kraiaKy [old]

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The language of the Threadwielders has a simple and flexible grammar, in that it imposes few rules about the composition of sentences. In combination with the language's tendency to portmanteau words and shorten them (see below), this has a tendency to cause ambiguities. For situations where clarity is important, or the ambiguity too great, adherence to the recommended sentence structure, without portmanteaus and abbreviations, is expected.

Personal Pronoun Inflections

There are three inflections on personal pronouns: Possessive, reflexive and honorific.

-i for the possessive form, for example sai means my.
-'ik for the reflexive form, for example sa'ik means myself.
-qa or -qua or -kwa (compound word usually capitalised) for the honorific form, for example Nakwa would be an honorific form of you.
-qi or -qui or -kwi (compound word usually capitalised) for the honorific possessive form, for example Nakwi would be an honorific form of your.

Plural form

Plural nouns are denoted using the suffix -'a, e.g. vahr'a would be worlds.

Words Derived From Nouns

Adjectives

-'is, meaning “having the attributes of -”, e.g. adaryr'is would be nightmarish.
-'ei, meaning “not having the attributes of -”, e.g. aiit'ei would be optionless.

Nouns

-'iij, meaning “a group that has (or is) -”¹⁾, e.g. valcee'iij might be used to describe a particular group of warriors (“a group that has strength”).
iku'-, meaning “virtual -”²⁾, e.g. iku'preeth would be a blog.
ji'-, describing connected space between two or more of the base noun³⁾, ji'los̈a could be “interplanetary space”⁴⁾.

Adjective Inflection

-'ar denoting “more -”, e.g. temi'ar for warmer.
-'arar denoting “most -”, e.g. khalei'arar for craziest.
-ma to create an adverb⁵⁾.

Verb Inflection

All base forms of verbs end in a vowel and an s:

-as
the most common form, as in sras̈as (to plead)
-es
as in azhares (to clad/encase in armour)
-is
as in sekis (to make)
-os
as in sarijos (to apologise)
-us
as in quanus (to live)
-ys
as in vedys (to think)

The alterations made to the base form can either be:

passive negation, -'va, not doing something; sras̈as'va would be “not to plead”.
repetition, na'-, doing something again / once more, resuming something; na'quanus would be “to live again; to resurrect”.
active negation, ta'-, doing the opposite of something; ta'vedys would be “to forget”.
tenses; the 's' is dropped for these:
- future II (present conditional), o-form
  - sa -so
  - e -no
  - na -o
  - na'a -io
  - ka/ra/zetu -to
  - va -sol
- future, aye-form
  - sa -saye
  - e -naye
  - na -ie
  - na'a -ye
  - ka/ra/zeto -taye
  - va -sayees
- present tense, reduced base form
  - sa -s
  - e -n
  - na -
  - na'a -i
  - ka/ra/zetu -t
  - va -sis
- past tense, es-form
  - sa -ses
  - e -nes
  - na -es
  - na'a -ies
  - ka/ra/zetu -tes
  - va -sises

Sentence Structure

Declarative sentences have a fairly simple subject-verb-object structure. Most frequently, the subject represents an agent of the verb (i.e., the person or thing doing the action), whereas the object tends to represent the patient of the verb (i.e., that which the action is being done to). Some verbs are intransitive, and will not take any objects; others may take additional indirect objects. (@todo: example sentences)

One exception to the above: The verb 'to be' is elided for present tense sentences, so it is entirely possible to create a sentence entirely out of nouns and adjectives. For example, “He is crazy” would translate as ra khalei.

Aside from the possessive marker '-i' mentioned above, cases do not exist – so sa can be used as either “I” or “me”, e can be used as either “we” or “us”, etc.

Adjectives and adverbs are generally placed in front of the word they modify; they can also be placed after the modified word, but it is a less-common construction and generally calls greater attention to the modification. For example, adaryr'is kas̈ would be “nightmare-filled sleep”, whereas kas̈ adaryr'is would be “sleep that is filled with nightmares”.

To be continued; work in progress

[minimal]

¹⁾

roughly equivalent to -hood or -ship in English

²⁾

simulated, electronic or digital, but without any connotation of non-existence

³⁾

roughly equivalent to the English prefix inter-

⁴⁾

To get only the adjective “interplanetary”, apply an adjective modifier: ji'los̈a'is

⁵⁾

This does not usually stack with 'is (unless it's necessary to remove ambiguities). For example, szamhama is securely (from the noun szamha, security, synonymous with and reduced from szamha'isma), and khaleima is crazily (from the adjective khalei).

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