Adwan

The Adwanic language, (English: Adwan, French: Adouanne, Spanish: Aduána, Pacardian: Adwana, Adwan: Aðwána) is an inflecting, isolated language. It is the language of the Adwanic People, or the Chiðaùm Aðwani.

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, grammatical gender, and grammatical case.
 * Adwan has 7 cases; nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, ablative, locative and vocative, and 2 numbers; singular and plural.
 * Adwan experiences 7 kinds of phonetic mutations: gemination, nasalization, aspiration, ablaut, consonant mutation, ellision, 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).

Lexicon
The Adwanic Lexicon can be found here.

Phrases
Adwanic Phrases can be found here.

Original Script
Before assimilation to a Latin or a Cyrillic Alphabet, Adwan used a phonetic Script; an alphabet that utilized diacritics for punctuation, breathings, etc. The Latin alphabet has been modelled to retain some features of the Adwanic Script -- such as the use of a phonemic script rather than using digraphs, save for "ch". The Adwanic Script was actually just a script I invented in my old chemistry class and used for a while before giving it to Adwan.

A further explanation on the script comes as soon as I can get used to my tablet again.

Phonology
Adwan empoys 30 consonants, 7 vowels and 13 diphthongs.

Consonants

 * The phoneme /b/ does not exist in Adwan.
 * The phoneme /ŋ/ is not an allophone of n. /n/ does not velarize before velar consonants.
 * Other than in aspirations, the phoneme /h/ is hardly ever found, usually being replaced by /x/, even in most loanwords.
 * The phoneme /ʝ/ is an allophone of /j/ when /j/ precedes vowels.
 * The phoneme /ç/ is an allophone of /x/ and /h/ when /x/ and /h/ precede /j/ or /ʝ/.
 * The phoneme /ɬ/ is not an allophone of /l; however, [l̥] is an allophone of [ɬ].
 * The phoneme /ʔ/ is not represented in writing, nor does it have any significant effect (it is purely dialectical).
 * When voiceless plosives end a word, they are typically aspirated.

Vowels

 * [e] is an allophone of [ɛ].

Diphthongs
In diphthongs, the phoneme [ɛ] changes to [e].

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.

However, the end to words in Adwan is limited, as certain letters cannot end an undeclined word:
 * Nouns in Adwan end in either a, c, ċ, č, d, ð, ď, e, f, g, ġ, ch, i, l, ł, m, n, ng, o, ö, p, r, s, š, t, u, v, y, z, ż, ž.

Alphabet & Orthography
The Adwanic alphabet consists of 35 letters:

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

Note, the thorn, ‹Þ,þ›, is collated after ‹R,r›.

The letters Bb, Kk, 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 "cw" or "c", while Xx is transcribed "ks", "z", or "gz".

Adwanic Orthography is not phonemic to a certain degree. Many sounds in Adwan are handled by the use of a digraph and follow certain rules, such as certain digraphs precede certain vowels, while single letters with diacritics precede other vowels. Adwan's orthography bases itself a lot around vowels and their types. Typically, a digraph such as sc or cg precede boxy vowels, ‹a› ‹e› ‹i› and ‹y›, while letters with diacritics like š and č precede round vowels, ‹o› ‹ö› and ‹u›. This is even extended to diphthong separators, which rose from restriction in Adwan's phonotactics, which don't allow vowels to be adjacent to eachother if they're not diphthongs, and to regular vowel separators (dh is the only single vowel separator in Adwan), which separate vowels from forming dipthongs. Diphthong separators, indeed, show a classification between which separator is used between what diphthong, depending on what vowel the diphthong starts.

Latin Alphabet Extensions
Adwan employs 11 letters that are foreign to the basic Latin alphabet. These letters are considered letters on their own, rather than letters with diacritics.
 * ‹Ċ,ċ› represents the phoneme ‹ts›, as in the English word cats.
 * ‹Č,č› represents the phoneme ‹tʃ›, as in the English word chocolate.
 * ‹Ð,ð› represents the phoneme ‹ð›, as in the English word therefore. When word final, represents the same sound as þ, though when word final and has an apostraphe, it retains the voiced sound. Note, however, apostraphe's are not used in official writing.
 * ‹Ď,ď› represents the phoneme ‹dʒ›, as in the English word jam.
 * ‹Ġ,ġ› 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. This grapheme is actually written as g with a háček, but is written with a breve due to unicode difficulties.
 * ‹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.
 * ‹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.
 * ‹Ż,ż› represents the phoneme ‹dz›, as in the English word cards. 
 * ‹Ž,ž› represents the phoneme ‹ʒ›, as in the English word vision, or as in the French word je.

