Mag Nuk Grammar

From The Languages of David J. Peterson
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Mag Nuk Language Navigation: Home, Phonology, Grammar, Vocabulary, Dialogue

Mag Nuk is an isolating language. The word order is subject-verb-object (SVO) and the language is mostly head-initial. Compared to its ancestor, the Old Tongue, all inflectional morphology has been lost, and all polysyllabic words have become monosyllabic. It can be described as pidgin language, in the sense that it is not a fully-fledged system of communication comparable to a human language, because its speakers, the giants, lack the mental capacities of the average human. Furthermore, it is also a pidgin in the sense that its grammar is not consistent across utterances. The information on this page should be considered in light of this fact.

Nouns

Like other words in Mag Nuk, nouns are monosyllabic, and do not inflect. One example is skag ("rock"), from Old Tongue skagos, of the same meaning.

Pronouns

The second-person singular personal pronoun is bar, and the third-person singular is rukh.

Verbs

In Mag Nuk, tense-aspect-mood (TAM) information is conveyed through auxillary verbs. For example, the auxillary verb thol ("sit"), which precedes the content verb, conveys a present or imperfective sense, which can be translated as the present progressive ("is/are X-ing") in English.

Syntax

Mag Nuk sentences follow SVO word order.

Wh-questions

The interrogative particle or pronoun lokh can be translated as both "who" or "what." To form a wh-question, lokh is placed first in the clause. However, compared to the corresponding declarative sentence, it does not replace the third-person pronoun, which is left in place.