Shu Grammar

Shu Language Navigation: Home, Phonology, Grammar, Vocabulary, Orthography, Dialogue

Shu is an agglutinative language. It has a head-initial grammar. Nouns feature an extensive case system, in contrast to most head-initial languages, which usually have either no cases or very few. Verbs have a considerable number of conjugations, but do not show any agreement.

Nouns

Nouns inflect for case and number. There are two numbers, singular and plural, and ten cases: nominative, dative, locative, allative, inessive, illative, abessive, ablative, instrumental, and perlative. Nouns differ in their inflectional pattern depending on the final sound of the noun root. Consider, as an example, the consonant-final noun yul ("son"):

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	yul	yulwor
Dative	yule	yulwore
Locative	yuliv	yulworiv
Allative	yulive	yulworive
Inessive	yulo	yulworo
Illative	yulewe	yulworewe
Abessive	yulem	yulworem
Ablative	yuleme	yulworeme
Instrumental	yulishi	yulworishi
Perlative	yulyer	yulworyer