Acute Accent; Stress & Vowel Change
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. However, when on single syllabic words, the acute accent lengthens the vowel. While vowel length is not phonemic in Adwan, it is imperative in distinguishing single syllabic words.
 * ‹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›.
 * ‹Ý,ý› represents stress on the ‹y›.

Ďa, which means already, would be [dʒa], yet Ďá, which means now, would be [dʒa:].

Geminate 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 ‹ď›'s 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
 * Arevyna → Arevýnnena / Arevýnneňa

Geminations in Monophthong/Diphthong Separators
Seldomly do monophthong and diphthong separators have to geminate, but it's quite possible. However, it can be rather hard to determine what exactly to geminate. The key, for diphthongs, lies in the diphthong. The second vowel most of the time is also a semivowel. If the second vowel in the diphthong is a u, w is geminated. If the second vowel is i, then j is geminated. However, if the second vowel is a, nothing is geminated and an h is added. Note, when diphthongs are geminated, both vowels in the diphthong become accented. The "h" in separators are also doubled.

For example:

Cowhu /ko̯u.u/, "Flood", geminates in the Locative singular to Cówhhus, which is pronounced /ko̯uw:us/

Łoumhogha /ɬo̯u.o̯i.a/, "Organization", geminates in the Locative singular to Łoumhóghhena, which is pronounced /ɬo̯u.o̯i.ʝ:ɪ.na/

For monophthong separators, vowels are simply elongated. However, it is not uncommon for glottal stops to be inserted -- if they hadn't been already -- and for them to be geminated.

Cwydhu, "Wales", geminates in the Locative singular to Cwýdhhus, which is pronounced either /kwɪ:us/ or /kwɪʔ:us/

Fortunately as it is, the need for monophthong and diphthong separators are a relatively literary feature, for most words that use them and have adjacent vowels are literary words (compare the three words for organization: scyskyma, organiseišön, and łoumhogha).

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.

Voicing and Devoicing
While it is technically not present in Standard Adwan, it is common for voiced consonants to devoice before voiceless consonants, and for voiceless consonants to voice before voiced consonants. However, this is not mandatory, merely preferential. ===Aspiration ===

Aspiration 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 aspiration. • 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 aspiration, while two other ones follow an equally odd form of palatalization. • I → Yje • Ö → Uho

Apart from that, plosives (P,T,K) in Adwan are aspirated when are word-final. Adwan also makes aspiration distinctions between P, T, and K, along with voicing between T and K.

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.

There is no exact rule governing what consonants mutate to, though generally they become voiced if unvoiced, and become unvoiced it voiced.

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

Ellision & Epenthesis
Ellision in Adwan is the loss of the final consonant of one word, and the initial consonant of another when they create illegal clusters. Adwan does not have an epenthetic system of avoiding ellision, however, it is greatly common for word order to rely on pronunciation ease. However, some things of inflexible word order will go through ellision (most notably verbs with the additions of the relative pronoun sað and genitive posessions). In phrases like "I will go tomorrow to school by car --> Tareì mač šússkena zuð swačeì," ellision tends to occur, though a simple change in word order solves the problem; "Šússkena tareì mač zuð swačeì" fits much better, and thanks to its inflectional system, Adwan already allows a great deal of word order that still manages to be completely comprehensible.

===Ablaut ===

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].

However, nasal vowels are not typically recognized in Adwan, and are typically just thought of as vowels before velar consonants. ===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 rock in Adwan, Káchha, would be Káchha, not Káchcha.

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, and numbers 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, hough many word orders are feasible due to Adwan's extensive inflectional system. However, unlike many inflecting languages, word order does not establish mood in Adwan, but is merely used as a tool of avoiding epenthesis. Word order in Adwan is, for lack of a better word, shallow and moderately unimportant, though the use of SVO, SOV and VOS is all too commonly used and recommended.

Relative Clauses
While Adwan typically follows an SVO, SOV and VOS word order, word order changes in relative clauses. Word order in relative clauses is much more strict and important than word order in general.

In relative clauses, when the relative pronoun is in the accusative, it generally goes to the beggining and the verb is kicked to the end of the sentence, creating an OSV word order. For example:
 * Can you please repeat what you said?
 * 1) Saż þeicðusje pöpłeghus, cgaċ?


 * That[acc] say[2nd per. sg.][perfective past] [able]repeat[2nd. per. sg], ask[1st. per].

