Adwan

The Adwanic language, (English: Adwan, French: Adouanne, Spanish: Aduána, Adwan: Aðwana) is an inflecting, isolating language. It is the language of the Adwanic People, or the Chiðaùm Aðwany.

Features:
 * Adwan is a fusionally synthetic language. This means that words change depending on their usage (I am would be það, yet you are could either be þus or þuš, depending on the number).
 * Adwan also expresses a very agglutinative nature when it comes to verbs, which conjugated by stringing affixes together.
 * Verbs in Adwan are conjugated to four persons, two numbers, three tenses, three aspects, four voices, four moods and three polarities.
 * Adwan lacks auxilliary verbs and modal verbs, instead making extensive use of affixes to change modality, aspect, tense, mood and voice.


 * Adwan is a pro-drop language; the person is conjugated into the verb.
 * Adwan declines nouns for number, and grammatical case. Gender is lost in most nouns, though some can be declined for gender by adding respective affixes.
 * Adwan has 7 cases; nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, ablative, locative and vocative, and 2 numbers; singular and plural.
 * Adwan experiences 5 kinds of phonetic mutations: gemination, nasalization, aspirative lenition, ablaut, and palatalization.
 * Loanwords to Adwan are generally rare; about 5-15% of Adwan's vocabulary is shared with other European languages (while mesa means table in Spanish, it means island in Adwan).
 * Coordinating conjunctions have two, very different forms, which depend on what they're connecting. While clauses use traditional, separate conjunctions, listed items use proclitics, or morphemes that work like affixes and depend on the word they're attached to, but are grammatically independant.
 * Adwan is syllable timed; stress is always put on the penultimate syllable unless stated otherwise (acute accents over vowels show irregular stress rules, which are incredibly common).

Phonology
Adwan empoys 29 consonants and 8 vowels (with a numerous amount of diphthong combinations).

Consonants

 * The phoneme /b/ does not exist in Adwan.
 * The phoneme /ɬ/ is not an allophone of /l/
 * The phoneme /ʔ/ is not represented in writing, nor does it have any significant effect (it is purely dialectical).
 * The phoneme /ɰ/ is an allophone of /ɣ/.
 * Bilabial plosives (‹p›), palatal approximants (‹j› ‹ɥ›), velar fricatives (‹h›), velar approximants (‹w›), and alveolar lateral fricatives (‹ɬ›) can never end a word.

Vowels
To see diphthongs in Adwan, click here.
 * Note: /œ/ is an allophone to /ø/, therefore switching between /ø/ and /œ/ doesn't change meaning.
 * /u/ becomes /ʊ/ in diphthongs; /ʊ/ is only found in diphthongs, though it, too, is an allophone of /œ/ and /ø/.

Second note: Vowel length in Adwan is not phonemic, therefore altering the length to a vowel does not change anything. Stress, however, is, therefore changing the stress of a word will change its meaning.

Phonotactics
Syllables in Adwan follow a relatively simple set of rules in formation. Usually, they follow a CV pattern, though it is not uncommon to see CCV, CCCV, and CCVCC. Typically, the generalized rule for syllables in Adwan is (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C).

Note, diphthongs are considered one vowel, and ch is considered one consonant.

Alphabet
The Adwanic alphabet consists of 36 letters:

A C Č D Ð Ď E F G Ğ H CH I J K L Ł M N Ň O Ö P R Þ S Š T U Ü V W Ẃ Y Z Ž Ż

Consonant-wise, Adwan is completely phonemic. For the most part, everything is written how it is sounded out, in Adwan. The Adwanic alphabet does, however, lack a few things:

The letters Bb, Qq, and Xx do not exist in Adwan, as the phoneme /b/ doesn't exist in ANY Adwanic word, and Qq is either transcribed as "kw" or "k", while Xx is transcribed "ks", "z", or "gz".

Latin Alphabet Extensions
Adwan employs 12 letters that are foreign to the basic Latin alphabet. These letters are considered letters on their own, rather than letters with diacritics.
 * ‹Č,č› represents the phoneme ‹tʃ›, as in the English word chocolate.
 * ‹Ð,ð› represents the phoneme ‹ð›, as in the English word therefore.
 * ‹Ď,ď› represents the phoneme ‹dʒ›, as in the English word jam.
 * ‹Ğ,ğ› represents the phoneme ‹ɣ›, which doesn't exist in English. It is a ‹g›, but smoother and in the back of the throat, almost like a ‹g› version of ‹x›; it is represented as in the Greek word γάλα.
 * ‹Ł,ł› represents the phoneme ‹ɬ›, which doesn't exist in English. It is almost like saying ‹š› and ‹l› together but quickly, or blowing while your tongue is curled back. It is represented as in the Welsh word lloyd.
 * ‹Ň,ň› represents the phoneme ‹ŋ›, as in the English word sing. Note that the ‹g› isn't pronounced, and the ‘n‘ is velarized.
 * ‹Ö,ö› represents the phoneme ‹ø›, which doesn't exist in English. The closest sound would be the ou in would, only a bit higher. It is represented as in the French word peu, or the Norwegian word søt.
 * ‹Š,š› represents the phoneme ‹ʃ›, as in the English word cash.
 * ‹Ü,ü› represents the phoneme ‹y›, which doesn't exist in English. Say ee and round your lips as if saying ‹ö›. It is represented as in the French word tu.
 * ‹Ẃ,ẃ› represents the phoneme ‹ɥ›, which doesn't exist in English. It is like a ‹j› + ‹w› sound (y + w for non-IPA users). It is represented as is in the French word lui.
 * ‹Ž,ž› represents the phoneme ‹ʒ›, as in the English word vision, or as in the French word je.
 * ‹Ż,ż› represents the phoneme ‹dz›, as in the English word cards. 

