History SoYouWantTo / CreateAConlang

!!!'''Adjectives, Adverbs, and Adpositions'''
Adjectives describe a noun. These words are a simple matter in English. Many languages have adjectives that inflect to 'agree' with the noun. In most European languages, if the noun is plural, the adjective also has to take a plural form. In languages that have gender marking, adjectives usually inflect for the noun's gender too. Some even inflect for the noun's case.

Adverbs describe anything but a noun. The rules with these are usually quite simple. The most important thing to note is that most languages have a way to convert adjectives to adverbs. English adds -ly, while French adds -ment, though there are other adverbs that are not formed this way. German, on the other hand, often allows adjectives to also be used as an adverb.

Adpositions are words that describe relation between nouns. These tend to be used more often with languages that do not have extensive case systems. For instance, while Latin had five cases for each noun, prepositions such as "cum," "ad," "ab," and "in" filled semantic roles that could not be filled by the case system. In fact, prepositions could mean different things for different cases: while "ad astra" (accusative) means "to the stars," "ad astrīs" (ablative) means "in the stars." While Hindustani only has two true cases, nominative and oblique, its postpositions function essentially as case markers. "Ne" marks the ergative case, "ko" marks the accusative and dative, "kaa" marks the genitive case, "ken" and "par" mark two different locatives, and so on.

It is worth noting that while English adjectives, adverbs, and adpositions are prepositive (before the noun), some languages prefer postpositions. Adjectives in the Romance languages are postpositive with prepositive adverbs, and adpositions in Turkish are postpositive.

The ''subjunctive'' revolves around what ''could'' or ''might'' be--hypothetical or uncertain actions. This is the most common irrealis mood by far, and sees high usage in Indo-European languages. In English this often is used in "that" clauses (e.g. "He wants that I stop") or set phrases (e.g. "If I were you"), but sees more use in Romance languages, Germanic languages, Iranic languages, and more. It often is used to replace an infinitive[[note]]often the dictionary form of a verb if it has it; "to X" in English[[/note]] if it does not agree with the original subject, but in languages such as Arabic and Modern Greek it replaces the infinitive altogether.

''Imperatives'', ''jussives'', and ''optatives'' revolve around what ''should'' be. Imperatives in English use the bare form of the verb; "Stop!" Jussives essentially function as first- and third-person imperatives, in a sense of "he should stop" or "I should stop," but languages like Arabic use them as generic ''should''--or a past subjunctive. Optatives reflect wishes or hopes (e.g. "May you stop"), but can overlap somewhat with subjunctives.

In many languages, the irrealis moods often are conjugated in one or two categories, most often subjunctive and imperative; the jussive and optative often may manifest as usages of the subjunctive, for instance, if they aren't there to begin with. In Spanish "Viva la revolución," the subjunctive form of "vivir" is used in an optative sense: it literally means "May the revolution live," or more idiomatically "Long live the revolution." In addition, irrealis moods often take fewer tenses than the realis moods. Portuguese, for instance, distinguishes five tenses in the present and three in the subjunctive.

* '''Nominative-accusative'''. A and E are marked the same (nominative), P is marked differently (accusative).
* '''Ergative-absolutive'''. P and E are marked the same (absolutive), A is marked differently (ergative).
* '''Transitive-intransitive'''. A and P are marked the same (transitive), E is marked differently (intransitive).
* '''Tripartite'''. A (agent), E (experiencer), and P (patient) are all marked differently.
* '''Split-ergative'''. Appears as ergative-absolutive sometimes, nominative-accusative in others, typically dependent upon the tense of the verb.
* '''Austronesian''' (''a.k.a.'' '''Philippine''' or '''direct-inverse'''). Nouns take either a "direct" marking if they're the subject or an "indirect" marking if they aren't, and the verb tells you what role the noun plays.

** ''Split-S'', where the role is a quirk of the particular verb in question.
** ''Fluid-S'', where you can use either, but there is a difference in connotation depending on whether the noun is marked for the A or E role.

