Section 3: Syntax
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Syntax


Basic word order


The language's basic structure is SOV; the verb phrase is always the final element in the sentence. Noun phrases may appear in any order within the main clause (shifting a noun to the first position in the sentence for emphasis is common), but the basic (standard) order is vocative—nominative—dative—accusative.

Within a noun phrase, the noun comes at the end. Adjectives precede their nouns. The Language of the Book is prepositional, meaning the preposition begins rather than ends the prepositional phrase; the object of the preposition is almost always accusative. Genitive nouns and pronouns precede their referent ("my house", not "house my").

Adverbs precede verbs; the tense adverb, if any, is the very first element of a verb phrase. If one verb is "modified" by a modal verb, the modal comes at the end and, if appropriate, is conjugated; it is immediately preceded by the head verb, which is unconjugated. For example, the sentence "I want to offer you (sg.) my heart" appears as follows:
  • Korel vuser korit wonga jur bau; or:
  • Vuser korit wonga jur baura
Literally, these mean "(I) you my heart offer want". In the second example, the modal bau, whose subject "I" has been dropped, is conjugated, while the verb jur remains unconjugated in both examples.

Sentences are negated by placing the adverb ka (meaning "not") after the verb; this is the only time where a verb is not the last word in a main clause.

Relative clauses


A relative clause is formed with a relative pronoun (sal- for animate nouns, zol- for inanimate). The relative pronoun appears at the beginning of the clause, declined for its syntactical use within the relative clause; it is followed by any other elements, then the verb, and then finally a repetition of the relative pronoun, this time uninflected. The whole clause appears before the noun. Some examples:
  • Korel sala korel vige bau sal krinit wonga vri—I took the heart of the creature that I wanted to kill
  • Korel salel kora vige bau sal krinit wonga vri—I took the heart of the creature that wanted to kill me
The only difference between the two examples is the opening relative pronoun and the first person pronoun within the relative clause. In the first example, the relative pronoun is accusative and the personal pronoun is nominative, because "I" is the subject within that clause and the creature is the object. In the second example, the cases have reversed, because now it is the creature that wants to kill, and the speaker whose death the creature desires.

Questions


Questions that require a simple yes or no for an answer are posed not by rearranging the sentence order or adding in a particle but simply by changing the inflection; the tone of the final verb has a falling contour. A particular element in the question may be emphasized by placing stress on it ("Is THIS the book you're looking for?"). There are no words for "yes" or "no". An affirmative response restates, at minimum, the verb, as well as any other information desired (if the subject is not repeated, the verb must be conjugated, even if it wasn't conjugated in the question).
  • Krinelaf koru?—Koruthi. or Krinelak koru. or Tirel koru. (Does this creature live?—Lives. or The creature lives. or It lives.)
A negative response can be patterned the same way, but with the negative adverb following the verb. It may also instead be a correction: "Is this creature alive?—It's dead."

Open-ended questions are formed by interrogative pronouns. The animate pronoun (thir-) is roughly equivalent to "who", though remember that it refers to anything animate, not just humans. The inanimate pronoun (zyr-) is roughly equivalent to "what". These pronouns are placed in the sentence in place of the noun phrase they're asking about, and are always declined (singularly unless they are asking about something explicitly plural). For example, from the sentence Vusel klathanurak jyrtaf fo "you gave this offering to the spirits" we can produce three different questions simply by substituting a noun or personal pronoun with an interrogative pronoun:
  • Thirel klathanurak jyrtaf fo? "Who gave this offering to the spirits?"
  • Vusel thiler jyrtaf fo? "Who did you give this offering to?"
  • Vusel klathanurak zyra fo? "What did you give to the spirits?"
Similarly, to ask "where" in The Language of the book, the interrogative pronoun is placed in a prepositional phrase:
  • fa zyra "where", e.g. "where is it"
  • glo zyra "to where", e.g. "where did she go"
  • le zyra "from where', e.g. "where did you come from"
If the word in question is a verb, the verb is itself replaced by the interrogative pro-verb turu. For example, the question "What are you doing?" may be worded Vusel turu? or Turuse? This pro-verb may also be modified by modals: Turu bause? "What do you want to do?"

If the noun in question is one that must stay in the sentence—roughly equivalent to English "which", such as "which book is yours?"—this function is performed by a suffix on the noun in question. This interrogative suffix (-th or -eth for animate nouns, -z or -ez for inanimate nouns) is morphemically equivalent to the article and determiner endings, which cannot be attached to a noun with an interrogative suffix. The suffix can also be attached to the word ghau ("time") to mean "when", or to the word voran ("purpose, reason") to mean "why". Likewise, it may be attached to a plural pronoun to mean "which one of [us, you, them]", or to a genitive noun or pronoun to mean "which one of [mine, ours, that man's]".