Acute Accent; Stress
Adwan adds acute accents (and double acute accents to all vowels with umlauts) to all vowels to add stress if the stress isn't on the penultimate syllable.
 * ‹Á,á› represents stress on the ‹a›.
 * ‹É,é› represents stress on the ‹e›.
 * ‹Í,í› represents stress on the ‹i›.
 * ‹Ó,ó› represents stress on the ‹o›.
 * ‹Ő,ő› represents stress on the ‹ö›.
 * ‹Ú,ú› represents stress on the ‹u›.
 * ‹Ű,ű› represents stress on the ‹ü›.
 * ‹Ý,ý› represents stress on the ‹y›.

Grave Accents; Diphthong Formation
As Adwan is a phonemic language, double vowel clusters do not form diphthongs, but are pronounced each, usually with a glottal stop separating them. A vowel cluster that has the second vowel with a grave accent creates the diphthong. Grave accents in Adwan act as glides, pushing two vowels together rather than their usual separate pronunciation.
 * ‹À,à›
 * ‹Eà, eà›; [ɛa]; represents the sound in the word can, stressed to sound slightly country.
 * ‹È,è›
 * ‹Iè, iè› [ɪɛ]; represents another rounded sound, like ‹ià›. It sounds like a northern Norwegian "e", or like the word "kit", rather like "Kih-et", said in one syllable.
 * ‹Ì,ì›
 * ‹Aì, aì›; [aɪ̯]; represents the sound in kite, or eye. 
 * ‹Eì, eì›; [eɪ̯]; represents the sound in cake, or fate.
 * ‹Öì, öì›; [øɪ̯]; represents the sound of ‹ö› plus ‹y› or ‹i›.
 * ‹Uì, uì›; [uɪ̯]; represents the sound in the Spanish word muy. It's a combination of "oo" and "ee", for non-IPA readers.
 * ‹Ù,ù›
 * ‹Aù, aù›; [aʊ̯]; represents the ow sound in cow.
 * ‹Eù, eù›; [ɛʊ̯]; represents the eu sound in the Spanish word Europa. Like ew but with an open "e" rather than "i".
 * ‹Iù, iù›; [ɪʊ̯]; represents the sound in English ew in one syllable.
 * ‹Où, où›; [oʊ̯]; represents the o sound in the English word float. 

Ě, the silent one
Other than acute and grave accents, vowels don't have any other diacritics, except for ‹e›. The letter "e" can also have a háček added to it, though the use in this is quite confusing. Quite literally, ‹ě› is what seems to be a "decision" letter, for while every other letter in Adwan is pronounced -- as Adwan is a phonemic language -- the ‹ě› can either be silent or pronounced. The letter ‹ě› has one use.
 * The first main usage is with verb affixes. With the formation of verb affixes, the syllables grow in size and many times, the stress falls upon the e's that separate affixes from having potentially scary consonant clusters. ‹ě›, though it is pronounced the same as a regular old ‹e›, is put in between affixes to not only separate them orthographically, but to indicate that the ‹e› is optional. With verb affixes, if the speaker can pronounce the affixes without the separating ‹e›, then they can, but the ‹ě› is inserted to show that, indeed, an ‹e› can be pronounced. However, the ‹ě› does not appear between an affix that starts with a consonant while the preceding letter is a vowel.
 * 1) Excerpt: "...They should act towards one another..." --> "Dwaþryšěğam". The verb affix -ğam indicates the verb is in the middle voice (and the person is plural). For many, -š- and -ğ- together are not that hard to pronounce, but it makes it easier to have the option, which is where -ě- comes in.

Orthography
Adwan, for the most part, is quite a phonemic language, though it does carry its own writing rules. Mainly everything is written as it is pronounced, and everything is pronounced as it is written. Diphthongs even have special diacritics that show they're diphthongs, because vowel clusters are separately pronounced. One thing Adwan does have, however, is gemination.

Gemination in Adwan can be quite tricky, for just because a consonant is doubled, doesn't mean it should be geminated. In the Polish loanwoard Ďďovnyca, or earthworm, the two ‹d›'s (dʒ), are pronounced.

Gemination is triggered by two things: double consonants, and an accute accent. It does not matter if pronunciation already falls on the vowel, an acute is added to the vowel before the double consonants to produce gemination. Thus, double consonants that are word initial are always pronounced.

Note: gemination occurs in the locative for the first declensions:
 * Afkra ⟶ Áffkrena / Áffkreňa
 * Šuska ⟶ Šússkena / Šússkeňa
 * Arebyna ⟶ Arebýnnena, Arebýnneňa

Cyrillic Orthography
Adwan is commonly used using both Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, usually with different fields, however. Though more common to see the latin alphabet used in contemporary uses, there are still many uses of the cyrillic alphabet, especially for important documents.

To learn more about the cyrillic orthography, view the article on Cyrillic Orthograpy in Adwan.

