Syntax
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The Mathal word order.
This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 14 Oct 2022, 19:08.
[comments] mathalmthlsyntaxclauseclausesphrasephraseswordorderverbsubjectobjectfiniteinfiniteparticleadjectiveadverbconstituentstructure
1. Adjectives
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2. Articles & Nouns
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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.
Syntax describes how different types of words can be put together in a sentence. A sentence can consist of different clauses, a clause is made up from phrases and a phrase, in turn, can be a sequence of words.
There are several types of phrases in Mathal that are somewhat different from English. While English has Prepositional and Adverb Phrases, Mathal does not, simply because there are neither prepositions nor adverbs. On the other hand, in Mathal there are subject and object phrases which, to my knowledge, do not exist in English. There are noun phrases, but Mathal sees them more as a superordinate category where subject and object phrases belong to. Verb phrases are also handled differently for they do not come with an object in Mathal.
The head of a phrase is the element a phrase is centered on. The noun phrase has a noun as the center. In the table below you can see of what a noun phrase can consist:
| Premodification | Head | Postmodification | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case-Marker | Prefix-Article | number / adjective | noun | Suffix-Article |
wind | the | |||
from | a | dark green | tree | |
Accusative | your | angry | grandma | |
these/those | five | volcanos | ||
1 The shortest noun phrase consists of only a noun. A noun always consists of two parts, the root and the article. If the noun stands alone the article is suffixed.
2A case can modify the entire noun phrase and always stands in first position. If the modifed noun is a subject there is no case-marker needed.
3 Any type of article can be placed here. The possesive, demonstratice, or interrogative article.
4 In third position there can be either an adjective or number that modifies the head noun. They only appear between article and noun. The adjective can either be weak or strong, the number only shows gender and number of the related noun.
The head of a phrase is the element a phrase is centered on. The Subject phrase has the Subject as center. The Subject is the Agent of a sentence, or the person or thing that performs an action. A subject phrase
| Premodification | Head | Postmodification | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prefix-Article | number / AdjP | noun | Suffix-Article | Genetive NP |
they | ||||
fox | the | ai:meng grána leibel2 of my smart girlfriend | ||
a | small | fox | ||
my | big/tall | fox | ||
these/those | seventy-one | foxes | ||
1 A subject phrase can only consist of one pronoun.
2The subject phrase can have two noun phrases. While the subject is always displayed in the nominative case, the second noun phrase can only be marked by the genetive case. These two noun phrases cannot be swapped, the genetive always follows the subject.
| Premodification | Head | Postmodification | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case-Marker | Prefix-Article | number / AdjP | noun | Suffix-Article |
genetive | friend's | the | ||
accusative | a | very warm | toilet | |
at (locative) | her's | |||
dative | our | plant | ||
from (ablative) | this/that | disappointing | book | |
at (temporative) | morning | a | ||
due to(causative) | the | overwhelming | storm clouds | |
with (instrumental) | their | four hundred | animals | |
The adjective phrase only consists of two elements, the head, which here is an adjective and a particle that modies the adjective.
| Premodification | Head |
|---|---|
| Particle | Adjective |
particularly | brave |
| Head | Postmodification | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finite Verb | Negation | Subject Phrase | Particle | Infinite Verb |
(you) will laugh | ||||
(I)cook | not | |||
need | they | only | to eat | |
(you) had started | of course | to run |
| Beginning | Middle | End | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Noun Phrase / Particle | Verb Phrase | Object Phrase | Object Phrase | etc. |
I'd like to show what sentence is possible in Mathal, but there's not enough space. Below you will find the structure of a short clause. Many more objects could be added to the end. If you zoom out you will be able to see the whole table:
| Beginning | Middle | End | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Case-Marker | Prefix-Article | Particle | number / adjective | noun | Suffix-Article | Finite Verb | Negation | Prefix-Article | Particle | number / adjective | Subject | Suffix-Article | Genetive-Marker | Prefix-Article | Particle | number / adjective | noun | Suffix-Article | Particle | Infinite Verb | Case-Marker | Prefix-Article | Particle | number / adjective | noun | Suffix-Article |
| Beginning | Middle | End | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Noun Phrase / Particle | Verb Phrase | Object Phrase | Object Phrase | etc. |
| Beginning | Middle | End | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Noun Phrase / Particle | Verb Phrase | Object Phrase | Object Phrase | etc. |
| Beginning | Middle | End | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pronoun | Verb Phrase | Object Phrase | Object Phrase | etc. |
| Beginning | Middle | End | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conjunction/Subjunction | Verb Phrase | Object Phrase | Object Phrase | etc. |
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