Rokadong Grammar

Information about the artlang created by Astaryuu

Word formation

Rokadong is agglutinative; new words are formed through affixation, composition, or reduplication.

Composition

When composing words from existing Rokadong words, the final morpheme in the sequence is the most pertinent one, also known as the "major noun" in the compound word, and all grammatical constructs involving the noun are applied to the major noun. In effect, a word composed of two morphemes arranged XY is considered to be "X-type Y" or "Y of X" grammatically in Rokadong. For example, "a spoonful of sugar" is kairizúnkoi (from kairi sugar and zúnkoi spoon).

As a result, it is considered correct practice to, if performing a full reduplication on a composed word, only reduplicate the last morpheme. An example would be arikyurin (fire dragon, from ari + kyurin) pluralizing to arikyurin-kyurin.

Reduplication

Reduplication is mainly used for forming plural nouns, though it is also used to form altered meanings of a word.

Full reduplication is the complete duplication of the morpheme. Such reduplications typically are separated by a dash. Nominally, full reduplication refers to a single group of the noun in question often, though it is also used to pluralize some nouns: tayo "bird", tayo-tayo "birds, flock of birds".

Partial reduplication repeats the initial consonant and vowel of a morpheme as a prefix onto the phoneme. In these events, usually long vowels shorten and an onset l or r swaps to the other one of the two. These reduplications are not punctuated, and often an "a" or "á" in such a reduplication is reduced further to a schwa vowel pronunciation. Generally, partial reduplication comes from a former rhythmic or full reduplication and, like the former, signifies an altered version of the original word, though often augmentative in this case: rukr "to walk", lurukr "to run".

Rhythmic reduplication is a full reduplication, but one or more of the duplicated morpheme's phonemes are altered, especially by changing the voicing. The altered morpheme appears second; when teaching Rokadong, both full and rhythmic reduplication are considered suffixal. Rhythmic reduplication is often used to derive nouns into other forms, especially a process: poiku "farm", poiku-boiku "farming, agriculture".

Suffixes applied to a reduplicated morpheme in Rokadong apply to the second copy, while prefixes applied to a reduplicated morpheme apply to the first copy, and circumfixes surround both morphemes.

Nouns

Derivational affixes

Common derivational affixes are jan-/-sona (actor, instrument, or someone characterized by the root), vota-/-an (collectivity, similarity, object, place, instrument), i(t)-...-(k)il (quality, abstraction), and fen-/fer-...-an (abstraction, place, goal, or result). Much like verb affixes, the vowel of prefixes ending in "a" and suffixes starting with "a" are dropped if the noun starts with a vowel, while the nasal of prefixes ending in a nasal assimilates with the beginning stop or affricate of nouns that start with one.

Gender and number

Grammatical gender does not exist. Words with natural gender are relatively rare, and for nouns that would have a natural gender, often have a form that does not distinguish between the sexes, with an adjective applied to specify its natural gender. So for example, yangkel (fox) is gender-neutral, while yangkel toyu (vixen) is female, and literally translates to "female fox".

In Rokadong, grammatical plurality does not exist; numerals are used in their place if context demands it. Full reduplication, or numeral-like words like unya (some or many) and tékuha (all), can be used for genuine pluralization. However, reduplication does not always result in a plural word.

Case marking

An unmarked noun is said to be in the direct case - as Rokadong uses Austronesian alignment, both the agent and object of a verb may be unmarked if it is syntactically redundant. The other cases are marked by a particle preceding the noun (and its measure word and numeral, if present):

• Genitive to To, used for possession, apposition, origin, reference, and description
• Ergative ká KA, used for the agent of a verb
• Accusative pá PA, used for the patient (direct object) of a verb
• Locative and instrumental gun Gun, used for the location of a verb and the means by which it was performed
• Dative laki LiK, used for the indirect object or the benefactor of a verb

These particles become prefix-like proclitics when they apply to pronouns, with gun and laki shortening to gu and la, though they could be considered proclitics in all cases as they frequently are pronounced as if they are prefixes, especially given that outside of careful pronunciation, the final vowel of these case particles replaces the starting vowel of nouns that start with /a/.

