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Nióruais Grammar
This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 30 Nov 2015, 17:07.
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This article is a work in progress! Check back later in case any changes have occurred.
This article is a work in progress! Check back later in case any changes have occurred.
Nióruais Grammar
Despite many similarities, arguably the largest divergence between Nióruais and Irish is in grammar. Nióruais is considerably more simplistic and flexible (in most cases), and has more concrete constructions for things other Goidelic langs are known for constructing oddly.
Being a Goidelic Celtic language, Nióruais grammar is primarily VSO; this is very rarely broken. The verb can be preceded by a question word or certain particles that express various grammar forms, such as the negative, necessitative, habitual, etc. These particles always precede the clause they modify, but don't usually extend to clauses following afterwards. Other particles that are usually also adverbs can act the same way, but do not always do so.
Particles
NEGNegative (polarity)
not - nuégh/nej/
NECNecessitative mood (mood)
must, have to - níom/ɲim/
HABHabitual (aspect)
done often or out of habit - miníchmʲɪɲik͡x
among others I haven't yet determined
As noted above, question words can also precede the verb, but unlike the particles these usually act as their own argument.
Question Words
who - ésim/eʃɪm/
what - cháid/k͡xɑð/
when - naénaor/neɲiɹ/
where - bhaet/vaet͡ʃ/
how - chen/k͡xən/
why - chésíb/k͡xeʃiv/
how many - chéghomr/k͡xejømɹ̩/
to what extent - áidbeige/ɑðvɛɣə/
Nióruais has a conjugation system similar to that of Irish, in that it utilizes lenition and affixes to express a verb tense among a handful of other constructions. As shown in this table, Nióruais verbs primarily conjugate for past, future, pluperfect, imperfect, and three conditional tenses for "could/would/should" alongside plain capabilitative, adjectivizer, gerundizer and agentive.
Due to lenition transforming sounds into something vastly different usually, this can lead to some tenses of certain words sounding nothing like the original word—however, because many lenitized sounds do not occur in the language frequently otherwise (as seen in Lesson #1), most speakers are used to making the connection very quickly.
Here are examples of each tense, using the verb giob/ɣɪb/ "to give":
PRSPresent tense (tense): giob mé/ɣɪb mʲe/ - "I give" (no conjugation needed)
PSTPast (tense)
action occurred before moment of speech: ghiobhe mé/jɪwə mʲe/ - "I gave"
FUTFuture (tense)
action occurring after the moment of speech: giobhóm mé/ɣɪvom mʲe/ - "I will give"
PLUPPluperfect (tense)
anterior action: rhéghiobhe mé/rejɪwə mʲe/ - "I had given"
IMPFUnknown code: cúighiob mé/t͡sujɪb mʲe/ - "I used to give"
CONDConditional (mood)
would.CAPCapability (mood)
'can'*: défeghiob mé/ðefʲəjɪb mʲe/ - "I could give"
CONDConditional (mood)
would.FUTFuture (tense)
action occurring after the moment of speech*: néfeghiob mé/ɲefʲəjɪb mʲe/ - "I would give"
CONDConditional (mood)
would.DEBDebitive (mood)
'should'*: céfeghiob mé/t͡ʃefʲəjɪb mʲe/ - "I should give"
CAPCapability (mood)
'can': fédagiob mé/fʲeðaɣɪb mʲe/ - "I can give"
ADJAdjectival
syntactic: giobhúd/ɣɪvud/ - "giving" (ie "the giving man")
GERGerund
verbal noun: giobúc/ɣɪbut͡s/ - "giving" (ie "givings")
AGNAgentive (case)
active or volitional case: giobím/ɣɪvim/ - "giver"
*Tenses marked with an asterisk can also morph further based on past and future tense, for example "défeghiobhe mé/ðefʲəjɪwə mʲe/" means "I could have given" and "défeghiobhóm mé/ðefʲəjɪvom mʲe/" means "I could eventually give".
Another note: <p> is never lenitized. When it begins or ends a verb or adjective, it is transformed to either <b> or <f> depending on its environment.
When a verb's beginning or ending is constituted by a vowel, a <th> /h/ is added in to connect the relevant morphemes. The gerundizer and agentive instead substitute <bi> or <b> (both would translate to /v/ in practice), respectively.
As you may have noticed, Nióruais verbs don't conjugate to person (whereas Irish conjugates verbs when the subject is the first person). This is useful for the next bit of this lesson: vocative pronouns.
In Nióruais, there are 30 distinct pronouns—first person, second person, third person neuter, third person male, and third person female all have distinct forms to indicate nominative, genitive, and vocative, alongside each having a singular and plural form. The vocative originated as a way to address the relevant person in speech, but has since morphed and merged to also act as an objectivizer—for example, if you say "giob mib/ɣɪb mʲɪv/" (using the 1SFirst person singular (person)
speaker, signer, etc.; I.VOCVocative (case)
'O [addressee]' pronoun) instead of "giob mé" (the first person singular nominative) then the meaning changes from "I give" to "I am given". Vocative pronouns are likewise also used when the object is being affected by the allative adposition "áit/ɑt͡ʃ/".
Nióruais is notorious for having exactly one true noun declension—plural—but quite a large array of ways to express that declension. Nouns pluralize in one of several ways depending on various factors, namely the ending of the word and/or the vowels preceding the final consonant of a word (if applicable). The relevant grammar table found here consists of only one active cell, but clicking "random example" a few times will demonstrate that Nióruais plurals are not uniform.
Here are a few examples:
dóc/dot͡s/ → dócaí/dot͡si/
fuiba/fwɪva/ → fuibí/fwɪvi/
fógá/fogɑ/ → fógáigh/fogɑj/
ténne/t͡ʃeŋə/ → ténnegh/t͡ʃeŋəj/
nián/ɲɑn/ → niágn/ɲɑʲn/
bóm/bom/ → bóighm/bojm/
rúibím/ɹuvim/ → rúibímín/ɹuvimʲin/
goirí/gɔɹʲi/ → goiríg/gɔɹʲiɣ/
Adjectives in Nióruais decline according to the comparative (i.e. big(g)er) and the superlative (i.e. big(g)est). Much like the plural declension, there are a few possible variations expressing these forms depending mainly on how the word ends. Similarly to how verb conjugations switch out <p> for other letters when applicable, a good few letters are also switched out in the case of these declensions.
Some adjectives, despite potentially appearing when you click "random example" on the table linked above, are not subject to any declension, namely "all", "very", etc. ✎ Edit Article ✖ Delete Article
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