Sangheili Grammar

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Sangheili is a lightly inflectional, strongly head-final language and follows an ergative-absolutive alignment.

Syntax

Sangheili generally follows a subject-object-verb syntax:

K'uucho o₁ domo₂ ruuk'inatan₃ — "the warrior₁ attacked₃ the human₂"

In content questions, question words appear in situ:

K’e o gha ts’aachi? — "what have you done?"

Subjects of intransitive verbs and objects of transitive ones are unmarked, but subjects of transitive verbs are marked by the postposition o, Sangheili's alignment is therefore ergative-absolutive.

K'uucho mejayatan — "the warrior is ready"

K'uucho o domo ruuk'inatan — "the warrior attacked the human"

Adjectives, possessors and relative clauses precede nouns, and dependent clauses precede main clauses. Relative clauses are simply obtained by placing their verb before the noun or relative pronoun they modify:

K'uucho o domo ruuk'inatan — "the warrior attacked the human"

→ Domo ruuk'inatan k'uucho — "the warrior who attacked the human"
→ K'uucho o ruuk'inatan domo — "the human whom the warrior attacked"

Pronouns

Personal pronouns		Singular	Plural
			Inclusive	Exclusive
First Person		jan	riin	jaari
Second Person		k'e	k'iri
Third Person	Animate	mu	muuri
	Inanimate	tkha	tkhaari

Sangheili's personal pronouns distinguish clusivity, riin is used when the speaker talks about themself and the addressee, while jaari is used otherwise:

Riin o domo ruuk'inatan — "we attacked the human" (you and I)

Jaari o domo ruuk'inatan — "we attacked the human" (not you)

The demonstrative pronouns (as well as the related adjectives and adverbs) have a three-way distance contrast, proximal (near the speaker), medial (near the hearer) and distal (away from both):

Demonstrative pronouns	Singular	Plural
Proximal	ine	niri
Medial	uzo	zuri
Distal	atkha	tkhaari
Unknown/Indefinite	aba	baari
Negative	ngajo

There is also a reflexive pronoun, khuzho:

Jan o khuzho juundujijaga — "I will make myself look good"

Nouns and adjectives

Sangheili does not distinguish definiteness, and its nouns do not inflect and are not categorized into classes. They appear on their own in appositions and in absolutive roles.

Postpositions

Nouns are followed by o in ergative roles. When directly addressed, they are often followed by ghu:

K'uucho o domo ruuk'inatan — "the warrior attacked the human"

K'uucho ghu, ruuk'ina! — "Warrior, attack!"

Other common postpositions include:

Ga	from, away from
Ni	near, by
Oni	to, onto
Ba	out of
Zhi	into
Me	inside, within

Some roles are expressed by multiword postpositions, such as me mos ba (out of the mind inside), meaning "as" or "like".

Possession

There is no purely possessive postposition, Sangheili uses different ones to express possession depending on the relationship's nature:

Example	Literal translation	Possession type
K'uucho oni zhuro	The weapon onto the warrior	The warrior's weapon, which they own
K'uucho ni zhuro	The weapon near the warrior	The warrior's weapon, which they happen to have
K'uucho oni1 nejo ga2 zhuro	The weapon from2 the father to1 the warrior	The warrior's weapon, which they received from their father
K'uucho me ik'o	The eyes within the warrior	The warrior's eyes, which they still have
K'uucho ba ik'o	The eyes out of the warrior	The warrior's eyes, which were removed

Adjectives

Common adjectives include the demonstrative ones:

Proximal	ne
Medial	zo
Distal	tkha
Unknown/Indefinite	ba
Negative	ii

Adverbs

Common adverbs include:

Proximal	nis
Medial	zus
Distal	tkhaas
Unknown/Indefinite	baas
Negative	ngamaas

Adverbs can be followed by postpositions, for instance tkhaas oni translates as "that way".

Verbs

Verbs are the most heavily inflected parts of speech in Sangheili, although they do not agree with anything, they have a rich system for marking tense, aspect, mood, evidentiality, polarity and emphasis.

