the final vowel of these case particles replaces the starting vowel of nouns that start with /a/. | |||
==Syntax== | ==Syntax== | ||
===Constituent order=== | ===Constituent order=== | ||
In transitive sentences, Rokadong tends to place the agent before the verb and the objects after the verb. However, Rokadong does not have a subject in the Indo-European sense, so this word order is notated "AVO" rather than "SVO". Additionally, the verb can be moved from ''agent trigger'' into ''patient trigger'' with the prefix ''{{term|ká}}''. Both the agent and direct object can also be marked individually as such with ''ká'' and ''pá'' respectively. As a result, the word order of Rokadong is relatively free, though AVO is the most common word order, although OVA is common too, and VAO is rare but not unheard of. The first of the three is the topic of the sentence. | |||
===Noun phrase=== | ===Noun phrase=== | ||
Adjectives and determiners follow the noun they apply to. Much as in the natural language Spanish, numerals are often considered adjectives, but they precede the noun rather than succeeding it. This means that even though ''{{term|tékuha}}'' and ''{{term|unya}}'' express an amount of something, they are determiners and not numerals, as they follow the noun. Prepositions and case particles precede the noun they apply to. | |||
When placed in the genitive, a noun is considered an adjective, and is placed after the noun it applies to. That is, the phrase "cup of sugar" translates to ''ruhung to kairi'', not ''kairi to ruhung''. | |||
===Verb phrase=== | ===Verb phrase=== | ||
Adverbs are considered a form of adjective, and follow the verb they apply to. | |||
===Sentence phrase=== | ===Sentence phrase=== | ||
===Dependent clauses=== | ===Dependent clauses=== | ||