However, the relative clause does not always need to be in the accusative. Here, the relative clause is in the nominative and manages to follow the same OSV order as above, albeit oddly. Generally, if the relative pronoun is in the nominative, then a general SVO word order is usable -- generally, all word orders are usable. However, the OSV word order is used more often due to epenthetic word order.
 * 1) That you said you can repeat, I ask?
 * She wants us to eat.
 * 1) Saż mozcascešč uvo łoryċ.
 * That[acc] eat[1st. per. pl.][subjunctive] she[nom] want[3rd. per].
 * 1) That we eat she wants.
 * My dog had chased the cat that had bitten my sister's leg.
 * 1) Sað ghyrcða perloš za miwa gholyċtu pőž za clevystu.
 * That[nom] leg[acc] sister[gen] me[gen] cat[nom] bite[3rd per. sg][perfect past] dog[nom] me[gen] chase[3rd per. sg][perfect past].
 * 1) That leg of sister of me cat had bitten dog of me had chased. (Grammatically competent gloss)
 * 2) That leg of my sister the cat had bitten my dog had chased. (English approximation)

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; ła --> at (by way of, via in the ablative), etc; swačeì (abl of swača) --> car.
 * I will go tomorrow to school by car.
 * Tareì mač šússkena zuð swačeì.
 * I will go tomorrow by car to school.
 * Tareì mač zuð swačeì šússkena.
 * To school by car I will go tomorrow.
 * Šússkena zuð swačeì tareì mač.
 * To school I will go tomorrow by car.
 * Šússkena tareì mač zuð swačeì.
 * By car I will go tomorrow to school.
 * Zuð swačeì tareì mač šússkena.
 * By car to school I will go tomorrow.
 * Zuð swačeì šússkena tareì mač.

Cases
Adwan has seven cases to which decline its nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and numbers. They are the nominative, the genitive, the accusative, the dative, the ablative, the locative and the vocativ, and are always given in that specific order.

Prepositions
Prepositions in Adwan can be quite tricky, for not only are there a good number of them, but many of them are incredibly dependant on cases. A preposition can have up to three different meanings, some even more; the distinction between each meaning lies in the case used, however.

For example: the preposition After, or Ďeňkwy, means After in the ablative, and behind in the locative. While a connection between the two can be made, there are still even more ambigious prepositions, such as the preposition for on, or ch, which refers to a general point in time in the dative, refers to a general idea in the ablative, and suggests an item locationally being on something in the locative.

Thus, it is vital to know which case goes with not only which prepositions, but with which prepositional meanings.

Prepositions and their Cases Table
Below is a table showing an overview of the Adwanic and English prepositions and the cases they belong to.

Nouns
Nouns in Adwan are categorized into one of three genders which are commonly found in other European languages. Masculine, Feminine, and Neuter. However, unlike many languages, genders do not necessarily hold special endings, therefore, the gender of a noun must be memorized. It is, possible, however, to determine the gender of a noun by its declension paradigm. Nouns in Adwan are declined according to grammatical case, number, and gender. However, it must be noted that, in Adwanic nouns, numbers are on a steady collapse, leaving number to be highly dependant on adjectives and determiners for many classes.

Apart from genders, nouns are divided into other subclasses. These classes depend on their ending, i.e. Afkra would be declined differently than Pőž, even if they are both masculine.

The different classes of nouns are shown below, each class retaining its own declensional pattern. However, one thing must be noticed. Nouns in Adwan are distributed in a less arbitrary fashion, with nouns actually having some sort of connection to their gender. This does no prove true to all nouns, but it holds steady for the majority. Along with that, all living things are either masculine or feminine. Note, when verbs change into nouns, their class of verb determines the gender.
 * Masculine
 * 1) Smooth Nouns (c, č, ð, ď, f, ġ, ch, l, ł, n, s, š)
 * 2) Rough Nouns (ċ, d, g, p, m, r, t, v, z, ż, ž)
 * 3) Boxy Nouns (a, e)
 * Feminine
 * 1) Smooth Nouns (c, č, ð, ď, f, ġ, ch, l, ł, n, s, š)
 * 2) Rough Nouns (ċ, d, g, p, m, r, t, v, z, ż, ž)
 * 3) Round Nouns (o, u)
 * Neuter
 * 1) Textured (both Smooth and Rough) Nouns (c, ċ, č, d, ð, ď, f, g, ġ, ch, l, ł, m, n, p, r, s, š, t, v, z, ż, ž)
 * 2) Boxy Nouns (i, y)

Smooth Nouns
Nouns ending with a smooth consonant (c, č, ð, ď, f, ġ, ch, l, ł, n, s, š).

