Ornu

Overview
Ornu is an Analytical Language that incorporates Fusional Elements. Syntax follows a generally SVO order, that can be Topic Prominent. The language follows a Split-Ergativity morpho-syntactical alignment and is mostly Head-Initial.

Orthography
''*This page is following the Wyd dialect of Ornu; â and ā̂ are representative of sounds in the Gaati dialect, but are different here. The letter [i] may be written as a letter [y] as the Gaati dialect has phonemic distinctions between /i/ and /y/ where Wyd only has (y) as an allophone of /i/ after voiced consonants; Wyd actually somewhat treats [y] as a long vowel.''

Determiners
Ornu quite often employs the use of Determiners that are used so often they also operate as pronouns, yippie. Below are some of the most common. These determiners operate just like "this/that" in English, but also function as 3rd person pronouns.

These determiners have a meaning akin to "such" or "such a kind" in English; these are often used to signify titles or specificity. While these have more complex usage in other Ornu dialects, in Wyd, they are mostly assigned the meaning of "some" when with plural nouns. However; if used with a singular noun, it may operate as a Partitive. The neuter 'nu' sees limited, if any, use as the neuter typically is not quantitated.

Pronouns
Ornu shies from using 'true' pronouns for the 1st and 3rd person, relying more on the determiners of 'hy' to get the job done. Typically 'hy' is always in reference to the speaker both informally, yet the old 1st person plural 'ēky' remains in use. The only 1st person pronouns :(

Nouns
Nouns will fall into an Animacy hierarchy being either Inanimate or Animate, take a gender of common or neuter.

Animacy
Animacy is reserved most to nouns, in order, of: gods, people, professions, anthropomorphic spirits, dogs, most tools, some common household items, and currents (not bodies) of water.

We label Animate nouns under the Common Gender. The common gender allows gods, people, and professions to be either masculine or feminine. All other animate nouns are labeled as masculine.

Inanimacy
Inanimacy basically falls on anything not mentioned in the Animacy category. The Neuter Gender falls on all inanimate nouns.

There is an old remnant of an animate neuter ending in '-â', but this only really appears in older words. Agreement, however, will be with the animate strong masculine.

Adjectives
Being fairly generic, Ornu's adjectives agree with their nouns in gender/animacy, case, and plurality. Below are tables with the 2 most common adjective endings,

Adjective Agreement
Same as with pronouns, adjectives have an ambiguous form that they can utilize.

'-ty' Patterns
Adjectives ending in '-ty' define an adjective with a qualitative or attributive sense.

'-ūt' Patterns
Adjectives ending in '-ūt' define an adjective with 'respect to', 'with', or sometimes 'appearing'; this adjective pattern is also able to form types of pronouns.

Verbs
Verbs do not conjugate at all aside from Aspect being Imperfective, Perfective. The Stative aspect is more of an inherent aspect and can also form nouns or stative adjectives. The aspect is represented through a bound, suffixed morpheme.

There are two Tenses; there is the Past and Non-past. The past is not marked or a part of a Periphrastic construction whereas the non-past is.

Aspect
The Perfective is used to show if an action was completed.

The Imperfective is used to show an ongoing or incomplete action.

The Stative aspect marks that something is in a state or condition.

Imperfective: -ni, -(a)r

Perfective: -ku, -(e)k

Stative: -es

Descriptive Verbs (Stative Adjectives)
These are adjectives that act as a stative verb to show the state or condition of that adjective.

Lemma Form
The Lemma, or the Citation form, is an indexed form of a verb which contains a basic stem of the verb with the dummy subject 'hūt'; it is also the Non-Finite Construction.

Transitivity
While unmarked on the verb, transitivity is still expressed and understood by knowing the agent/subject and the direct/indirect object of a verb, along with the arguments the verb takes based on semantics. Avalency can be shown by using a dummy subject 'hūt'.

Roots and Stems
The core to every word is the '''[https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_(linguistics)#:~:text=The%20root%20in%20language%20is,be%20reduced%20into%20smaller%20units. Root]; 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]'''. This is a system that allows word creation in Ornu for words that have a related meaning. The process can be defined by different Root Classes and Derivational Patterns.

Root Classes
Roots are divided into 4 Root Classes based on their features. This causes different derivation patterns for stem creation; the phonemic composition of roots also play a huge role in what sort of route a root takes to form into stems. There are also Stem Classes formed from roots which exhibit pattern-like features worth distinguishing. The key takeaway is knowing how to identify a root in a stem in order to understand the core meaning, and then understanding any derivational affixation to fully understand and interpret a word.

First Class
Roots that undergo no alteration to the base root are First Class Roots. Derivational affixes may still attach/reattach to these roots to create other stems; the series of first class root stem patterns are named based on their noun stem forms.

-a Stems
Stems ending in -a derive more adjectives than nouns; indefinite pronouns also come form from this stem class. Nouns of this stem class are neuter.

-â Stems
Not to be confused with -a stems, -â stems derive an archaic animate neuter noun.

-ān Stems
This stem class derives feminine nouns from roots.

Stranded Adpositions
Many adpositions lose their lative or locative endings when the noun declines for the lative or locative case causing them to be "stranded". This can also cause some adpositions to become Clitics; for example, the adposition 'wem' when losing its endings becomes a cliticized form, 'wem egūsnim' > 'w'egūsnim'. Adpositions that do not have lative or locative endings, and a select few that do, will not be stranded. The focus cannot have a cliticized adposition. Speakers in the North typically do not have nouns agree in the lative or locative cases at all and rely on the adposition alone to form the phrase; however, they too share these cliticized forms with the case endings.

Superlatives
The standard superlative of adjectives is the affixation of -swâ to the root.

Word Order
The typical word order is SVO (Subject, Verb, Object); however, the word order can change its structure based on a sentence's Topics and Comments. Every sentence in Ornu will have a topic and some sentences will have comments or a Focus. The topic is what 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 kwūng egūs-ni wem stekūs-um / You always poke mushrooms with (your) finger / [2S-ERG poke-PERF always mushroom-PL.ABS with finger-LAT] / "Hlanâ stuk kwūng egūsni wem stekūsum"

Focus order with Egūsni as focus: Egūs-ni Ø hla-nâ wem stekūs-um kwūng stu-k / You always poke mushrooms with (your) finger / [mushroom-PL.ABS FOC 2S-ERG with finger-LAT always poke-PERF] / "Egūsni hlanâ wem stekūsum kwūng 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 sā̂-ku nekwūng h-ūr, hwahūt plâ-ku wem egūs-ni-m / You never told him what happened with the mushrooms / [2S tell-PERF never this_one-MASC.ABS, what.ABS happen-PERF with mushroom-PL-LAT] / "Hlanâ sā̂ku nekwūng hūr, hwahūt plâku wem egūsnim"

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

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

Head Direction
Most phrases use a Head-Initial order, this means that the head will come first in a phrase. However, the head directionality does switch to head-final for a phrase in focus position. Below are some examples to demonstrate various orders with different parts of speech.

Adposition Order
*Notice that when in focus position, the noun does not decline for case

Non-Finite Constructions and Clauses
These constructions involve the use of a lemma/non-finite verb form.

Final Clause
The infinitive construction, 'hūt' + (verb), is used to form these clauses.