Phonetic Mutations
===Palatalization ===

Palatalization in Adwan is tricky, as it is not shown in written speech whether a letter that precedes a ‹j› is to be palatalized or not. Vowels are never palatalized, as palatalization only ever happens to consonants. Most of the time, consonants are always palatalized if they precede a /j/. For example: In the word Skjorta (booth), the /k/ is palatalized to /kʲ/, which merges the sound of /k/ with /j/ to form one syllable. The /k/ in skjorta is palatalized because it precedes a /j/. It should be noted that /j/ doesn't palatalize consonants (technically, it would if it ended a word that has a penultimate letter as a consonant, by ‹j› never ends a word in Adwan), and in some dialects goes from /j/ to /ʝ/ (a stronger form of /j/). /J/ is only ever pronounced fully as /j/ when it begins a word. Note: /ɬ/, /w/, /ɥ/, /ʔ/, /l/, /r/, and occasionally /ð/ and /θ/ are never palatalized.

===Aspirative Lenition ===

Aspirative Lenition in Adwan isn't seen as much as Palatalization, or other phonetic mutations, though it is seen extensively in the second strong declension. Essentially, an aspirative consonant breaks diphthongs and vowels in to two. This process is used to indicate plural. Essentially, the vowel is split in half with an aspirative consonant, an ‹h›, in the middle. • Aì → Ahy (note, the "i" lengthens to a "y") • Eì → Ehy • Aù → Ahu • Eù → Ehu • Où → Ohu Etc. However, even single vowels have aspirative lenition. • A → Aha • E → Ehe • O → Oho • U → Uhu • Y → Yhy And of course, there are irregular vowels. Note, only one irregular vowel actually goes through aspirative lenition, while two other ones follow an equally odd form of palatalization. • I → Yje • Ö → Uho • Ü → Uje

Consonant Mutation
Consonants in Adwan tend to change, though not in the sense where they simple change to fit with pronunciation. Many times, the changes of consonants will happen in declensions, where the changing of a consonant signifies a change in number, though there are -- quite commonly, actually -- in common names, places and associations, consonant mutations. Most of the time, consonant mutations follow a set of phonetic rules that make sense, though there are still times where the changes are arbitrary. These irregular consonants are seldom, though they still exist in Adwan.

Example of regular consonant mutation:

In the genitive of the second weak declension, the singular declension of the noun mör (sea) becomes möres, though when changing to plural, -s becomes -z, therefore transforming möres to mörez.

In the ablative of the fourth weak declension, the singular declension of the noun chiðaùm (person) becomes chiðaùmysc, though when changing to plural, -sc change to šč, therefore leaving the word to be chiðaùmyšč.

There is no exact rule governing what consonants mutate to, though generally they become voiced if unvoiced, and become unvoiced it voiced; also, however, these rules may not be followed, as in some instances, s will become z, and in others, s will become š, and even þ.

Consonants also change in conjugations in Adwan to represent number. S becomes š, c becomes č, and z becomes ž in Adwanic verbs. ===Ablaut ===
 * Łorac refers to the first person singular, while łorač refers to the first person plural.

Abalut in Adwan is the mutation of vowels. Vowels in Adwan go through change, mainly to indicate number change. This is seen in demonstratives and noun declensions, where vowels change to change case and or number.

Ablaut is imperative to conjugations in Adwan, where, unlike noun and determiner inflections where the rule for ablaut is unspecified, nouns take a special person.
 * The nominative proximal demonstrative Þyd becomes Þud when becoming plural.
 * The distal demonstrative Jot goes through 6 ablauts, one for each case, therefore Jot changes to Jyt for the genitive, Jöt for the accusative, etc, etc.
 * A is associated with the first person, while u is to second person, y, e, and o are to third person (neuter, masculine and feminine, respectively), and i to fourth person indefinite.
 * 1) Možas refers to the first person, while možus refers to the second person.

===Nasalization ===

Nasalization is vital to Adwan, for it expresses a change in number in many declensions. For all of the first declension, vowels are nasalized to show the nouns being plural. The velar nasal consonant represents nasalization to vowels -- as it's only ever found near vowels -- ‹ň›, though many times the velar nasal is only merged with the vowel. • Afkra → Afkraň While a velar nasal is added to the word to pluralize, sometimes the velar nasal disappears in return for nasalization of the vowel. However, even if a velar nasal is still pronounced, vowels are still considered to go through nasalization due to the organized nasalization they all go through for number change.

Thus, with nasalization, afkraň, [afkraŋ] can become [afkrã].

===Gemination ===

Gemination occurs in Adwan mainly in case changes and names. Adwan doesn't geminate too many consonants, though it is exclusive to the locative first strong declension. However, there are specific rules. For a consonant to be geminated, the syllable before it must be stressed and represented with an acute -- or double accute -- accent.
 * Geminized: Ánna = [an:a]
 * Not-Geminized: Anna = [anna].

Note: A geminized ‹CH› does not repeat ‹ch›, but merely adds an ‹h› to it, therefore it would be Káchha, not Káchcha. Káchha = rock.

Glottalization
Glottalization in Adwan is neither phonemic nor is it a technical part of Adwanic speech. For the most part, glottalization of consonants and vowels in Adwan varies in many dialects; where many forme penthesis and elongate adjacent vowels, others cut them up and glottalize them.

However, there is one universal glottal rule that isn't shown in the orthography.

In prepositions such as s, þ and v, a glottal stop follows these consonants to stop them from completely joining the next word. It is common, however, to hear prepositions be glottalized.

Syntax & Morphology
Adwan is an inflecting language, where many words change their form depending on their function in a sentence. This may pose a problem for many English speakers, Chinese speakers, or other speakers of analytical languages, for analytical languages depend on word order to convey their meaning, as opposed to morphology.