Rough Nouns
Nouns ending with a rough consonant (ċ, d, g, p, m, r, t, v, z, ż, ž).

Round Nouns
Nouns ending in a round vowel (a, e)

Smooth Nouns
Nouns ending with a smooth consonant (c, č, ð, ď, f, ġ, ch, l, ł, n, s, š).

Rough Nouns
Nouns ending with a rough consonant (ċ, d, g, p, m, r, t, v, z, ż, ž).

Boxy Nouns
Nouns ending in a boxy vowel (o, u)

Textured Nouns
Nouns ending with a smooth consonant and a rough consonant (c, ċ, č, d, ð, ď, f, g, ġ, ch, l, ł, m, n, p, r, s, š, t, v, z, ż, ž).

Boxy Nouns
Nounas ending with a boxy vowel (i, y) Note, nouns may go through certain phonetic changes. For example, two consecutive i's or e's are considered illegal in declensions, so if the last syllable has an ‹i› and the declension adds another syllable with an ‹i›, the ‹i› in the syllable before the new syllable changes to a ‹y›. For example, the accusative for textured neuter nouns adds a ‹í›; therefore, adding that to a word like piċ would change the ‹i› to a ‹y›, therefore leaving the noun to be pyċí.

With e's, the first e is just deleted, like in veder. The locative of the neuter textured nouns declensions adds ‹em›, so adding this to a noun that already has an ‹e› in the last syllable causes the ‹e› in the syllable that precedes the ending to drop, leaving veder in the locative to be vedrem, not vederem.

Note, however, that these changes only occur if an extra affix is being added. If a final vowel changes, nothing is omitted.

Adjectives
Adjectives in Adwan only have 3 declension classes, one declension per each gender. All adjectives must agree with the gender of the noun they're describing. Adjectives in Adwan have no specific ending without a specific gender. Since miwa is masculine, then big would be rora. However, if someone wanted to have a feminine noun such as cyrðu, or ocean, rora would have to change to roro to match the gender.

Masculine adjectives end in -a, Feminine adjectives end in -o, and Neuter adjectives end in -y.

Adjectival Articles
Adwan's nouns do not carry articles, and neither do adjectives... for the most part. Adjectival articles exist in Adwan for the purpose of treating an adjective like a noun, therefore, when no noun is needed, the adjectival article comes in before it and modifies it into a noun, whilst letting it keep its adjective declension. Adjectival Articles only come in one form, though it is not definite or indefinite, merely an oblique form.

Adjectival articles replace the use for the noun "ones" or "things" in most cases, so to say She ate the blue thing, one would simply say She ate the blue (Avo mozcysje yċ jeðy.). The neuter gender is generally used when the gender of the item is unknown.

Adjectival articles also replace the usage of the nouns "person", "man", "woman", "boy", "girl", or "child". For example, to say An old man eats, one could simply omit man and decline old to the masculine, therefore leaving the sentence to be An old eats (Að šöna mozcys.).

Along with the other usages provided, adjectival articles could allow speakers to omit objects if they were already specified before, and if each object had an adjective (if two objects have the same adjectives but different genders, then the same process could be applied, however, if they are of the same gender and have the same adjectives, this cannot work). If someone was to ask Did the big cat eat the little mouse? Cat and mouse, since they were already stated, and they have their own adjectives, big and little, then the objects could be omitted and the reply would be Yes, the big ate the little (Ö, að rora mozcysje aðe ina.) instead of Yes, the big cat ate the little mouse.

Affixes
Nouns and Adjectives in Adwan carry a number of derivational morpheme markers that add or change meaning. Like many affixes in other languages, they slightly add on to the meaning of a noun. For example, the affix -čna means in essence of, very much like the affix -ness in English. However, many affixes in English all go back to this same affix in Adwan. In the English word Brotherhood, the affix -hood has the same meaning as -ness; in Adwan, to say brotherhood, one would say brother, or povla (note, brother is an irregular noun that does not follow the same gender pattern as most nouns) and add on the affix, leaving it to be povlačna, or brotherness. Affixes are added on to the undeclined noun, for the noun is declined after the affix has been added on.'''

Below is a list of affixes -- mostly suffixes -- used to alter meaning in Adwan. Note: do not confuse derivational affixes with diminutives and augmentives.

Note, gemination does NOT occur with affixes. Double consonants are both pronounced. Adjective comparisons function by use of prefixes, which are also shown below.

Personal Pronouns
Because of the use of genitives, posessive adjectives don't exist in Adwan.