Verbs have two stems, the plain one and the reduplicated one:

Verb stems	Plain	Reduplicated
"Burst"	bakha	baabakha
"Stab"	ch'in	ch'injin
"Hunt"	chkha'a	chkhaaja'a
"Rotate"	donu	daadonu
"Mount"	ema	aamema
"Decay"	ghaaba	ghaagaba
"Come"	jaya	jejaya
"Fight"	k'utkho	k'uukutkho
"Fertilize an egg"	naya	nenaya
"Bend"	opkho	pkhaapkho
"Suffer"	ot'a	ot'oza
"Sleep"	pkhungo	pkhubungo
"Walk"	qkhoso	qkhoghoso
"Be sure"	satkha	sasatkha
"Name"	tkhop'o	tkhaadop'o
"Expand"	zaya	zaazaya

Both can take various inflectional suffixes, however the meaning of a bare stem or the combination of a stem and some suffixes differs depending on whether the verb is dynamic or stative:

TAM suffixes		Stem	Dynamic	Stative
After consonants	After vowels
-o	None	Reduplicated	Imperfect	Emphatic
		Plain	Imperative	Present
-i	-ikhi		Inceptive	Inchoative
-tan			Perfect	Cessive
-cho	-jo		Present	Probabilitive
-chi	-ji		Emphatic	Past
-chen	-jen		Uncertain	Possibilitive
-chaga	-jaga		Future

Other notable suffixes include:

-jahe	Used with a reduced set of TAM suffixes to form yes/no questions
-eya	Negation
-'ala	Ability

Copular constructions

Sangheili generally uses zero-copula constructions:

Ne bekkhajo riin o maamaro gha — "this creature is what we seek" (literally "this creature what we seek")

However, it has a locative copula, ts'aha:

Ghaadi ni ngitkhagha ts'aha? — "Where are the controls?"

Emphasis

The particle pkha commonly emphasizes the verb it follows:

Bit'a ba riin ngani — "we need to have (it)"

Bit'a ba riin ngani pkha — "we must have (it)"

Derivation

Sangheili has a productive set of instrumental prefixes to derive new verbs:

ba(n)-	With the back or rear
ch'a(n)-	With the head
dzu(m/n)-	With a weapon or a sharp point, dangerously
ga(i/y)-	With the lower mandible, with uncertainty
gha(y)-	With the foot
kh(e/y)-	General instrumental, with the hand
juu(n)-	With the upper mandible, with certainty
me(kh)-	With a tool or device
mo(s)-	With the mind, by reasoning
ru(u)-	With fire or heat
t'i(s)-	With words, verbally
wel(e)-	With a vehicle

The meaning of a derived verb is more or less predictable:

Bakha (burst) → gaibakha (happen), mobakha (realize), ruubakha (destroy)

Chkha'a (hunt) → ghachkha'a (track)

Donu (rotate) → ch'adonu (notice), juudonu (flank)

Duje (molt) → gaiduje (sully), juunduje (make look good), moduje (lose track of)

Ema (mount) → dzumema (conquer), khayema (scale by hand), welema (board)

Ghaina (hear) → banghaina (sense), t'ighaina (understand)

Jaya (come) → mejaya (prepare)

K'utkho (fight) → bank'utkho (defend), t'ik'utkho (argue)

Khawa (say) → gaikhawa (guess), juukhawa (claim), khekhawa (respond), t'ikhawa (chat)

Other common suffixes include -jo, which forms agent nouns, and -t'u (or -tu), which forms nominalizations:

Maaro (seek) → maarojo (search team)

Ts'aha (be at) → ts'ahat'u (presence)

Coordinating conjunctions

Common coordinating conjunctions include:

Q'a	but
Nizhi	and (used to coordinate nouns and sentences)
Ze	and (used to coordinate adjectives)

Question words

Common question words, which are also used as subordinating conjunctions or relative pronouns, include:

Gha	what
Ghaazhi	because, if, when
Ghaadi	where
Ghaasha	how
Ghaakhe	how much