Guide to Nlaaki - Grammar (Verbs)

Many Nlaaki adjectives also behave very similarly to verbs, with some differences detailed below.

Nlaaki distinguishes between five persons (first exclusive, first inclusive, second, third proximate, and third obviative) and three numbers (singular, dual, and plural). It does not make distinctions of gender or animacy as English does in certain cases.

	First Exclusive	First Inclusive	Second Person	Third Proximate	Third Obviative
Singular	mri	gla	sin	tu	kiu
Dual	sren	fpir	pa	klus	hat
Plural	nin	star	fi	mlu	laip

The first person exclusive is used when the speaker is talking about himself alone, or any group of people which includes him but none of the people to whom he is speaking. The first person inclusive is used when the speaker is talking about himself and the person or people to whom he is speaking. The singular form of the first person inclusive is used when one is talking to oneself - either in the sense that English speakers use, where one finds it necessary to address oneself mentally or even aloud, or in more literal senses where magic interferes (if one is magically duplicated, and wishes to address one's duplicate about oneself and one's duplicate together, one uses the singular first person inclusive, for example; wizards also sometimes speak to their familiars using this person.) In situations where one is addressing an audience, and wishes to speak about some, but not all, of the members of the audience as well as oneself, it is customary to use the first person inclusive, although in cases where the overwhelming majority of an audience does not belong to the group in question the first person exclusive is also permissible.

The second person is used when the speaker refers to the listener(s), but not herself. It may also include third parties who are not present. When speaking about an audience and referring to some, but not all of them, the second person is still used.

The default third person is the proximate. If additional third persons are being spoken about, they are assigned obviative pronouns for the duration of the topic of the conversation even if the speaker stops talking about whoever was assigned the proximate pronouns. If one needs to talk about the person or people assigned proximate pronouns and the person or people assigned obviative pronouns together, proximate pronouns are used. However, if the original group of proximate-pronoun-assigned people was plural, it is necessary to signify this. If it was singular or dual then the increase in number is usually enough to indicate the change.

Past	Present	Future	Removed Past	Removed Future	Eternal
flen	puum	ram	gia	sro	hol

Nlaaki has five tenses: past, present, future, removed past, and removed future - plus an "eternal" marker which takes the place of the tense marker in some situations. The removed past is only used when one is already talking about a past situation, and wishes to specify that some other action happend even before that. For example, if one were to translate "A month ago I finished the book I had started the previous week", "finished" would be in the past tense but "had started" would translate to the removed past. Similarly, the removed future is only used to talk about things that are even farther in the future than some future event that is already being discussed: "I will graduate from the fourth tier of wizardry in the fall, and then in winter I will start studying for the fifth tier." The removed future is also sometimes used to denote the concept of "eventually", even without the context of a regular-future event, and conversely it is traditional to tell stories in the removed past - contradictorily using the regular past in any situation where the removed past would normally be called for. (The latter practice has been largely abandoned in modern literature, but remains common in old stories and in fairy tales.) The "eternal" marker is used only with some verbs - any adjective verbs, the verb sook ("to have the property of being like"), and pef ("to have").

Indicative	Imperative	Hypothetical
hi	teel	sa

The indicative is used for any certain event (and is actually used rather liberally for uncertain events, particularly in the future, as long as they can reasonably be counted on). It can be used in questions, but not usually questions in the future tense - "Do you like apples?" would be an indicative question but "Will you like apples next year?" would not be. The imperative is used to give commands or make requests; using it in a question makes the command more indirect and less forceful. The hypothetical, a very nebulous category, is used whenever the indicative does not fit. This includes all speculations, proposals, and unknowns about past, present, and future: "Suppose I had remembered to close the window." "She might be asleep now." "What if I were to get a cat?" "I could go to wizarding school in two months." "Will you like apples next year?" When in doubt, use the hypothetical.

Positive	Negative	Query
tao	ne	kue

This category of markers includes positive, negative, and query. Positive indicates that an action or event is occurring; negative indicates that it is not; and query indicates that the speaker is asking a question about it. Interestingly, none of these is mutually exclusive. Positive by itself is a statement that something happened, and negative by itself is a statement that it did not, but the query aspect requires futher clarification in the form of a question word before it is clear what the question is about (the question could be who, what, when, which, how, where, why, or whether - the query aspect by itself does not do anything to suggest which.) Positive and negative, put together, can, without the query aspect being present at all, form a yes-or-no question suggesting neither response over the other - "Did you read that book or not?" for example. If one wishes to ask the same question but suggest that one expects one response or another, one can combine the positive and query markers ("You read that book, didn't you?") or the negative and query markers ("You didn't read that book, did you?").

Inceptive	Punctual	Inchoative	Habitual	Magical
pum	grat	fa	tli	muil

This category of markers includes the inceptive, punctual, inchoative, habitual, and magical markers. The inceptive indicates that an action is begun; it may or may not end later on. ("I started school last week.") The punctual indicates that something happened once, or at least that only one instance of it happening is being discussed. ("I broke my leg last year", "I had breakfast this morning.") The inchoative indicates a change of state or a becoming. ("The ice will freeze soon." "Last week I turned myself into a frog.") The habitual indicates that an action is performed on a routine basis or at least frequently. ("I eat breakfast every morning." "I often go to visit my grandparents.") The magical aspect indicates that something is done by or with magic of some kind. ("Last week I turned myself into a frog.") Most of these markers are compatible with each other. For example, "Last year I started turning myself into a frog once a week" could be translated with all five of them, in order of importance in the opinion of the speaker.

Transitive	Intransitive	Reflexive
ple		skao

Many Nlaaki verbs have transitive and intransitive forms. In addition to serving the usual functions of transitivity, transitive forms of verbs also imply prepositions that would be stated explicitly in English. These are indicated in their dictionary entries. Intransitive verbs do not need to include any marker to indicate that they are intransitive. Transitive verbs, however, have a marker. If the object is going to be stated (as in, for instance, "I sat on the chair") the marker is the last thing in the word and the object immediately follows. However, if the object is implied or is simply going to be replaced with a pronoun ("I sat on it") then the person and number marker of the object (see above) is added after the transitivity marker to conclude the verb. In situations where the subject performs an action on itself the reflexive marker is added and concludes the verb.

In the case of adjective verbs ("to be green", for example) it is possible to include comparatives and superlatives in the verb. To apply a comparative, add the transitive marker to the end of the verb (i.e. making it "to be greener than"). If no other item is actually being compared, it is permissible to leave off the pronoun; this is not acceptable for any other kind of verb. To apply a superlative ("to be greenest") apply the reflexive marker.

Many Nlaaki verbs, in addition to having prepositions implied by their transitive forms, also have different static and dynamic forms. Static verbs indicate a way of being whereas dynamic verbs indicate an event. This difference is not stated with a grammatical marker - instead, Nlaaki verbs begin with the stem when dynamic and end with the stem (except for the transitivity and, if applicable, object marker) if they are static. Consider the example gotui (sit), using the object ner (chair).

I sat on the chair. (Dynamic transitive.) Gotuimriflenhitaogratple ner.
I was seated on the chair. (Static transitive.) Mriflenhitaogratgotuiple ner.
I sat. (Dynamic intransitive.) Gotuimriflenhitaograt.
I was seated. (Static intransitive.) Mriflenhitaogratgotui.

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