Paolon

Verbs
Paolonese verbs are conjugated for ...


 * 1. their person: 1., 2. and 3. person


 * 2. their number: singular and plural


 * 3. their tense: present, past and future as well as participle constructions


 * 4. their voice: active and passive


 * 5. their mood: indicative, subjunctive and imperative

Paolon has 4 different conjugations, based on the suffix vowel of the verbal stem. Because Paolon uses apophony to conjugate verbs, you have to know the verbal apophony row. Note that only the 1. sound can be the suffix vowel of a verb - because of that, all verbs end in either a, i, o or u.

Being in a certain conjugation has nothing to do with the meaning of the verb. However, there are some basic rules for which verbs belong in which conjugation.


 * 1. a conjugation: Usually, verbs of movement are in this group (to go, to walk, to swim ...).


 * 2. i conjugation: Usually, verbs of feeling/perception are in this group (to love, to hate, to see ...).


 * 3. o conjugation: Usually, verbs of "mental activity" are in this group (to think, to speak, to write ...).


 * 4. u conjugation: Usually, verbs of change are in this group (to grow up, to die ...).

With these rows, we can form all infinitives of Paolon which are needed for the conjugations (VS stands for "verbal stem").

With the 3 infinitives, we can now form all other verb forms.


 * 1. For the present tense conjugation, the following prefixes have to be attached to the "Infinitive Present".


 * 2. For the past tense conjugation, the following prefixes have to be attached to the "Infinitive Past".


 * 3. For the future tense conjugation, the following prefixes have to be attached to the "Infinitive Past".

The "imperative" is somewhat different from the other moods. It can only be used in the present and in the future because it gives orders - and the past is already over and unchangeable. So, it would be stupid to try giving orders to something in the past.

The "imperative" is formed by adding the following suffixes to the corresponding infinitive. Alternatively, the "subjunctive" can be used to give orders.

Participles are a way of giving more detailed information about different time stages - this is needed since Paolon only has 3 actual tenses.

Both the "Infinitive Past" and the "Infinitive Future" can build 3 participles by attaching the following suffixes to them. The "Infinitive Present" can only build the "Participle Present". The reason for this is the definitons of the participles.

The "Participle Past" expresses that something happens BEFORE the reference point (which is the tense of the infinitive).

The "Participle Present" expresses that something happens AT THE SAME TIME AS the reference point.

The "Participle Future" expresses that something happens AFTER the reference point.

It is crucial to understand that all participle information is within the reference tense - if we form participles from the "Infinitive Past", all actions described by the participles will be in the past. Even though something happened "after the past (tense)", it is still in the past. The same applies for the "Infinitive Future". This is the reason why these infinitves can form all participles as both the past and future are infinitly large. The present is not infinitly large like the past or the future. The present is only a point in time - we couldn't stay within the present when we use "before" or "after" because these words need additional time points (which don't exist in the present). In the case of the present, the actual past and future tense express the ideas of "before" and "after". Note that all participles are active and indicative. The participles can also be used as adjectives (#adjectives).

Here is a visualisation of the tense/participle system as the whole:

Nouns
In Paolon, nouns are declined for ...


 * 1. their number: singular and plural


 * 2. their case: nominative, accusative, locative, temporative, adessive, ablative, genetive, comparative and instructive


 * 3.1. Nominative: basic form of a noun, subject of the sentence, agent in active constructions, patient in passive constructions


 * 3.2. Accusative: direct object which an action is done to, patient in active constructions


 * 3.3. Locative: place


 * 3.4. Temporative: time


 * 3.5. Adessive: direction towards something (as in movement), indirect object (as the action is done in "its direction"), future goal (a future reason for ...)


 * 3.6. Ablative: direction away from something (as in movement), agent in passive constructions, past reason (as in what you want to flee from)


 * 3.7. Genetive: possession, quality


 * 3.8. Comparative: comparison


 * 3.9. Inctructive: means or instruments for an action

Just like verbs are in different conjugations, nouns also have different declinations depending on how the stem of a noun ends.

Singular Plural

Adjectives

In Paolon, adjectives are declined for ...


 * 1. their number: singular and plural


 * 2. their case: nominative, accusative, locative, temporative, adessive, ablative, genetive, comparative and instructive
 * 3. their grade of comparison: positive, positive comparative, positive superlative, negative comparative and negative superlative


 * 3.1. Positive: qualitiy


 * 3.2. Positive comparative: more of a quality


 * 3.3. Positive superlative: most of a quality


 * 3.4. Negative comparative: less of a quality


 * 3.5. Negative superlative: least of a quality



The number/case declension of adjectives is identical to noun declension.

The grade of comparison is indicated by an infix which is put between the word stem and the number/case suffix. Note that an adjective in the positive/negative comparative usually demands a reference point in the comparative case. King Schnack (talk) 20:56, December 25, 2014 (UTC)

Numbers

In Paolon, numbers can behave in two different ways, namely ...


 * 1. like a noun: In this case, the number is declined just like any other noun


 * 2. like an adjective: In this case, the number is declined just like any other adjective. However, as numbers represent absolute ideas, you can't grade them.



Numbers are created in a similar way to the English system - small numbers are put together to form bigger numbers. However, in Paolon, the order of the digits is reversed - the ones are said first, then the tens, then the hundreds ...

Numbers from 0-9:

Tens from 10-90:

Other important numbers:

If a number is written in words and not in digits, the single numbers combine to one word. However, an "-" is added between the individual numbers.

Adverbs In Paolon, adverbs are used to describe everything but nouns.

Adverbs can have their own word stems or they can be derivid from adjectives or participles by adding the following suffixes to stem + grad of comparison infix:

Pronouns

In Paolon, pronouns can be used instead of nouns. As they function as nouns, they are declinated accordingly.

Paolon has different types of pronouns:


 * 1. Personal pronouns


 * 2. Possessive pronouns


 * 3. Reflexive pronouns


 * 4. Demonstrative pronouns