Nordaþ grammar
The order of words in a sentence are not determined by individual word functions but instead are largely free. However, if a word is to be stressed, it is put at the beginning of the sentence and stressed harder than normally.
Nordaþ is a synthetic language, and is undefinable further as an agglutinative or fusional language as it exhibits signs of both. In language, agglutination is where there are several "chunks" - affixes which come together at the end of a word to give it meaning. Such languages include Turkish, Nahuatl and Japanese. Fusional languages, however, only use one affix to give meanings. These affixes carry more than one meaning, such as Spanish comí, wherein í carries the meanings of indicative mood, past tense, first person singular subject and perfect aspect.
See also Nordaþ wordhoard
Contents
Vowel Harmony
| Nordaþ language |
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Pronunciation |
Nordaþ is unique from all other Germanic (and PIE) languages in the fact that it has vowel harmony. Vowel harmony was inherited from a neighbouring language when the language was young - Proto-Säämi. In Nordaþ, there are three types of vowels: Front (ä, e, ë, i, y), middle (ï, ai, äu, oi), and back (a, o, u). Front vowels cannot under any circumstance appear with a back vowel, though they can appear with each other and middle vowels (same for back vowels). Affixes to words in Nordaþ must also follow vowel harmony according to the word they are inflecting. Affixes will have either front/neutral forms, or neutral/back forms. It is improper for a front-vowel word to take a middle affix if it could take a front affix instead - the same is true of back-vowelled words. However, a word with all middle vowels will take a front-vowel affix.
Nouns
Nouns are given their function by suffixes attached to the stem, of which 22 cases and 27 "prepositional cases" are used to give the stem its noun role. Other suffixes, however, attach to the stem before the main case suffixes - these are used to indicate such things as the one which does the act, the one which receives the act, etc. For example:
dekäsdeeri (The helper) vs. dekäseneri (A helper), dekäsdenäi (The helped) vs. dekäsenäi (A helped), and dekäsdei (The help).
Prefixes are additionally added to convey extra meaning, such as "self-" or "mis-". For example:
- mïswaktjanï
- mis observation-(nominative)
- misobservation
As another example:
- ilkäelewäräneren
- self password-(performer noun)-(nominative plural)
- self-passworders
Nordaþ nouns are used for the same purposes as English nouns, that is, they represent both concrete ideas and abstract ones. Like English, there are countable and uncountable nouns. Like English, Nordaþ pluralises nouns when necessary. Unlike English, however, Nordaþ has three noun genders: Masculine, feminine, and neuter. Most nouns take on the neuter ending. The only ones that don't are animate objects which actually take gender and inanimate objects strongly assosciated with something of a particular gender. However, such words are few as Nordaþ peoples don't tend to wear gender-specific clothing (if they're actually wearing clothing at all).
See also Nordaþ noun cases and Nordaþ affixes
Verbs
Nordaþ verbs can take on a maximum of 180 conjugations. Verbs conjugate by pronoun and tense/aspect/mood. Subjects of verbs are always omitted as the verb inflection carries this information. Like nouns, verbs can take on prefix modifiers to indicate, for example, in what fashion actions are completed. For example:
- mïsdeasmïganþ
- mis understand-(indicative past)
- he misunderstood
See also Nordaþ verbs
Adverbs
Adverbs follow the same pattern of word order that adjectives do. They follow the verb they modify unless the adverb is being stressed. Adverbs always carry their suffix, and are never declined any differently.
Adjectives
- Main article: Nordaþ adjectives
Adjectives follow the noun they describe. Unlike in Latin, adjectives are not declined to match the noun, adjective, or adverb they describe. Instead, they are declined merely according to the comparitive/superlative/regular standard. However, adjectives don't always come after the noun they describe. This exception is permissable when the adjective is being stressed, such as "a green lawn" vs. "a blue lawn" or something of that sort. This reminds of the case with general word order in Nordaþ wherein the word being most stressed in the sentence will come first with appropriate emphasis on the spoken word.
Additionally, Nordaþ allows nouns acting as adjectives to be merged with the noun. They attach in front of the noun, unlike standard adjective behaviour. In English, these words are typically written in structures like this:
the-paragraph-of-descriptions-about-equality
(This particular word, however, would be written something like "the equality descriptions paragraph" in Nordaþ. Not all clusters of words will drop their prepositions and conjunctions etc.)
They are also written as standard compound words in English, such as "Freedom killer". Additionally, they are sometimes written as "creator of love".
Unlike in Rejistanian, ordinals are regular. They are declined according to the adjectival guideline (or adverbal).
Comparison in Nordaþ is simple. Since "than" is considered a noun case, its suffix is appended to the root of the noun. "Less" and "more" are considered nouns when following a verb such as "to have" or "to be", but adverbs when following another noun in English, such as "years", and are declined as direct objects. Such words as "much/many" and "by far" are treated as standard adjectives and modify the less/more noun/adverb.
For example:
- Häbiene minieiti jerämynen oktosïs altaïsïï.
- I have less than eight years of age.
- Häbiene minilës jerämeiti oktosïs altaïsïï hiynen.
- I have eight years age less than he has.
- Häbiene mäzereiti manïgïs ïlkaraapanïrunïn dekääses.
- I have many more than ten automobiles.
Determiners
- Main article: Nordaþ determiners
Determiners function in the same way as adjectives with the exception of possessive adjectives. Declining possessive adjectives in the manner of adjectives is considered uneducated.
Pronouns
- Main article: Nordaþ pronouns
Nordaþ has several pronouns that are all declined like regular nouns.
| Pronoun | Prynäuvi |
|---|---|
| I/We (inc) | Ik |
| You/You all | Þu |
| We (exc) | Vi |
| He | He |
| She | Si |
| It/They (Neuter)/They (Plural) | Het |
Prepositions
Nordaþ has no true prepositions, though it has many adverbs that an English speaker may mistake for a preposition - despite the fact that even in English the usage of these words would indicate that they are in-fact an adverb.
Conjunctions
Conjunctions are truly the only class of words which may be considered irregular, at least within itself. Conjunctions have no set endings. They include, for example: ja (and), deme (but), kot (because), neke (neither), neki (nor), veeke (either), veki (or), dym (while, until), kaike (also, too), iteke (and so), vaka (although), tamï (however), kyn (when), kïvasï (as if), batsï (even if), si (if), yt (so that, in order that), þäs (that), den (then)
