TUNDRIAN GRAMMAR


Tundrian is a fairly typical Romance language. What follows is an overview of its morphological categories. For more detail, go to the appropriate page.

NOMINALS

Tundrian nominals (nouns, adjectives, pronouns, articles) are characterized by gender, number and case:

  • There are two genders: masculine and feminine. All nouns belong to one or another of these two classes. Animate nouns (those referring to people and animals) tend to have natural gender (although there are exceptions): males are masculine, females are feminine. Non-animates (objects and abstract nouns) are assigned gender mostly by ending, although exceptions are more common here.;
  • There are two numbers: singular and plural.
  • Personal pronouns have five cases: nominative (=subject), accusative (=direct object), dative (=indirect object), the genitive (=possessor) and the prepositional (used after prepositions). In other nominals, only the nominative and accusative are distingushed).

VERBS

Tundrian verbs are characterized by person, number, tense, aspect and mood.

  • There are three persons:
    • first - the speaker(s)
    • second - the person(s) being addressed
    • third - the person(s) or anything else being talked about
  • There are two numbers:
    • singular - when the subject of the sentence is a single person, animal, thing or concept
    • plural - when the subject consists of more than one persons, animals, things or concepts.
  • Tense:
    • present
    • past
    • future
  • Aspect:
    • imperfect - the action of the verb is continuous, repetitive or generally true, without specifying whether the subject has accomplished its aim
    • preterite - the action of the verb is "punctual", i.e. it occurs at a specific time, taking a specific (generally short) duration
    • perfect - the action precedes the time being talked about
  • Mood:
    • indicative - the action has  a definite "truth" value, i.e. the speaker indicates that (s)he believes that it is taking, or has taken, place (unless it is negated, in which case its "truth" value is negative: it is not taking, or has not taken, place).
    • subjunctive - the truth value of the action, which is usually in a subordinate phrase, depends on the meaning of the verb in the main phrase (thinking, hoping, doubting, ordering...)
    • imperative - the verb expresses a command
    • conditional - the meaning usually is contrary to truth: something would occur if things were different.