Adwan, as an inflecting language, inflects verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, numbers, and determiners depending on their function in a sentence, or their case (or person, mood, voice, tense and aspect, for verbs).

Word Order
Because of the inflections that go on in Adwan, word order is generally a lot freer than it would be if it didn't have all those inflections. Adwan generally follows an SVO word order, though many word orders are feasible depending on the mood or emphasis they want to put on the sentence. Many times, word order can change voice and mood to words without actually changing the mood or voice. In the OVS order, the verb should be in the passive voice, but because of the word order, the passive voice is not needed. It is, however, much more common and easier to follow a generic SVO order and use morphology to change meaning, rather than word order.

Place Manner Time
Place manner and time order is not strict at all in Adwan, except for one rule: time must always go after the verb. The usual order in Adwan is time place manner, although quite literally, there is no restriction to order, as long as the time goes after the verb. When dealing with Place manner time, the verb always precedes the temporal phrase, therefore word order depends on the position of the temporal phrase.

Time Place Manner Time Manner Place Place Manner Time Place Time Manner Manner Time Place Manner Place Time Tareì (Ta + reì) -> I will go; mač --> tomorrow; šússkena (loc of šuska) --> (to, at) school; sery --> via, by way of, etc; swačeì (abl of swača) --> car.'''
 * I will go tomorrow to school by car.
 * Tareì mač šússkena sery swačeì.
 * I will go tomorrow by car to school.
 * Tareì mač sery swačeì šússkena.
 * To school by car I will go tomorrow.
 * Šússkena sery swačeì tareì mač.
 * To school I will go tomorrow by car.
 * Šússkena tareì mač sery swačeì.
 * By car I will go tomorrow to school.
 * Sery swačeì tareì mač šússkena.
 * By car to school I will go tomorrow.
 * Sery swačeì šússkena tareì mač.

Cases
Adwan has seven cases to which decline its nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numbers and determiners. They are the nominative, the genitive, the accusative, the dative, the ablative, the locative and the vocative.

The Nominative and the Accusative are subject-object cases. No prepositions govern either case; the verb distinguishes the subject and the direct object; in the phrase Paul eats apples, "Paul" is in the nominative, and "apples" is in the accusative. Nothing ever stands in the way between a nominative and an accusative case, other than the verb, theoretically.

The Genitive case is the case of posession and relation. Since Adwan's ratio of adjectives is low compared to its nouns and verbs, many nouns act as adjectives when used in the genitive. In the phrase The dog house, when compound word usage is not preferred, the genitive case is used, in which the phrase would then mean The house of dogs, in which "dogs" would be in the genitive. the genitive is ideally the "of" case; posessors always follow the nouns, rather than the nouns following their posessors like in other languages. In the girl's cat, the girl is the posessor and comes before the cat; however, in Adwan, the girl comes after the cat, because a possessive noun is like saying "of [a/the]". Therefore, the girl's cat would be the cat of the girl. Note: Irregular prepositions govern the Genitive case, but since there are only a few, the genitive doesn't qualify as a prepositional case.

The Dative, Ablative and the Locative cases are prepositional cases in Adwan; these are the three cases which are governed by prepositions. Many prepositions are alike and must therefore have a distinction to their usage, which is why the three cases come in. The Dative case refers to the indirect object as a recipent of the verb; the ablative case refers to the indirect object as the causative noun, and the locative case refers to the indirect object as a locational noun. The Vocative case refers to a dialogue case, used when addressing someone in specific. It is the least complicated of the cases, and only ever used in day to day dialogue, rather than writing (though it does occur a lot in writing with dialogues). In the phrase Hey, Paul!, "Paul" is in the vocative, because it is being adressed.
 * The ablative case is the most isolated of these three, as its usage differes from the dative and locative. It is the case of instrument and cause, therefore in the phrase Paul eats apples with a fork, "fork" would be in the ablative.
 * The dative case and the locative case share many prepositional uses, but establish a line of distinction when it comes to their usage. The locative case uses prepositions of direction and of location, while the dative uses the same prepositions but doesn't refer to location or direction. In the phrase I'm going to the store, the "store" is in the locative, because "to" refers to a place; however, in the phrase I gave an apple to my mom, "mom" would be in the dative, because it is a recipent of an action. Many times, it is easy to distinguish which preposition and case to use by seeing their usage. If it's not instrument, or location, it's in the dative, most likely.

Prepositions
Prepositions in Adwan govern three cases; the dative, the ablative, and the locative. Each preposition is assigned to only one case, as there is no amiguity, however, many prepositions are copulas of eachother (such as v and ef, which both mean "in" but describe different situations.

Prepositions are special features to Adwan, as each preposition is specific in one form or another. Rather unlike its European counterparts, prepositions in Adwan rarely ever have double meanings.