Relative Pronouns
Relative pronouns in Adwan, like pronouns, are irregularly declined. They decline for case only and not for gender or number, 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.

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. Note, adverbial forms of each interrogative pronoun are listed next to each pronoun.

How: Łað/Łuðyr

How many: Gwað/Gwacgy

What: Sað/Scy

What kind: Flað/Velá

Where: Chað/Doðyr

When: Vað/Feðyr

Who: Tað/Sciðyr

Why: Dgað/Scaðyr

Demonstratives
Demonstratives, words such as this, that, those, these, etc. Adwan differentiates between two distances, near me (zuð zcam) and far from me (sað zcam), or more properly known as proximal and distal.
 * 1) Proximal demonstratives mark objects that are near to the speaker. The equivalent to this in English is the demonstrative this and these.
 * 2) 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, gender and case, although the declensions they go through are, typically, irregular and don't follow the rules of typical declensions.

Proximal: Þa/Þo/Þy - 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.

Distal: Jat/Jot/Jyt - 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.

Numbers
Numbers in Adwan are quite simple and consistent. They utilize an easy set of affixes that change with each place. Adwan only provides numbers from 0-9, with the rest using affixes to change numbers. Adwan declines all its numbers for gender, though only 1-9 is shown.

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.

On a side note, if every voice was compatible with every mood, aspect and tense and person, there would be 432 (excluding polarity and other verb form affixes) different forms of one verb, according to this formula:

t = 12, a = 3t, m = 3a, v = 4m, 4v = 432.

Person
Adwan conjugates to 3 persons; first, second, and third.

-ON Verbs
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, consonants may morph depending on the next vowel, i.e. ď becoming dg before a boxy vowel. NOTE: -Ø- means no affix is added.

Affixing
Below, prefixes will be given, all with vowels in parenthesis. Below is a table with all affix combinations that govern when to use the epenthetic vowels or not.

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. Vowels in parenthesis are only added if the previous affix ends in a consonant. Notes: On the conditional, the auxilliary verb in English "could" and "can" works as a prefix to verbs, "pöž(i)". 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.
 * Dwaþryscity 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 pö is attached to the verb, unless the verb starts with a vowel, then pöž is used instead.

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 --> Łoraċ saż pömozcusesċ.

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

The imperative with pö 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 pö poses the same form of formality.

In the conditional, pö changes from can to could. Pö + the conditional relies heavily on aspect and tense, unlike pö + indicative/subjunctive/imperative.
 * Pömozcusyða --> You could eat.
 * Pömozcusedgyða --> You could have eaten.

Note, the future conditional + pö 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 dwamozcus. 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 Dgy if the verb starts with a consonant, and Dgyk 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 verb 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. Apart from the general idea being incorrect, verbs in the gerunds also have to be declined (note, all verbs in the gerund follow the fourth declension, for they all end in -n). 
 * After swimming, I went home. --> Dgeňcwy naščoranak, taje vjóšškena za.
 * 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.

Irregular Verbs
To see the irregular verbs in Adwan, along with conjugations, view the Irregular Verbs article.

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 part of speech they describe, which is, in most cases, the verb.

For example:
 * She ate a very big meal --> She ate a big very 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.
 * Łoruċ pyċu, je? = Do you want pizza?
 * Je ġu þaùrus łachav za? = 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 ġu þaùrus afkruň neìċynuň za? = 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. Rather than not specifying anything at all, Adwan explicitly states what's doing what, therefore to express that it's raining outside, something must take up the subject. In Adwan, everything is referred to using "day" in the general mood, therefore It rains would be The day rains.

The usage of this extend to places, too:
 * It is raining in Rome
 * Žol v Rómmena ďovyser, which literally says Day in Rome is raining.

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 exist is much more specific in the placing of the existential object. The verb Łyðan, or "to Exist" is used, followed by the place. General statements with specified location uses the noun poùl, or, which roughly -- but not directly -- translates to "else-where/some-where". Note, it is incredibly common, however, to not only drop poùl, but the replaced "exist" with "to be". Because Adwan's declension rules lead predicates to be in the accusative, however, the most common -- and still grammatically correct -- form of expressing existential clauses is simply to have the subject just be.
 * There is a dog in front of my house.
 * Pőž łyðyser jeg šússkena za, which literally says Dog is existing before my house.
 * There are dogs and cats!
 * Poùlaċ, pőzcet neìmywaň łyðyš!, which literally says (At) Elsewhere, dogs and cats exist.
 * There are dogs and cats!
 * Pőzcet neìmywaň þyla! literally translates to Dogs and cats are!