The morphological typology of a language determines how many words are inflected. It's best to imagine it as a triangle; in one corner, there are isolating languages (Chinese dialects, Hawaiian, most Southeast Asian languages, etc.), which have very few inflections, instead opting for word order and determiners; in another corner, there are agglutinating languages (Japanese, Nahuatl, Turkish, etc.), which have a one to one ratio of morphemes and their meaning (e.g. one affix for case and one for number); and in the third corner, there are fusional languages (Romance languages, Germanic languages, Semitic languages, etc.) which use one morpheme to refer to multiple meanings (e.g. one affix for both case and number). No natural language is 100% isolating, agglutinating or fusional; analytic Mandarin Chinese has an agglutinating plural pronoun (''wǒ'' "I" but ''wǒmen'' "we") and agglutinative Turkish pronouns show some fusion (''ben'' "I" and ''biz'' "we" but ''o'' "he/she/it" and ''onlar'' "they"). English used to be a fusional language but has largely become analytic aside from a few inflections and cases.

Adpositions are words that describe relation between nouns. These tend to be used more often with languages that do not have extensive case systems. For instance, while Latin had five cases for each noun, prepositions such as "cum," "ad," "ab," and "in" filled semantic roles that could not be filled by the case system. In fact, prepositions could mean different things for different cases: while "ad astra" (accusative) means "to the stars," "ad astrīs" (ablative) means "in the stars." While Hindustani only has two true cases, nominative and oblique, its postpositions function essentially as case markers. "Ne" marks the ergative case, "ko" marks the accusative and dative, "kaa" marks the genitive case, "ken" and "par" mark two different locatives, and so forth.

A realistic conlang is likely to have some differences with the tenses compared to English. English has two manners of expressing the present, distinguished by ''aspect''; where "I stop" signifies completion, "I am stopping" signifies incompletion. The former is ''perfective'' and the latter is ''imperfective''. English subdivides this aspect further in the past, where you could say "I was stopping" (''progressive'' or ''continuous'') or "I used to stop" (''habitual''). Few languages use progressive tenses in the present as often as English, and many have none at all. German, for instance, completely lacks aspect, while Hindustani distinguishes perfective, continuous, and habitual in the present ''and'' past. Some Mayan languages even lack tense altogether, instead opting to simply using imperfective and perfective aspect for telling stories[[note]]this is not as complicated as you might think; compare "I stopped when he said" vs. "I was stopping when he said"[[/note]].

The ''subjunctive'' revolves around what ''could'' or ''might'' be--hypothetical or uncertain actions. This is the most common irrealis mood by far, and sees high usage in Indo-European languages. In English this often is used in "that" clauses (e.g. "He wants that I stop") or set phrases (e.g. "If I were you"), but sees more use in Romance languages, Germanic languages, and more. It often is used to replace an infinitive[[note]]often the dictionary form of a verb if it has it; "to X" in English[[/note]] if it does not agree with the original subject, but in languages such as Arabic and Modern Greek it replaces the infinitive altogether.

''Imperatives'', ''jussives'', and ''optatives'' revolve around what ''should'' be. Imperatives in English use the bare form of the verb; "Stop!" Jussives essentially function as first- and third-person imperatives, in a sense of "he should stop" or "I should stop," but languages like Arabic use them as generic ''should'' verbs as well. Optatives reflect wishes or hopes (e.g. "May you stop"), but can overlap somewhat with subjunctives. In Spanish "Viva la revolución," the subjunctive form of "vivir" is used to reflect a hope on part of the speaker; where it might mean "The revolution may live," the proper sense may be "Long live the revolution!"

Verbs are the soul of grammar. Not only are they the action words of a sentence, but they tend to show the time (''tense''), manner (''aspect''), attitude (''mood''), and evidence (''evidentiality'') where it happened.

Agglutinative languages inflect and derive words with affixes that each carry their own independent meaning. Turkish, Korean, and Quechua add information to their words by adding affixes for number, case, and more. For example, Turkish "evlerime" means "to my houses", with the plural suffix -ler, the possessive suffix -im, and the dative suffix -e. Agglutinative languages are generally regular with few exceptions.