Below is a list of all prepositions used in Adwan, listed under their respective cases Italicized prepositions are default prepositions for the respective case; therefore, a case without a preposition is automatically assumed to be that preposition.
 * Dative
 * 1) Compared to - Deìnaìpora
 * 2) For - Y
 * 3) Than - Kö
 * 4) To - Šču*
 * 5) Toward - Aì
 * Ablative
 * 1) About - Ðö
 * 2) According to - Voch
 * 3) After - Ďeňkwy
 * 4) Against - Seď
 * 5) Among - Kaìch
 * 6) As opposed to - Vsorysjonšču
 * 7) At - Ła
 * 8) Because of - Oďy
 * 9) Before - Kpy
 * 10) By - Her
 * 11) Concerning - Ğaù
 * 12) Despite - Or
 * 13) During - Kureùň
 * 14) From - Žeìň*
 * 15) In - V
 * 16) Like - Som
 * 17) On - S
 * 18) On behalf of - Def
 * 19) Regarding - Jar
 * 20) Since - Jeùr
 * 21) Until - Ďeù
 * 22) Versus - Raùch
 * 23) Via - Sery
 * 24) With - Zuþ
 * 25) Without - Saþ
 * Locative
 * 1) Across - Tra
 * 2) Against - Des
 * 3) Around - Naìsle
 * 4) At - Er*
 * 5) Behind - Chva
 * 6) Between - Þ
 * 7) By - Ièt
 * 8) From - Ďa
 * 9) In - Ef
 * 10) In front of - Jeg
 * 11) Into - Šlaù
 * 12) Near - Per
 * 13) Next to - Vel
 * 14) On - Ü
 * 15) Outside of - Daùr
 * 16) Over - Chu
 * 17) To - Al
 * 18) Under - Och
 * Genitive
 * 1) Ago - Doň; used prepositionally, rather than postposionally in English. Three years ago in Adwan would be Doň jaìsar nyhy, or Ago of three years.

Declensions: Nouns & Adjectives
Nouns, Adjectives, and Numbers, for the most part, follow the same declensions, more or less. Other than irregular nouns, and adjectives, every declinable part of speech (except for many pronouns!) follow the same declensions.

Note: Gender does now specifically own a declension, but rather has a special affix that changes gender; adding -š or -eš will make a noun masculine, while adding -č or -oč will make the noun feminine. All nouns come in neuter form, except for slang terms and informal terms that are gender specific. While nouns can technically be declined into gender, it must be known that inanimate nouns can NOT be declined for gender, for it is culturally sexist and incorrect.

Šlyna can be šlynač or šlynaš, since it means child, and a child can be generally unspecified, masculine or feminine. Parm, however, cannot be correctly declined to parmeš or parmoč, for a road cannot be feminine or masculine (note, feminine and masculine declensions are still given for said noun, but they are only for demonstration.)

More on Gender...

Adwan indeed does decline to gender -- three genders, as a matter of face; Masculine, Feminine and Neuter. However, gender in Adwan is anything but arbitrary. All nouns in Adwan are by default neuter. All inanimate nouns can only be neuter, while animate nouns can have all three genders. A noun is only declined as a feminine noun if the noun is literally a woman, or carries an essence of feminism; same for the masculine nouns.

Examples of nouns that under go masculine and feminine declensions are nouns such as:


 * Šlyna, "child"; can be šlynaš, "boy", or šlynač, "girl".
 * Fevna, "parent"; can be fevnaš, "father", or fevnač, "mother".
 * Martyn, "fox"; can be martyneš, "male fox", or martynoč, "female fox".

To change a noun's gender, a gender prefix must be added to the already-declined noun.

Masculine: -š, or -eš

Feminine: -č, or -oč

Apart from Gender, Adwan also declines its nouns according to number. The number system in Adwan is quite simple, as things are declined as to whether they're singular, or plural. Singular denotes the amount being of only one quantity, while plural denotes it to be of more than one quantity.

Noun or Adjective?
Adwan doesn't have separate declensions for adjectives, like some languages such as Czech and Polish, but rather, an adjective is declined as if it would be a noun, and vice versa. With this, many adjectives can act as nouns if they were to be standalone parts of speeches, for example: délla could mean either "good" or "the good". However, there are adjectives that are purely predicates and therefore cannot stand as nouns, such as the adjective featured, as opposed to its noun counterpart, feature. In parts of speeches that vary with type of speech, the noun usually carries the affix -na, -čna, -ana, -yna, etc.

Due to case inflections, adjectives have no exact positioning in Adwan, though it is preferred that adjectives follow the nouns; therefore, in a phrase like the red apple, the phrasing would be reworded to be the apple red. However, as stated, word order is not too strict and only follows these rules for convenience.

Strong Declensions
Strong declensions consist of nouns, adjectives and other parts of speech that are declined that end in vowels or go through a system of ablaut to decline. Adwan only has three strong declensions, but parts of speech in the first and second strong declensions are the most abundant parts of speech in Adwan.

First Declension
Šlyna = Child;
 * Note: Look at the "Orthography" and read on Gemination for an explanation on the locative.

Second Declension
Bre = Adult

Third Declension
The first declension deals with words that end in -és, -ér, and -éż, which are typically adjectives. Motér = Strange

Weak Declensions
Declensions shown below mainly consist of suffixes and infixes.

First Declension
The third declension deals with all nouns ending in -ch, -g, -s, and -z. Feaz = Tourist

Second Declension
The fourth declension deals with all nouns ending in -ď, -l, -r, and -ž. Maìr = Mayor

Third Declension
The fifth declension deals with all nouns ending in -c, -ð, -t, and -ż. Kaùleð = Hiker

Fourth Declension
The sixth declension deals with all nouns ending in -n, -k, -f, and -v. Marin = Sailor

Fifth Declension
The seventh declension deals with all nouns ending in -d, -ğ, -m, and -þ. Parm = Road

Relative Pronouns
Relative pronouns in Adwan, like pronouns, are irregularly declined. They decline for case only, and follow a rather regular pattern (though the declensions in themselves are quite irregular as they don't follow the regular patterns).