Measure words

While Rokadong does not have a grammatical gender, it has a marginal noun class system due to its measure words. When using a numeral to count objects, including when identifying such an object by a cardinal number, a measure word is used even if the noun is a count noun; this differs from word to word in effectively a noun class system.

Mass nouns formed through reduplication of a count noun usually keep their count noun's measure word. Other mass nouns usually use kaca.

Measure words are not required to just say one of something. If one is used in this case, it generally refers to a certain one of that object. In this case, instead of a number, the prefix a- is appended to the measure word, if any is used at all - doing so is closer to English "one" or "a certain" <noun>.

Measure words are also not required in some cases, primarily if the noun already comes in a container or set, such as ruhung to déla (cup of water), or if the major noun of the object is the measure word, such as dekage (pace, second - major noun kage). The former measure words noka (concrete object) and sha (abstract object) are evident through this - words ending in them do not take measure words, even though neither is used as a measure word anymore in favor of kaca.

The measure word may also be used without its noun to number each of a set of objects. Usually these use cardinal numerals. Examples include floors of a building (akancatamis 1st floor), streets (maminashatela 15th street), and books or other story formats in a series (dunestamaya 2nd book, 2nd episode). There are some irregular measure words used explicitly for that purpose, though most of them are either identical to or a shortened form of the underlying noun.

Typically, a noun formed through composition uses the measure word of its major noun. So for example, arikyurin uses the measure word of kyurin, not of ari.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns are considered a subset of nouns. Unlike regular nouns, pronouns typically are written with the case particles as affixes, rather than leaving them as particles. The final vowel of these particles is dropped if the pronoun starts with a vowel.

Rokadong has a fairly large number of pronouns. Below are the standard set:

First person

One major note is the distinction between exclusive and inclusive "we": kayari if the addressee is included, kinah if not. However, in some dialects, they may be used interchangeably - kinah for both, kayari for both, or both randomly.

There are two major forms of "I": nata (or, even more formally, the older form nahata) and aya. Na(ha)ta is more formal, and is the one a speaker generally uses, while aya is typically only used with people the speaker is close with - family, friends, and romantic partners. In fact, someone may use nata or especially nahata even when talking to family to indicate that they do not feel as close to them as the relation implies. Otherwise, nahata is typically only used in contexts similar to that of the royal we, which, if plural, does not contain any information on clusivity.

Somewhat less-common first person pronouns include bokah (used by royals, though nahata may also be used), pacun (a commoner addressing a royal), kaya(ri), zahal (lit. "friend"; friendly, welcoming), and piyoka (lit. "servant"; humble).

Second person

The common forms of "you" are talah (polite; often shortened to tau), zena (familiar), and zenyaci "y'all" (slightly informal). Talah is used in formal contexts like advertisements, business, and showing respect, though ludi/lunu "sir"/"madam" and other titles work the same way and see use as well, particularly in the last of these cases. Talah tékuha is polite plural, though the portmanteau talayaci sees use as well. Javital "your Honour" may see use when addressing a government official, or kantunya "my lord" when addressing a royal or nobleperson.

Increasingly common is forming a portmanteau from a gender and zena, in much the same way as the 3rd-person pronouns: ze(na)da (from daren "male"), ze(na)naz (from nazren "female"), ze(na)rav (from razil "person" or ravi'en "non-binary"), ze(na)han (from an "it").

Third person

The common third person singular pronouns are lan and an. Lan declines for gender, as landa, lanaz, and lanil for male, female, and non-binary respectively. As with the English second person singular pronoun "you", names and kin terms commonly are used instead of landa/az/il.

Colloquially, lanil razil (or lairazil) is used for the plural "they." While the equivalent masculine and feminine forms landa razil and lanaz razil exist, they do not see much use in Rokadong speech. Kamusha "they", kamusha ibi "they" or razil ibi "those people" see use in writing or in formal environments.

Others

Ika "one" may see use as a zeroth-person pronoun, though it is typically only used in formal writing, as in speech lan or tau are preferred.

