Fĺuðét has a set pattern for syntax, but it is not super strict; it can be twisted in several ways by way of one special pronoun with many forms. The basic syntax is SOV as I said in the first post, but I’m going to go into a tad bit more detail in this post.
First of all there are mainly two different types of sentences: mono-verbal, and bi-verbal. The mono-verbal sentence is basically just your good ole sentence, but the bi-verbal sentence is one that one might use a “to”, or a “that” to separate two clauses (e.g. “I want you to eat it”, “I think that this is red”).
Before we start I would like to introduce the notation of the syntactical rules and glosses that I use (if there are real, conventional rules, I would love to see something on those):
Syntax notations:
italics = fĺuðét word
() = necessary for a complete sentence; two words/word groups inside of parentheses separated by a hyphen - mean that one or more of them must be present
- = separator of words/word groups
Gloss notations:
1 = I/me/we/us
2 = you
3 = he/she/it/him/her/they/them
col = collective
par = partitive
ref = reflexive/passive
imp = imperfective
per = perfective
pre = present
pas = past
fut = future
nom = nominative
gen = genitive
abl = ablative
rel = relative clause
pos = affirmative statement
poq = affirmative question
nes = negative statement
neq = negative question
cau = causative
dat = dative
. = separates attribute-of-word meaning
- = separates affix-on-word meaning
(parentheses) = implication
italics = direct translation of word
The MONO-VERBAL SENTENCE is made like so:
fi - Causative Nominative - ((Nominative - Accusative) - Verb) - (Adverb)
éþ diće diślot þe.
Nominative Accusative Verb Adverb
1 animal take care of pre.per
I am taking care of an animal.
fidićeboć éþ vubét fŕ
meat 1 cause-to-eat fut.per
The meat will cause me to eat.
It may seem that the causative would be put with the bi-verbal sentence, and it probably was originally in the parent language, but causatives got all tangled up with intransitive verbs and left everything crooked, so now verbs, both lexically causative, and grammatically causative just go in a sentence where most verbs do, just with an extra noun at the beginning, and a form of the super special pronoun: fi right before that noun.
Just to make sure it’s clear the mono-verbal sentence does not have to be causative, as shown by the parentheses, but the “causative nominative” is where the noun goes if it is causative.
The parentheses also show that a verb can be optional, which is for two reasons. The first is that there is no verb when introducing an adjective (“the cow is red”), and the second is that there is no verb when introducing a noun (“there is a cow”).
The BI-VERBAL SENTENCE is made like so:
Causative Nominative - (Primary Nominative) - (Primary Verb) - (Primary Adverb) - (Secondary Sentence)
fidiće ćob fŕ éþ fĺ bét po
cau.animal want fut.per 1 3 eat pas.per
The animal will want me to have eaten it.
The “Primary” parts are what make up the first clause (the “I want” in “I want you to eat the cow”), and the “Secondary Sentence” is the second clause which can be either of the two types of sentences (the “you eat the cow”).
Both the primary and the secondary parts have tense. The primary tense is when the primary verb was done, and the secondary tense is when the secondary verb was done relative to the secondary verb. So if we use the example sentence above: “I want you to eat the cow”, and we leave the primary (“I want”) in present tense, but make the secondary (“you eat the cow”) in past tense, we get something more like “I want you to have eaten the cow”, or “I wish you ate the cow”. Also note that this type of sentence can be causativized, causativated, or made into the causative, but it is causing the primary clause, NOT the secondary, it has its own causitivization.
The NOMINATIVE ORDER is made like so:
fĺ - Nominative Relative Clause - Adjective - (Nominative Noun) - Negation/Question - Ablative/Genitive Relative Clause - Genitive - Ablative
fĺ śéwi diće bét po.
nom happy animal eat pas.per
The happy animal ate.
This is the order of words affecting and including the nominative noun. And what do you know there is another form of the super special pronoun: fĺ. It is mostly used with gerund verbs, to clarify their nounlyness (like fĺuðét which is the gerund of uðét which means “to speak”, so fĺuðét means speaking, or speech), and to mold and manipulate the word order for emphasis or poetic reasons. fĺ is used to show the nominative of another noun, but it also means “he/she/it/her/him/they/them/one (singular generic pronoun)/all (plural generic pronoun)/person” in the nominative, which brings up another matter plurality. The funny thing is that there isn’t any! That is why the definition of fĺ is so long, since it has to include both singular and plural (aside from the fact that it can be almost any 3rd person pronoun and some).
I talked about fi above and about its use as how it was needed for causative nouns, but that’s not the only use for it. Causatives tangle with intransitives and reflexives and gave fi the other job of showing reflexivity, by attaching it to the front of the nominative noun and removing the accusative.