Adwan has one relative pronoun, and its declination works something like the French relative pronouns of qui and que, and Latin's declension, where it declines according to its part of speech function rather than the noun its connecting or relating to. The relative pronoun in Adwan is Sað, and it has all the functions of English's relative pronouns that, which, who, whom, etc.

Usage of Sað
Nominative Genitive Accusative Dative Ablative Locative Interrogative pronoun forms change with their case: for example, sað typically means what, that, and which, though in the locative, it explicitly means where, in the genitive it means whose, and in the dative i means who, whoever.
 * That's the girl who wanted to eat!
 * Jot þoþ šlynač sað łorocje možan.
 * I wrote a letter to the woman whose daughter is ill.
 * Jaùþyvacje meturyn löìjełínoč sav šlynuč þoþ vychnu.
 * I told you [that] I wanted to eat!
 * Þeìþasje fum saż łoracje možan.
 * I gave food to whoever wanted to eat!
 * Dasje chúllu sac łorycje možan.
 * Because of what you said, we're all in trouble now.
 * Oďy saù þeìþucje, aš þaùþ zuþ mušamysc.
 * I'm in front of where you told me to be!
 * Það jeg saš dusje saż það.
 * The locative of sað, saš, works like the English relative pronoun where, NOT the interrogative one.
 * The locative proves to be difficult, as the literal wording of það jeg saš dusje saż það is I am (at) that you told that I be.
 * The pronoun chað can also be used in this context, as it is an interrogative pronoun meaning where.

Interrogative Pronouns
Interrogative pronouns pose questions while taking form of what would be nouns. However, most words that do pose questions are actually reversed adverbs, where rather than going after the verb, the precede the verb. Adwan's structure does not depend wholly on this, however, as simply using intonation is enough to pose a question.

Adwan has rather odd interrogative pronouns, that, although not found in English typically, can be found in other languages. However, like other Indo-European languages, what is identical to the relative that in Adwan.

All Adwanic interrogative pronouns end in að and follow the same declension pattern as sað.

What: Šað

What kind: Flað

Where: Chað

How many: Gwað

Why, when, etc, are adverbs in Adwan that are simply placed before the verb to pose a question, though the locative of sað can function as where.

Demonstratives
Demonstratives, words such as this, that, those, these, etc, make a three way distinction in Adwan, rather than the two way distinction found in English. Adwan makes a distinction between distal, medial and proximal demonstratives.
 * 1) Proximal demonstratives mark objects that are near to the speaker. The equivalent to this in English is the demonstrative this and these.
 * 2) Medial demonstratives mark the objects that are near to the addressee. English doesn't necessarily make a distinction for this type of demonstrative, but that and those are usually used to refer to objects near the addressee.
 * 3) Distal demonstratives mark objects that are far from both the speaker and the addressee. English has the demonstratives that and those, and archaically had yon and yonder, but those aren't used as much anymore.

Demonstratives in Adwan are declined for number and case, although the declensions they go through are, typically, irregular and don't follow the rules of typical declensions.

Proximal: Þyd - This
Þyd, the proximal demonstrative in Adwan, marks objects that are close to the speaker. It is the equivalent to this and these in English.

Medial: Lal
Lal, the medial demonstrative in Adwan, marks objects that are close to the addressee. It has no equivalence in English. It does, however, match along nicely with the Spanish medial demonstrative ese/esa/eso.

Distal: Jot - That
Jot, the distal demonstrative in Adwan, marks objects that are far from both speaker and addressee. It is the equivalent to that and those in English.

Verbs
Verbs in Adwan are the most complex part of speech in Adwan due to their agglutinative nature. Rather than change endings to change mood, tense, aspect, person and number, Adwan employs a number of affixes to change such things. The only thing resembling fusional conjugation in verbs are the conjugations per person, which change per conjugation.

Adwan has three conjugations; verbs ending in -an, verbs ending in -en, and verbs ending in -on.

Person
Adwan conjugates to 4 persons, with the 3rd person having an additional 3 genders, thus having a total of 6 persons total. Below is a table for the conjugation for each type of verb and for each person. NOTE: The nominative pronoun is NEVER used in general sentences, as the person is conjugated right into the verb. The nominative pronoun, however, does double as an oblique case, and, when used with a general pause and a comma, does not come off as redundant. Nominative pronouns are only used in oblique usages and when to emphasize certain things.

In Adwan, the first step (and probably only step depending on the context) of conjugating a verb is conjugating it for its person. In Adwan, rather than changing verb endings for each tense, aspect, voice and mood, affixes are added to the conjugated verb.

Tense & Aspect
Tense and Aspect come off as merged in Adwan, for there is no separate affix for each tense and each aspect, but rather, the combination of Tense and Aspect produce one affix (past perfective has the affix -je-, while the past imperfective has the affix -eży-).

Adwan is a language rich with tense and aspect. There are three tenses (past, present and future), and three aspects (perfective, perfect, and imperfective). Tense alone, however, is not enough to express what is going with the actions, therefore, Aspects are employed (and merged with tenses) to change the aspect of the verb. Compare ate with had eaten, etc. Below is a table with the respective affixes for each combination. NOTE: -Ø- means no affix is added.

