Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Like nouns, Transemilian pronouns decline for case and number. Unlike nouns, however, they never take determiner prefixes.

The three pronoun roots are:

• 1st person: кра /kra/
• 2nd person: іл /il/
• 3rd person: цэу /tsɛu/

This is followed by a number suffix, which matches those of the noun: no suffix for basic singular, зун for marked singular, цо for plural. Following the number suffix (if any) is the case suffix.

Also acting as a personal pronoun is the root нун /nun/, which is used as a reflexive; that is, it is used in place of a noun or noun phrase when that NP refers to the same entity or set of entities as the subject of the clause. It is only used in the third person, however; the first and second persons simply repeat the pronoun. The reflexive never takes a number suffix.

Demonstrative pronouns

The demonstrative pronouns serve much the same purpose as those in English. They share the same three-way distinction as the demonstrative noun prefixes.

• Proximal: бур /bur/
• Medial: вел /βel/
• Distal: стін /stin/

As with personal pronouns, they inflect for number and case. Unlike English, Transemilian freely uses demonstratives to refer to people.

Interrogative pronouns

Interrogative pronouns form questions.

• шэу "who"
• шін "what"
• тур "where"
• ля "when"
• ғау "why"
• шрэл "how"
• ву "which (one)"

Interrogatives take case suffixes where applicable, and number suffixes if their referent is known to be plural. However, if "which" is used as a determiner rather than as a pronoun (e.g. "which car is yours?" rather than "which is yours?"), it becomes a determiner prefix. This is normally ву-, but before a vowel it is вул-. Interrogative pronouns (or nouns with the prefix ву/вул-) are always the first element in a clause, preceding even the verb.

Indefinite pronouns

Indefinite pronouns, such as "someone" or "nowhere", are formed by attaching one of a set of prefixes to an interrogative pronoun root. These prefixes are:

	фі-no, none	та-any, some	бро-this	вда-this/that	щен-that	зім-every
шэуwho	фішэуno one	ташэуanyone, someone	брошэуthis person	вдашэуthis/that person	щеншэуthat person	зімшэуeveryone
шінwhat	фішінnothing	ташінanything, something	брошінthis (thing)	вдашінthis/that (thing)	щеншінthat (thing)	зімшінeverything
турwhere	фітурnowhere	татурanywhere, somewhere	бротурhere	вдатурhere/there	щентурthere	зімтурeverywhere
ляwhen	філяno time, never	таляanytime, sometime	броляat this time, now	вдаляat this/that time	щенляat that time, then	зімляat all times, always
ғауwhy	фіғауno reason	тағауany reason, some reason	броғауthis reason	(вдағау)	(щенғау)	(зімғау)
шрэлhow	фішрэлno way	ташрэлany way, somehow	брошрэлthis way	вдашрэлthis/that way	щеншрэлthat way	зімшрэлevery way
вуwhich	фівуnone of them	тавуany/some of them	бровуthis one	вдавуthis/that one	щенвуthat one	зімвуall of them

• The forms брошэу/вдашэу/щеншэу and брошін/вдашін/вдашін have basically the same meaning as the demonstrative pronouns, and are used interchangeably with them; they are preferred to the demonstratives in situations where the demonstrative could be ambiguous about whether it's referring to a person or to an object.
• Броля has roughly the same meaning as кяр "now", but carries a more temporary connotation, similar to English "currently" or "for the time being". Вдаля refers to a time in the recent past or in the near future; щенля refers to a more distant time. The three terms can also be used to indicate a sequence of events; "first (броля) this happened, then (вдаля) that happened, and then (щенля) this other thing happened after that".
• The medial and distal forms of ғау have no coherent meaning on their own; only the proximal form (броғау) sees regular use, often translated into English as "that's why". The other two forms are only used when laying out a sequence of reasons. Similarly, зімғау is extremely uncommon.
• The ву ("which") forms are similar to "what" or "who", and can refer to people or things, but are used specifically to refer to an item out of a concrete set or sequence: "which of the three children", "which one in line", "which math class", etc.