There are also other, rarer words used in the first or second person. Especially in oceanic dialects, the first-person nyú and second-person ryu may see use with intimate partners. Sényan loanwords cán "I" and zú "you" may see use in place of aya and zena in continental dialects, though even there it's seen as a slang term. Javidi/javinu are used in some dialects as high-respect equivalents to talah or ludi/lunu.

Possessive pronouns

The pronouns aya, zena, lan, an, and zenyaci (and their gendered equivalents, in the case of zena and lan) all have short possessive clitics that can be applied to the noun being possessed. All others retain their full forms. In formal speech or writing (where lan pronouns are still used), lan pronouns usually also retain their full form rather than using the clitic.

Pronoun	Enclitic	Example
aya	-nya
zena	-za
zenyaci	-zoi
lan	-yun
an	-yu

Demonstrative pronouns

The two demonstrative pronouns are ibi and ila. Ila "this, these" is used when the noun in question is generally near the speaker, while ibi "that, those" is used when the noun in question is generally far from the speaker. Either may be equivalent to the English demonstrative "the." There is no difference between singular and plural, though plural can be indicated by duplicating the noun as before, followed by the relevant demonstrative pronoun.

Zah- ("which") is appended to the beginning of demonstrative pronouns (zahibi, zahila) to emphasize or clarify them, such as when making references or inquiries about something or someone, like English "this one" or "that one".

Reflexive pronouns

When the agent and patient of the verb are the same, the one that appears second can be replaced with ká. If the patient is not the agent, but belongs to the agent, then the clitic phrase toká is often used instead of a genitive personal pronoun (though sometimes toká is dropped entirely as the noun is assumed to belong to the agent of the verb, such as when the patient is a part of the agent's body).

Verbs

Rokadong verbs generally end with "ar", /Brə/ where B is a plosive (written as plosive + r in romanization, plosive +xR in Rokadong script), "ir", or "ur" in their infinitive, which indicates that that word is a verb. The only verbs that do not end in -r are vel to be, zaya to go, ban to have, and kon to do. Verbs are affixed for TAM, but not inflected for person or number.

Tense

Tense succeeds the verb, as they were originally functionally adverbs. The five tenses are present (PRES), past (PST), far past (REM.PST), future (FUT), and far future (REM.FUT). However, far past is commonly used for the context of a situation, while far future is commonly used for hypothetical situations, so these two tenses may also be analyzed as moods. The rhotic sound may be dropped when saying a verb, but orthographically the r is not dropped.

Aspect and mood

Aspect and mood is marked on the verb with prefixes and circumfixes. The noun performing the verb conjugates for the mood of the verb as well, at least in "proper" Rokadong - colloquial Rokadong might ignore one or both of the noun and verb affixes, particularly in agent focus. Circumfixes succeed prefixes and precede suffixes.

The aspects are perfect (PRF), habitual/stative (HAB), causative (CAUS), continuous (CONT), semelfactive (SEM), and accidental (NVOL; for non-volitional). Continuous, causative, and habitual aspects are often involved in turning verbs into adjectives. Continuous verbs are not separately marked for progressive vs. stative.

The moods are imperative (IMP), hypothetical (HYP), and conditional (COND). The third of these is commonly used for subjunctive and optative, while the second may also be used for optative if its formal form [can-REM.FUT (verb)] replaces "can" with "hope."

A verb unmarked for mood is indicative mood, and a verb unmarked for aspect is simple aspect. Verbs are affixed in the order Topic_Marking-Aspect-Verb-Mood-Tense.

Tense, aspect, and mood affix table

Notes:

1. can-REM.FUT v and hope-REM.FUT v are historically considered more formal, but they are also used for clarification in the relevant moods if v-REM.FUT is unclear.
2. If the aspect is a circumfix, the second half of the aspect marker goes before the mood marker.
3. Vr suffix is where V is the last vowel of the infinitive.
4. The ending a is dropped if the next syllable has no onset (starts with a vowel).
5. The ending h is dropped if the next syllable has an onset (starts with a consonant).
6. The ending t, p, l is dropped if the next syllable's onset consonant is identical or its unvoiced or voiced counterpart.
7. The ending n is dropped if the next syllable's onset consonant is a nasal. Assimilation rules apply.
8. The ending n is dropped if the habitual, causative, or accidental aspects are used.
9. The ending á merges with the succeeding a, forms diphthongs with succeeding i or u, and causes a syllable break with succeeding e and o.