Other languages have a more complex system of cases. For example, German distinguishes between accusative for direct objects and ''dative'' for indirect. Latin also distinguishes the ''ablative'' to show source or state and ''vocative'' to show address in five separate patterns. Dravidian languages like Malayalam and Tamil add a ''locative'' to show location, ''instrumental'' to show means, and ''comitative''[[note]]called ''sociative'' in Dravidian tradition[[/note]] to show accompaniment or association.

* 3rd person: He, she, it or they

Pronouns are far more inflectional than their respective nouns. Sometimes, pronouns change for gender where nouns are not marked for it. As in English, a language that lacks grammatical gender, this is often limited to the third person; Arabic, a language with grammatical gender, also distinguishes it in the second. Pronouns usually change for case (''I'' for a subject, ''me'' for an object), even in languages that do not have noun cases, as in most Romance languages. Some languages which lack a dual number for nouns may have them in pronouns, like Hawaiian. Some may distinguish between relatives and strangers in the third person. One of the more common distinctions is whether 'we' includes the addressee or not, like in Malay's ''kami'' (they and I, ''exclusive'') vs. ''kita'' (you and I, ''inclusive''). However, formality is also a rather common part of such systems; think Spanish's ''tú'' vs. ''usted'', where the former is used for familiarity or subordinates, and the latter used for politeness or superiors.

Demonstratives are words that display where a noun is. In English, "this" and "these" refer to objects near the speaker (proximal), whereas "that" and "those" refer to objects farther away or less relevant (distal). Spanish has a three-way distinction between proximal "este," medial "ese," and distal "aquel." Demonstratives can also be used as determiners: while "this" could stand on its own, it could also modify another word: say, "this dog," or "this article." Hindustani and Turkish use demonstrative pronouns as third-person pronouns.

!!!'''Adjectives, Adverbs, Adpositions, and Articles'''

Adverbs are words that describe a verb. The rules with these are usually quite simple. The most important thing to note is that most languages have a way to convert adjectives to adverbs. English adds -ly, while French adds -ment, though there are other adverbs that are not formed this way. German, on the other hand, often allows adjectives to also be used as an adverb.

Adpositions are words that describe relation between nouns. These tend to be used more often with languages that do not have extensive case systems. For instance, while Latin had five cases for each noun, prepositions such as "cum," "ad," "ab," and "in" filled semantic roles that could not be filled by the case system. In fact, prepositions could mean different things for different cases: while "ad astra" (accusative) means "to the stars," "ad astrīs" (ablative) means "in the stars." While Hindustani only has two true cases, nominative and oblique, its adpositions function essentially as case markers. "Ne" marks the ergative case, "ko" marks the accusative and dative, "kaa" marks the genitive case, "ke" and "par" mark two different locatives, and so forth.

Articles are words for "the" and "a"/"an". Words meaning "the" are definite articles, and words for "a"/"an" are indefinite articles. They could arguably be seen as a special type of adjective. As with adjectives, some languages, but not English, change the article depending on the noun being singular/plural, its gender, and (more rarely) its case--think how Spanish has "el, la, los, las," which all mean "the." Most often, these are derived from demonstratives or numbers regardless; English "the" is comparable to "that," and German "ein" (a/n) is comparable to "eins" (one).

Although they are very common words in the languages that have them, ("the" is the most common word in the English language) other languages don't use articles. Russian, Chinese, and Japanese are a few examples. And when languages without articles learn ones with them, the distinction may seem arbitrary--what difference really is there between "the thing" and "this/that thing?" Conversely, French requires articles to be used for all nouns unless they are the name of something and has another set of articles for uncountable nouns (i.e. you can't just say "add sugar" in French, you have to say "add some sugar"). The Scandinavian languages have replaced the separate definite articles with suffixes that are added to the nouns.

