Keldar

General information
This page needs a lot of work.

Vowels
Additionally, Keldar has a rhotic vowel, r.

Alphabet
The spelling system of Keldar is a syllabic block type, similar to Hangeul. For the purposes of this article, a Romanized system will be used.

Grammar
Verbs.

Each verb has an infinitive form. Besides that, the least marked form is the regular imperfective form, also known as the non-past form. Past events are usually expressed in the perfective. There are several moods or modes, voices and aspects.

Moods: Indicative, used for declarative sentences. Subjunctive, conditional and imperative, used for irrealis. Interrogative, used for asking questions.

Voices: There are three voices, which are the active, passive and middle voice.

Aspects: The two voices are the imperfective and the perfective.

Regular Verbs.

Regular verbs take the infinitive prefix m(a)-. The regular ending for imperfective verbs is zero, while perfective verbs end in -u, often with gemination taking place on the preceding consonant(s). Voices besides active are indicated with the use of passive and middle voice pronouns. Subjunctive mood is done by adding the ending -e, often along with vowel changes in the verbal stem. Imperative and interrogative moods are both expressed with a raw stem, with vowel changes talking place in some verbal stems in the interrogative. The conditional mood is expressed with the suffix -iat.

Example regular verbs.

Substantives.

All nouns and adjectives inflect for gender and person, as well as grammatical case. Additionally, pronouns have different forms dependent upon number. Numerals also agree in case with the object they refer to.

Keldar being a nominative-topical language, those are usually the first two cases given. Other cases include the accusative, the dative and the directive. Keldar notably does not have a genitive case, with possession being indicated in other ways. Keldar also indicates the person of all substantives, although the most common person (the 3rd person) is marked by zero.

Example substantives. Other variations also exist. For example, in formal speech it's typical to form the topicative by adding the word "oné" after the bare stem of the head noun. For example, a pretty house can be spoken of as a "zarti sepi" or a "zart sep oné".

It's very easy to form simple phrases with just these two elements, the verb and the substantive.

Dai reki kind. (Someone) wants a good tree, a good tree is needed.

Zarta naka kuite chês. The pretty dog is thinking about the window.

As you can see from these simple examples, Keldar is strictly left-branching. This means that the verb is the last element in a clause, and modifiers come before what's modified.

Often the choice of whether to use the Topicative or the Nominative case is entirely up to the speaker. However, some verbs have such a valency configuration that they give the Topicative to what seems pragmatically more like an object than a subject. These are known as reversed valency verbs, and must be memorized. The most common reverse valency verb is mallel, which means "to give:"

Teoi huna nake llelu. The man gave a fruit to the dog.

fruit.top man.nom dog.dat give.perf