Negation

If a word is to be negated, a negative word precedes it. Which word is used depends on what is being negated - "takal" (or "tak") for negation of verbs and adjectives, "reta" (a portmanteau of "tak" and "rel") for negation of nouns, and "kihing" for verb negation in the imperative mood.

Adjectives and possession

Adjectives are always placed before the noun they modify, and may be stative verbs. Adverbs usually have the same form as the adjective, similarly to languages such as German, and as such are not considered a separate class to adjectives.

Comparative adjectives and adverbs are typically formed through partial reduplication of the adjective's root, while superlative adjectives and adverbs are typically formed using the dah-...-on circumfix as in with the involitive verb.

In terms of sentence formation, possessed objects are considered adjectives and are placed in the genitive, in which case the "to" particle can be translated as the English word "of" - like in English, the possessed noun follows the possessing noun.

Word order & sentence structure

Rokadong does not have a grammatical subject like English does. Intransitive clauses place the noun before the verb. Transitive clauses typically place the agent before the verb and the object after the verb, but if the object is the topic of the sentence, then the reverse may be used - this is the Austronesian alignment type.

Thus, Rokadong generally has a word order of AVO (agent, verb, object), however, if the patient is the topic, rather than the agent, OVA word order may be used. These orders are referred to as agent-trigger and patient-trigger respectively, with the former being the default. The verb may also be placed first if it is the topic of the sentence rather than either the agent or the object.

Stative verbs, adjectives, and genitive nouns precede the noun they modify, while determiners follow the noun they modify. Adverbs also precede the verb or adjective they modify. If the antecedent to an adverb is a verb, then the adverb is given the same tense affix as the verb, but need not agree with the verb's aspect or mood. While there is no mandatory marking for the difference between two adjectives or stative verbs applying to the same noun and an adverb applying to one, a comma/pause or the word ta (and) may be used for when two adjectives or stative verbs should apply to the same noun, as opposed to the second adjective applying to the first. This is generally deemed unnecessary if one of the adjective-like classes is a demonstrative or possessive determiner, because these are understood to always refer to the antecedent noun.

Omission of the agent or object

The agent, object, or both may be omitted. This is usually done for one of two reasons: (1) adding politeness and respect to a statement or question, such as removing pronouns when asking a question politely, or (2) when they are unknown, unimportant, or understood from context, such as when answering a question about the speaker's actions, where the agent is assumed to be the speaker.

Final particles

Final particles follow the complete sentence and may change the meaning or tone of the sentence, though some may be placed sentence-initially (before the complete sentence) or as interjections instead, and may have a different meaning if so.

• eKL kel - the interrogative particle. It turns the preceding sentence into a yes-or-no question.
• eR/ER re/ré - used to show and ask for confirmation or agreement respectively, though often pronounced identically as if they were both ré. Usually ré can be translated into English as the tag question "right?," while re can be translated into English as the tag question "eh?." If used sentence-initially or in its own sentence, ré usually is a sarcastic interjection like English "right", while re usually is an informal attention-grabbing interjection like English "hey". In Rokadong orthography, especially in dialogue, the "e" diacritic e  is often duplicated for the sentence-initial versions, as eeR/EER.
• au au - expresses excitement or emphasis.
• Ru ru - assertive, expressing confidence in the preceding statement, especially if the listener is believed to not know it. In such contexts this particle may be translated as the English tag question "you know?" Often spoken with uvular /ʀ/ instead of alveolar /r/. Ru, by itself or with au preceding it, may be used instead of vai to answer the question "Are you sure?" affirmatively.
• iKR kir - dubitative, expressing a lack of confidence in the preceding statement. May also be used as an interjection to express shock, much like the English interjections "no" or "wow." Often spoken with glottal /ʢ̠/ instead of alveolar /r/, and the vowel may be softened or completely elided.