UREd/Grammar

Morphology

Part of speech

Roots are groups of one or two unchangeable syllables that convey a general meaning or a concept. They are suffixed and prefixed in order to obtain meaningful words and compounds.

• Ex. Viv~ [Aspect of life]

Four parts of the speech can be obtained by suffixing the root: nouns (-o), adjectives (-a), infinitives (-i) and adverbs (-e).

• Ex. Vivo [Life], Viva [Alive], Vivi [Live], Vive [Lively]

The plural suffix -y and the accusative suffix -n can be attached to certain stems to mark it with case and number.

• Mi ne kunnovas t’amon [I don’t know love]
• Mi balas la pilon [I throw the ball]
• T’amoy kalas [Love is beautiful lit. Loves are beautiful]

Articles

There are two definite articles, “la” and “ta”, that respectively refer to a specific element of a class, and to the class itself.

• La fono [The sound], Ta fono [Sounds]

Articles are marked for neither case nor number, and therefore are considered to make up a separate word class. Articles are way less used than they are in English. They are not required either if their reference noun has been previously mentioned in the dialogue or if the context implies the elements the speaker is pointing at.

• A: la fono altas? B: fono altas [A: Is the sound high? B: Yeah, it’s high]

Regardless of the context, proper nouns of living beings, institutions or comparable entities don’t need an article.

• Italuyo [Italy]

There aren’t indefinite articles. English article a/an can be either left out or translated with the numeral adjective “una”, to underline its uniqueness.

• Un’homo [A human]

Partitive articles do not exist. However, the adjective “kelka” can be used in place of it to point at a small group of elements. Alternatively the correlative “yom” can be used in a similar fashion for uncountable nouns.

• Yom amo [Some love]

NOTE: Even if adjectives are used in place of articles, they still act like adjectives. Unlike articles, adjectives are marked for case and number.

• Un’homo [A human] Unay homoy [Humans]

Pronouns

Personal pronouns “mi” [I] and “ti” [You] respectively refer to the speaker and the listeners, even if they are more than one. Pronouns “ni” [We] and “vi” [You all] refer to the speaker / listener along with others.

• Ti kalas [You (all) are beautiful], Vi kalas [You all and they are beautiful]

Pronouns “shi”, “li” and “gi” all indicate a third person subject, and respectively suggest a feminine, masculine and neuter / mixed entity.

• Gi kalas [It’s beautiful]

There is a reflexive pronoun “si”, which is used to retrieve the subject avoiding ugly repetitions.

• Marko balas sian pilon [Mark throws Mark’s ball]

Possessive pronouns and adjectives are obtained by adding the suffix -a to the respective personal pronoun.

• Mi [Io] -> Mia [My]

Personal pronouns doesn’t take the -n ending. Accusatives have their own separate form ending in -a: ma, ta, ga, sha, la, na, sa. Possessives, on the other hand, act like adjectives and regularly take the -n suffix.

• M’amas ta [I love you]

Nouns

As we stated in the section about parts of the speech, nouns are derived from roots by adding the thematic suffix -o.

• L’homo [The human], Ta vivo [Life]

We can clearly state that they are marked for case and number, just like adjectives.

• Homo [Human], Homoy [Humans]
• Homon [Uomo ogg.] Homoyn [Uomini ogg.]

None of the words are explicitly marked for gender. However, proper names are not forced to take the -o ending to preserve their original form, and therefore the gender distinction coming from other languages is kept.

• Anzhela [Angela], Anzhelo [Angelo]
• Thamir [Samir], Elen [Ellen]