Mood
Verbs in Adwan conjugate to mood, apart from aspect, tense and person. The conjugation of moods themselves is not hard, but rather knowing when to use them. Adwan has four moods: the indicative, the subjunctive, the imperative, and the conditional. To see how to negate a verb, look at Polarity. Like Tense/Aspect, Mood in Adwan is expressed by the use of affixes. Interestingly enough, the affix used to indicate mood on a verb changes on whether the subject of the noun is singular or plural. Below is a table with the respective affixes for moods, along with examples in both English and Adwan. Please note the use of the "optional ě". Also, the examples are all in the present perfective, this does not limit the moods to the present only, the usage of the present is only for convenience. Notes: On the conditional, the auxilliary verb in English "could" and "can" works as a prefix to verbs, "poù" and "poùþ". Can is inferred when the verb is in the indicative, or the imperative, while could is inferred when the verb is in the subjunctive.

Also notice that the mood affixes have to agree with number of the subject.

Voice
Voice is an important part to Adwan's verbs, for each voice carries a great amount of information depending on its usage. Adwanic verbs are able to be conjugated to three different voices; the Active, the Passive, and the Middle. Like other grammatical functions in a verb, Voice is distinguished by the use of affixes. With that said, the affix used depends on the number of the subject. Below is a table with the rightful affix needed to express the voice, along with a translation in English and Adwan.

Polarity
Polarity in Adwan describes whether the verb is negative or not. Adwan has three different polarities: negative, affirmative, and negative-affirmative.

Negative negates the noun. This is seen in English by the usage of do not, or don't. In archaic English, the negative particle not is placed after the verb, too.

Affirmative strengthens the noun. English has a particle for affirmation, though it differs slightly from Adwan's affirmative. In English, the particle do is English's form of affirmation. However, affirmation in Adwan is more like saying I certainly eat, rather than I do eat.

Negative-Affirmative negates an affirmation. English doesn't have regular use of this, though the phrasing of certainly don't fits the context quite well.

Unlike other parts to a verb, polarity is expressed in suffixes, therefore polarity affixes must ALWAYS go to the end of a verb. In addition, verbs with no specified polarity don't require a polarity aspect; verbs such as I eat, I watch, I go to..., etc, don't require polarity unless negating, affirming, or negating an affirmation for it.

Modality
Modality in Adwan is expressed by the use of prefixes in Adwan, rather than by the use of modal or auxilliary verbs. While a single affix is given for certain types of modalities -- which will be reffered to in English for ease -- the use of each affix can change with the differentiation of each verb mood.

Should/Shall
The technical use of should and shall in Adwan is expressed by the verb prefix dwa, or dwað, depending if the verb begins with a vowel or not.

When a verb is in the indicative, the modality from dwa is equivalent to that of should, however, when in the imperative, the modality changes to that of shall, and although these are merely tense changes in English, these changes are merely additions to voice.
 * Dwaþryš v tyrtaì povlačny -- they should act in a spirit of brotherhood.
 * Dwaþryšěty v tyrtaì povlačny -- they shall act in a spirit of brotherhood.

Can/Could/Might
The use of can and could also depends on the mood of the verb. The prefix pöžě is attached to the verb. Unlike dwa, which changes form depending on the verb's beggining, pöžě has the optional e, therefore usable with any verb.

When a verb is in the indicative, imperative, and the subjunctive, the prefix is equivalent to that of can, and when in the subjunctive, it is to that of could.

One phenomenon is that can can be used with the subjunctive, which, although not uncommon, is unheard of in English using the modal verbs, instead then using to be able to. It literally says I-want that-acc can-you-eat-subjunctive, or I want that able you eat.
 * I want that you be able to eat --> Łorac saż pöžěmožusesc.

In the Imperative and in the Indicative, pöžě also refers to can. However, in the Imperative, the meaning is a little different.
 * Pöžěmožus? --> Can you eat?
 * Pöžěmožusěty! --> You can eat!

The imperative with pöžě poses a command with a form a formality. Like in English where one might say You may all eat now, rather than saying Eat now!, the imperative with pöžě poses the same form of formality.

In the conditional, pöžě changes from can to could. Pöžě + the conditional relies heavily on aspect and tense, unlike pöžě + indicative/subjunctive/imperative.
 * Pöžěmožusěðe --> You could eat.
 * Pöžěmožuseďěðe --> You could have eaten.

Note, the future conditional + pöžě forms might, rather than ''could. ''

Infinitive
The infinitive marks an uninflected verb. Infinitives are always given in dictionaries, and in Adwan, they end in -an, -en, and -on. Infinitives are much less common in Adwan than they are in many language, mainly due to lack of usage of personal pronouns and usage of compact, agglutinative affixes to express verb functions.

For example: We should eat, "eat" is in the inifnitive in English, Spanish, and even French. However, in Adwan, the verb is conjugated with the modality and person, leaving we should eat to be dwamožus. Another form of the infinitive seen in many language is the Supine, which is discussed below.
 * Debemos comer.
 * Nous devrions manger.

Supine
The supine in Adwan is distinct from the Supine in many languages, just in the fact that it doesn't utilize the infinitive. In Adwan, the supine is formed by adding the prefix Ďy if the verb starts with a consonant, and Ďyk if it starts with a vowel.

The supine is the verbal form used in a noun phrase. In English, it is formed by using the particle "to" which forms the inifnitive.

In the phrase I want to go home to sleep, sleep is in the supine. The supine forms a verb that acts as the cause for the previous verb.

Below, the supine is bolded, to help get a stronger understanding of the supine. Spanish puts the preposition a or para, while French puts pour before the infinitive verbs.
 * I walk outside to run.
 * I go to school to learn.
 * I sleep to rest.

Essentially, the supine is like saying So i can..., though it is not limited to person. Verbs in the supine are still conjugated for person, which indicates the person in the so i can... translation.

