Nelvayu Grammar
Nelvayu is an agglutinative language. It features polypersonal agreement.
Nouns
Nouns decline for case. The cases of Nelvayu include genitive (marked with -u), instrumental (-uze), and dative (-gra).
Possession in nouns is marked by possessive suffixes:
| First Person | Second Person | Third Person | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | -uk | ||
| Plural |
Examples:
- beyunuk "your name" (name-your)
- bodzamuk "your strength" (strength-your)
- imoruk "your face" (face-your)
- trovelluk "your servant" (servant-your)
- dimostuk "your mark" (mark-your)
- dimostu "of the mark" (of-mark)
- dimostuze "with the mark" (by-mark)
- lonnuze "by the light" (by-the-light)
- hazle "realm"
- hazligra "to the realm" (to-realm)
- nivuneyav "bodies"
- kirza "world"
Pronouns
Pronouns decline for case and number:
| Singular | Plural | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Person | 2nd Person | 3rd Person | 1st Person | 2nd Person | 3rd Person | |
| Nominative | hela | |||||
| Genitive | ||||||
| Instrumental | ||||||
| Dative | hingra | uregra | helegra | |||
Determiners
Nelvayu has demonstratives.
Examples:
- mem "this, these"
Verbs
Verbs in Nelvayu show polypersonal agreement, that is, verbs agree with both their subject and direct object. Imperative forms of transitive verbs agree with their object, while imperative forms of intransitive verbs agree with their subject (i.e. the second person). The agreement suffixes are shown in the following table:
| First Person | Second Person | Third Person | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | -i/-yen | -(a)k | -yet |
| Plural | -(y)el | -ar |
Nelvayu has a null copula.
Examples:
- vashik "I call you." (call-I-you)
- vashelak "We call you." (call-we-you)
- odmerelar "We offer (them)." (offer-we-them)
- dandzorelak "We welcome you." (welcome-we-you)
- zorelak "We see you." (see-we-you)
- zorayel "See us!" (see-us)
- vozoyel "Mark us!" (mark-us)
- dembrayel "Take us!" (take-us)
- hessayel "Use us!" (use-us)
- ludayel "Hear us!" (hear-us)
- ludayen "Hear me!" (hear-me)
- ashaloyen "Answer me!" (answer-me)
- ludayet "Hear (it)!" (hear-it)
- merayet/medrayet "Give (it)! (give-it)
- guvoyet "Show (it)! (show-it)
- odzorayet "Behold (it)!" (behold-it)
- germoyet "Find (it)!" (find)
- odbetroyet "Cleanse (it)! (cleanse-it)
- zavak "Come!"
- erinak "Rise!"