A realistic conlang is likely to have some differences with the tenses compared to English. English has two manners of expressing the present, distinguished by ''aspect''; where "I stop" signifies completion, "I am stopping" signifies incompletion. The former is ''perfective'' and the latter is ''imperfective''. English subdivides this aspect further in the past, where you could say "I was stopping" (''progressive'' or ''continuous'') or "I used to stop" (''habitual''). Few languages use progressive tenses in the present as often as English, and many have none at all. German, for instance, completely lacks aspect, while Hindustani distinguishes perfective, continuous, and habitual in the present ''and'' past. Some Mayan languages even lack tense altogether, instead opting to simply using imperfective and perfective aspect for telling stories[[note]]this is not as complicated as one may think; compare "I stopped when he said" vs. "I was stopping when he said"[[/note]].

Verbs can often become nouns by using infinitives, gerunds, and supines (''the changing of the guard'') and adjectives using participles (''a stopped clock'', ''a speeding driver'').

Most people who have already learned a foreign language will have already met 'gender marking'. Many languages like French and Spanish divide nouns into 'masculine' and 'feminine' categories, even if they are inanimate objects. Others like German, Russian and Latin add 'neuter' as a third gender. And others like Swedish and Dutch have genders that are not based around masculine and feminine. Some have 'animate' or 'inanimate' genders, and Bantu languages like Swahili have up to ''18'' genders.

Some languages have inflections for nouns based on their role in a sentence, called ''cases''. A simple example is Esperanto, which states that if a noun is the direct object of a sentence, the suffix '-n' is added. This is called the accusative case, and the bare form is called the nominative. Another example is how English inflects nouns to show possession with '-'s.' This possessive form is formally called the genitive case.

These basic cases also have opposites: in Basque, for instance, the subject and direct object are marked as the ''absolutive'' case, and the agent of a transitive verb is marked separately as the ''ergative''. In Persian, the final noun in a phrase takes a suffix ''-(y)e'' to be marked in the ''construct state'' before a possessor's noun[[note]]although this could be analyzed as a conjunction or simply as the word "of"[[/spoiler]].

Articles are words for "the" and "a"/"an". Words meaning "the" are definite articles, and words for "a"/"an" are indefinite articles. They could arguably be seen as a special type of adjective. As with adjectives, some languages, but not English, change the article depending on the noun being singular/plural, its gender, and (more rarely) its case. Most often, these are derived from demonstratives or numbers regardless; English "the" is comparable to "that," and German "ein" (a/n) is comparable to "eins" (one).

''Imperatives'', ''jussives'', and ''optatives'' revolve around what ''should'' be. Imperatives in English use the bare form of the verb; "Stop!" Jussives essentially function as first- and third-person imperatives, in a sense of "he should stop" or "I should stop," but languages like Arabic use them as generic ''should'' verbs as well. Optatives reflect wishes or hopes (e.g. "May you stop"), but can overlap somewhat with subjunctives. In Spanish "Viva la revolución," the subjunctive form of "vivir" is used to reflect a hope on part of the speaker; where it might mean "The revolution may live," the proper sense may be "May the revolution live!"

Verbs can often become nouns (''the changing of the guard'', ''walkers'') and adjectives (''a stopped clock'', ''a speeding driver'').

So you've decided to create a conlang, whether to add some depth to your own setting, because you were paid to do so for someone else (lucky!), or maybe just for funsies. You love to read ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' and watch stuff like ''Franchise/StarTrek'', ''Series/{{Defiance}}'', ''Series/GameOfThrones'', and ''Film/ThorTheDarkWorld'', so you've decided to craft your own language.

* VSO ([[https://wiki.dothraki.org/Syntax#Topicality.2C_Emphasis_and_the_Old_Word_Order Old]] [[Series/GameOfThrones Dothraki]])

One can also have no dominant word order. Latin, especially Latin poetry, allows this to happen; the noun's case endings make it clear which is which[[note]]looking at you, Cicero, beginning your very long sentence with the direct object[[/note]].