Gerund
In Adwan, the use of a gerund is actually quite rare, only used in certain subordinate clauses and such. The typical gerund is simply formed by using the prefix Na, and Nan if the verb starts with a noun. Usually, the gerundive is a noun-like form of the verb, where the actual activity of doing the noun is treated like a noun.

Note: with a gerundive, the verb is NOT to be conjugated.

English makes extensive use of the gerund which are incorrect in Adwan.
 * I am swimming --> Það naščoran is wrong.


 * 1) Verbs are completely independant. There is no such thing as a helping verb, or an auxilliary verb in Adwan.

However, there are some times when the Gerundive in English and Adwan are used in the same format.
 * 1) Technically, this phrase says that you are swimming, in the manner that the activity of swimming consists of you, rather than you being in the process of swimming. To use verbs in this aspect, the imperfective is used.
 * After swimming, I went home. --> Ďiùň naščoran, taje jač vjóšškena.
 * 1) Technically, says "After swimming, I went to my house.
 * 2) The usage of this phrase is correct, for it treats the verb like a noun.

Adverbs
Adverbs in Adwan are not declined. They have no specific ending, although many of them may share suffixes which are used to use adjectives as adverbs.

However, one thing that does restrict adverbs is their placement. While nouns and adjectives don't have specific placement rules, adverbs must ALWAYS follow the verb.

For example: However, in questions, adverbs MAY be placed before the verb, though it all really depends on the context.
 * She ate a very big meal --> She ate very a big meal.
 * She gracefully fell from her bicycle --> She fell gracefully from her bicycle.

Tag Question Particle
A trait shared by many languages, Adwan also features the use of an interrogative particle. Not exactly asking where, when, or why, the interrogative particle acts much like the French particle est-ce, the Polish czy, and the English particle do; it poses a yes or no question.

The particle, Je, is usually introduced at the beggining or at the end of the question. Traditionally, it's quite common the the subject pronoun to also be added for emphasis and to even out the tag question particle, however, this only happens if the particle is introduced at the beggining of the sentence. However, the particle indeed can be negated. Rather than negating the verb, Adwan negates the particle to pose a question with a predisposed doubt.
 * Łoruc pycu, je? = Do you want pizza?
 * Je ğu þaùrus naì łachav? = Do you like my music?

Note the use of posessive adjectives rather than genitive personal pronouns. Usually, if a tag question particle is used, a sense of informality is established, which means that posessive adjectives are more accepted than the slightly formal genitive pronouns.
 * Jeta ğu þaùrus naš afkruň neìcynuň? = Do you not like my apples and oranges?

Conjunctions
Conjunctions in Adwan are famous for being odd, especially the Coordinating Conjunctions.

Coordinating Conjunctions
Coordinating Conjunctions are quite odd, as they work in a rather agglutinative form. Coordinating conjunctions have two forms: one form for clauses, and one form for items. A coordinating conjunction used with clauses is usually a conjunction that connects two sentences together; however, the item conjunctions are simply conjunctions used for items as they are listed or used in such manner.

While coordinating conjunctions working with clauses use regular, traditional conjunctions, coordinating conjunctions working with items use proclitics, which are morphemes that function like prefixes, but have their own grammatical meaning (comparable to that of -que in Latin). Note: the Clause form of the coordinating conjunction "so" is identical to the subordinating conjunction for "so that".

Phrasing
Although grammar is crucial to Adwan, there is still the great question of how to put things together. Below is a quick guide on telling time, telling the weather, etc, etc.

Weather
In many languages, when describing the weather, they simply use the third person singular, and if they are not pro-dropping, they use dummy pronouns. The rules in Adwan are slightly different. In English and French, the dummy pronoun it and il are used to indicate an indefinite noun, usually the weather in context. However, Adwan is slightly different. While still using the third person, in Adwan one doesn't simple say "it rains", but merely "it rains at it". The pronoun in the locative used is the locative of the fourth person indefinite. While not referring to a person, nich in Adwan also refers to a general, indefinite outside space, which is the reason for the usage in weather statements.

Or literally, Note, the prefferred word order for telling the weather includes that of OSV, in which the location of the weather comes first, and the weather -- the specified verb, such as raining, snowing, etc -- is placed last.
 * Nich ďovyser.
 * At one(indefinite pronoun, not the number) it rains.

When specifying the place of the weather, the fourth person indefinite locative noun is dropped, and the location in which the weather is occuring is placed in the locative. For example: In Rome it rains. In Rome, in the morning it rains. (At) That (where) I live, it rains always.
 * It's raining in Rome --> Ef Rómmena ďovyser.
 * In Rome, it rains in the mornings. --> Ef Rómmena, v ẃesceìň ďovyser.
 * It always rains where I live --> Saš ažytas, ďovyser sertú.

Existential Clauses
The usage of the pronoun "there" and "y" in English and French are the subjects for existential clauses in those languages. Along with the verb "to be" and "to have", an existential clause is formed, looking something like there is a dog in my house, or il y a un chien chez moi. However, Adwan doesn't technically have a locative-only pronoun -- instead, it makes use of the locative indefinite pronoun, nich, as a pronoun for "there".

In the phrase There is a dog in my house, the phrasing would look like Nich þyþ kochu ef vjóšškena za, or there (at-one) is a dog in house of me. The locative pronoun usually comes before the verb in existential clauses.

Phrases
To see useful phrases in Adwan, read the Adwanic Phrases article.