The фі- "no" and зім- "every" pronouns are treated as grammatically singular; the rest take standard number suffixes as appropriate. All indefinite pronoun forms take the standard case suffixes. ("For no/some/this reason" takes the causative; "somehow/no way" take the instrumental.)

Relative pronouns

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Adjectives

Transemilian adjectives follow their referent nouns. Like pronouns, they decline for number and case, in that order. As a reminder, the suffixes are:

• Sg: no suffix
• sg (marked/mass): -зун /zun/
• Pl: -цо /tso/

• Nom: no suffix
• Acc: -ве /βe/
• Dat: -къӭл /kjɛl/
• Gen: -юр /(j)ur/
• Part: -здінь /zdiɲ/
• Com: -кя /ca/
• Inst: -чу /tʃu/
• Abe: -хом /xom/
• Loc: -ці /tsi/
• Lat: -не /ne/
• Abl: -дэн /dɛn/
• Semb: -мо /mo/
• Caus: -щэ /ʃtʃɛ/

Adjectives decline whether used attributively ("the red car") or predicatively ("the car is red"). When predicative, the adjective takes the accusative suffix.

Adjectives may also act in place of nouns; that is, the noun can be omitted and an adjective used in its place. When this is the case, the meaning is similar to the use of the English pronoun "one" in such constructions as "let me try on the red one". When the noun is omitted in this way, the adjective must take the appropriate determiner prefix; the prefixes are otherwise never used on adjectives (including predicative adjectives).

Derivation

Adjectives can be derived from other parts of speech. Sometimes this is as simple as taking a word from another part of speech, but more commonly it is achieved with suffixes.

• -то /to/ is a general "adjectivizer", similar to English -y. It can be attached to any party of speech to create an adjective
• зоу /zou/ is a suffix that attaches only to nouns; it means "full of" or "has a lot of"

Participles

Participles are formed from conjugated verbs. A participle can either be active or passive. In short, an active participle is used to describe a noun that is doing the verb, whereas a passive participle is used to describe a noun that is having the verb done to it. The suffix to form active participles is -эн /ɛn/, and the suffix to form passive participles is -ма /ma/. Some examples:

• эішір хсуӭшэма "the man who was killed"
• эісау зілма "the boy who is liked"
• эікаі холӭалэн "the girl who will die"
• эіѕон ѕэлэн "the woman who is talking"
• эіѕон ѕэлірэн "the woman who talks"
• эікьміцо фікаумпучагурэнцо "the people who don't want to kiss each other"

As can be seen from these simple examples, Transemilian participles are versatile; only a few of the phrases above would be translatable with English participles. However, a participle cannot take any arguments beyond their referent noun; thus, we can express "the man who was killed" or "the woman who is reading" using a participle (or a subordinate clause), but to say "the man who was killed by a bear" or "the woman who is reading a book" cannot be translated with a participle and must use a subordinate clause instead. Note of course that participles receive declension suffixes, like all adjectives.

Comparatives and superlatives

Comparatives and superlatives are formed with suffixes.

• -крэ /krɛ/, comparative: калкрэ "bigger"
• -шку /ʃku/ (softens preceding variable consonants), superlative: калшку "biggest"

Comparisons are performed with the preposition ӭі, similar in meaning to English "as" or "than":

• цу цэу здаве ӭі краве "he is as old as me"
• цу цэу здакрэчаве ӭі краве "he is older than me"

As we can see here, the object of this preposition takes the same case as the comparison adjective; as this adjective is usually attributive, this means that both the comparison adjective and what it is being compared to are typically accusative.

The superlative, as it generally considers the subject in question as part of a group, does not use the comparative preposition; instead, it refers to the group with the partitive case:

• цу цэу здашкуве цэуцоздінь "he is the oldest of them"

The preposition ӭі is also used in other comparative constructions, such as цліхє ӭі "different from" and зэлан ӭі "similar to".