The ACCUSATIVE ORDER is made like so:
fe - Nominative Relative Clause - (Accusative Noun) - Negation/Question - Ablative/Genitive Relative Clause - Genitive - Ablative
fe tiðébŕ þédop þe.
3.abl tree crash into pre.per
He/she/it is crashing into trees.
Here is another form of the super special pronoun: fe. This one can be used for two things: the accusative as seen above, and for the ablative. The accusative also makes use of fi, and in a similar way to the nominative getting rid of the other major noun. In this case it shows passivity and rids the sentence of the nominative, but generally fi is not even used and the nominative is just removed.
The ADVERB ORDER is made like so:
(Tense/perfective) - Negation/Question - Mood - Adverb - Verbal Ablative
pi śośo śolo þeþe fŕliði śéwi fetu luþi.
2 key want pre.imp can-poq happily abl-with dog
Can you collect keys, with a dog?
The most important part of the adverb is tense and perfectiveness, which will be spoken of more in the post on verbs. After those comes the negation and interrogative marker, which I’ve made it this far without mentioning. The two seemingly separate things are mixed together into one set of particles, which will be spoken of later (Ha, I’m continuing to evade them). Next comes mood markers and a couple of certain verbs namely ones similar to “can” and “need” which are shown by adverbs that are treated like mood rather than bi-verbal sentences. After that comes the more adjective like adverbs: manner adverbs (adjectives can generally be put in the adverbial position too just like the next thing). The ablative comes next, that is the ablative that describes the verb rather than the noun. The accusative probably also once resided in the verbal ablative (being the thing the verb is done to), but putting the accusative in front of the verb may have been used for emphasis, and eventually became the norm.
The RELATIVE CLAUSE ORDER is made like so:
(Nominative/fĺ - Accusative/fe) - (Verb) - (Adverb)
fĺ ćob bebét þe luþi beb źĺtu þe.
3.rel want poultry pre.per dog bird kill pre.per
The dog that is craving poultry is killing a bird.
fifebeb luþi fe ćob þe źĺtu þe.
ref-3.abl-bird dog 3.rel eat pre.per kill pre.per
The bird that is being craved by the dog is being killed.
The relative clause uses two forms of the super special pronoun that we have already seen before: fĺ and fe. In this case they are used merely as place holders for the noun being modified. I only have them written down for being applicable to the nominative and the accusative, but this is hardly true. They can replace any noun in the clause, and thus represent that noun in that clause. The relative clause generally comes after the noun, but if the noun is the nominative of the clause, then the relative clause comes before (I demonstrated this difference in the examples above).
The GENITIVE ORDER is made like so:
fo - Nominative Relative Clause - (Noun) - Negative/Question Ablative/Genitive Relative Clause - Genitive - Ablative
fi-fĺ źétu popo fe-roć léþŕd fo rofép tu vośi fo vośiboć.
ref-3 cause to think pas.imp abl-like fall of rock and blow of wind
They thought for the same reason a rock falls, and the wind blows.
I call this the genitive, but really it is one of two. This genitive is used for inalienable possession. Alienable possession is shown using ðibéþ “have” in a relative clause. The main things that are inalienable are body parts, friends/spouses/pets (I’m relating pets to friends, not spouses), clothes (but not gloves, hats, or jackets), and actions; about everything else is alienable including parents and children.
The ABLATIVE ORDER is made like so:
fe - Preposition - Nominative Relative Clause - (Noun) - Negative/Question - Ablative/Genitive Relative Clause - Genitive - Ablative
fi-fĺ źétu popo fe-roć léþŕd fo rofép tu vośi fo vośiboć.
ref-3 cause to think pas.imp abl-like fall of rock and blow of wind
They thought for the same reason a rock falls, and the wind blows.
The ablative is everything that the genitive, the nominative, and the accusative are not, and it is even closely related to the accusative, which used to be included in the ablative, but eventually got moved in front of the verb, probably for emphatic reasons (as I spoke of earlier). The ablative can be used to describe a nouns position spatially, mannerally, or temporally relative to another noun, or it can describe the action of a noun spatially, mannerally, or temporally relative to another noun. In other words an ablative can describe a noun (adjectival) or it can describe a verb (adverbial), with little to no difference, except for one thing: I marked above that the fe in an ablative is not mandatory, but if it is an adverbial ablative, or if it is out of place for emphatic or poetic reasons as spoken of above then it is mandatory.
Whoo! That was a long post! I was going to put an update about the world, but I think that can wait to the next one on verbs, which will hopefully be a bit shorter.
