Ornu

Overview
Ornu is an Analytical Language that still incorporates Fusional Elements such as systems of inflection for nouns and adjectives; however, there is scant conjugation of verbs. It follows a Focus-Topic word order and is Topic Prominent. The alignment is Ergative-Absolutive, but may appear as if it is nominative-accusative at times; this is due to the Focus-Topic structure and how Ornu treats the Focus when in focus word order.

Words are created through Derivational Systems that derive new words from a singular root. There are different classes of roots that each derive differently. This can also involve the addition of inflectional morphemes onto nouns and adjectives. Derived nouns will fall into an Animacy Hierarchy being either Inanimate or Animate, a gender of masculine, feminine, or neuter, and will be of a Strong Class or a Weak Class; nouns follow different declension patterns. Adjectives agree with their noun in gender and whether the noun is strong or weak. Verbs do conjugate at all aside from a prescribed Aspect, Imperfective, Perfective, Stative, that is associated with verbs semantically and represented through a suffixed bound morpheme; however, verbs may be associated with more than one aspect.

Orthography
This page is written in the Wyd dialect of Ornu; â and ā̂ are representing sounds in the Gaati dialect.

Roots and Stems
Everything in Ornu can be said to begin with the '''[https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_(linguistics)#:~:text=The%20root%20in%20language%20is,be%20reduced%20into%20smaller%20units. Root]'''. The Root is the core and is the central unit of meaning to any morphemes that derive from it; derivations from the root are called '''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_stem#:~:text=In%20linguistics%2C%20a%20word%20stem,of%20the%20language%20in%20question. Stems]'''. Most Stems are created through some sort of derivational process from a root and some Roots can stand as a noun stem with no derivation. Alongside this, Ornu employs the use of prefixes and suffixes where the latter are bound, more grammatical affixes, and the former are some form of Root that can be prefixed to help add meaning.

Root Classes
Ornu's roots can be divided into 5 Root Classes due to the features they contain and the derivation process they undergo; some root classes have Sub-Classes of roots.

First Class
Roots belonging to the First Class are those that when derived undergo no alteration to the base root or Ablaut. Derivational affixes may still attach to these roots to create stems; should the root end in a stop, its noun will take the 1st Declension.

Word Order
While the standard word order can be said to be SVO (Subject, Verb, Object); however, it is not the best to view sentences in Ornu as such. A better way to interpret a sentence's structure is based on its Topics and Comments. This means that every sentence in Ornu will have a topic and some sentences will have comments or a Focus. The topic is usually the subject and the focus is something that has a sort of emphasis or focusing attribute placed upon it; it may also be the topic. It can be confusing to understand this system at first since often it appears as if the focus is the object and topic is the subject, but its best to remember that they are not mutually exclusive from one another.

There are 2 main word orders: the neutral, V2 Word Order, or topic word order, where the Finite Verb MUST come second, and there is the focus word order where the verb is final and the focus is in first position. Examples below; topic underlined, focus emboldened, other comments/continuants unmarked:

Neutral order: Hla-nâ stu-k kwūt egūs-ni wem stekūs / You always poke mushrooms with (your) finger / [2S-ERG poke-PERF always mushroom-PL.ABS with finger] / "Hlanâ stuk kwūt egūsni wem stekūs"

Focus order with Egūsni as focus: Egūs-ni Ø hla-nâ wem stekūs kwūt stu-k / You always poke mushrooms with (your) finger / [mushroom-PL.ABS FOC 2S-ERG with finger always poke-PERF] / "Egūsni hlanâ wem stekūs kwūt stuk"

This system of topics and comments is demonstrated by syntax alone rather than by grammatical markings such as particles, inflection, etc. Therefore, Ornu clausework can get rather finicky by the interplay of this system causing all sorts of changes. A good example of this would be in the following example where the focus of the sentence is the adpositional phrase in a subordinate clause:

Neutral order: Hla-nâ sо̄-ku kâbum nekwūt h-ūr, hwahūt plâ-ku wem egūs-ni / You never told him what happened with the mushrooms / [2S tell-PERF again never this_one-MASC.ABS, what.ABS happen-PERF with mushroom-PL] / "Hlanâ sо̄ku kâbum nekwūt hūr, hwahūt plâku wem egūsni"

Focus order with Egūsni as focus: Egūs-ni Ø wem hla-nâ h-ūr hwahūt plâ-ku kâbum nekwūt sо̄-ku / You never told him what happened with the mushrooms [mushroom-PL.ABS FOC 2S-ERG this_one-MASC.ABS what.ABS happen-PERF again never tell-PERF] / "Egūsni wem hlanâ hūr hwahūt plâku kâbum nekwūt sо̄ku"

* note that when a phrase takes focus, the Head Directionality changes to be Head-Initial.