II. Grammar

            A. Morphology

                        A1. Nouns

            Modern Gomain does not mark nouns for gender unless they are animals or people, though Ánhrushite had a system of inflected grammatical genders. In such cases, when referring to females, the prefix eis- is added to the noun stem; the stem by itself is taken to be male. Thus one may distinguish between shiv “son” and eisshiv “daughter”, among others. Initial sibilants in the stem assimilate the s at the end of the prefix.

            Nouns add prefixes for four r cases: the accusative, dative, vocative and instrumental. The accusative prefix is ó-; the dative, ú-; the vocative, ai-; and the instrumental, é-. The nominative case is not marked; other cases make use of prepositions or particles. The following sentence demonstrates these case markers:

                        Kaif gekhŕkóngóf ná ódhédeⁿ sim úwéfouglég épódálégá imhroi.

                        The man could not move the rock to his house with his hands alone.e.

            Gomain possesses two nominal numbers, the singular and plural. As one might expect, the singular is unmarked; the plural suffixes –á to consonant-final nouns and –há to vowel-final ones.

            Three levels of magnitude are marked directly with suffixes. To indicate a small object, -sák is suffixed; for mid-sized objects, -loi is added; for large objects, the suffix is –rush. The suffixes may be repeated to indicate very large or very small things. They may also be isolated and nominalized to express such concepts as bigness (russhém) and smallness (sákshém). Likewise, the isolated adjectives can take other derivational affixes or comparative/superlative suffixes, as described below.

            Three options exist for indicating g possession. As demonstrated in the word úwéfouglég in the above sentence, pronominal possessives are suffixed onto the item of possession. The following suffixes are employed in this method:

            The second option is only applied to proper nouns: the suffix –lér, which is parallel to the English construct genitive suffix –‘s. It can be added after the above pronominal suffixes, with the third person neuter singular and first person plural suffixes adding an epenthetic voiced stop to comply with the phonotactical rules. Both this suffix and those in the table above precede the plural suffix.
            The third and final option is to put the item of possession in the nominative case after the genitive marker ám.

            The prefix bén- is used to indicate that something is between some other things or qualities, generally two or more of the same kind of thing: bénókhroná "between the waters".

                        A2. Verbs

            Verbs have four infinitive forms – simple and perfect, each with active and passive versions. All are represented with suffixes to the verb stem: -dhí for the active imperfect infinitive, -dhü for the active perfect, –dhé for the passive imperfect, and –dhö for the passive perfect. When the verb root ends in t or th, the dh of the suffix devoices; if the verb ends in a sibilant or affricate, the suffix assimilates. Otherwise, it does not insert a schwa before any other consonant; for instance, hwálkdhí “to change” lacks any epenthetic vowel.

            Gomain is a null-subject language, and so its verbs have obligatory subject agreement. To this end, the following subject prefixes are used:

            The first-person plural prefixes are respectively inclusive and exclusive of second persons. When the above simple meanings are insufficient, especially in the second person and third person plural, a more precise pronoun may be used instead of the prefix.

            Verbs carry the following suffixes for tense, voice and the perfect aspect. There is no suffix for the active present tense.

            Without any of the following suffixes, a verb is assumed to be in the indicative mood. Gomain inflects for six other moods by suffixes that follow and mutate the tense suffixes. The basic suffixes are as follows; the uses of the moods are explained in the section on syntax:

            To comply with phonological constraints, the consonants of the tense and mood suffixes may mutate one another, depending on what they are. The ng of the past-tense suffixes inserts a g in the desiderative and obligative, and remains the same in all other moods. The dh of the future-tense suffixes combines with the dh of the desiderative, and remains the same in the other moods. The ó of all moods containing one elides in the present tenses.

            The desiderative and obligative mood suffixes, when used without any other affixes on the verb stem, represent the humble and forceful imperatives, respectively: compare khŕkedhak (please move) and khŕkleit (move!).

            The past, present, and future participles are formed with suffixes. The past suffix is –mén, the present is –méz, and the future is –méth. When the verb stem ends in a consonant, the m of the suffix is dropped, as in yundéz “working”.

            Two gerunds exist in Gomain – the regular and locative. They too are represented by suffixes, respectively –dhou and –sárou: yunddhou (working), yuntsárou (workplace). The regular gerund suffix has the same allomorphic variations as the infinitive suffixes. In practice, the gerund locative refers to a small area – the exact spot where an action happens.

            Agentives (indicating a person or thing that does the action) are also spoken as suffixes: the masculine suffix –kei, the feminine –keis, and the neuter -kí. These suffixes can also be applied to adjectives, or to proper nouns to express affiliation or habitation. The vowels of these suffixes are lowered to change their meaning to patientives, or objects that have the action done to them; the resulting suffixes, in the same order as above, are -kai, -kais and -ka.

            The interrogative suffix –il is attached at the end of the verb structure. To offer the listener an alternative, the phrase ót ná “or not” is added at the end of the sentence.

            Verbs are negated by the independent particle ná, which always follows the verb. If one wishes to express the reverse of the action (i.e. like/dislike) with the same stem, the particle nou is spoken before the verb; the same particle reverses the meaning of nouns in the same fashion as the English prefix un-. Adjectives are reversed with the same prefix. This prefix formerly began with ng; however, sound changes replaced utterance-initial ng with n. Therefore, when verbs with nou- take a subject agreement prefix, its form becomes –ngou-, as in khengounoung “they undid”. Likewise, when nouns and adjectives with nou- take a case prefix, this morpheme becomes –ngou-, as in úngouyouínkeihá “to the ungodly”.

            To express the reflexive, -vén is suffixed to the stem before any tense suffix. With irregular verbs this results in regularized tense paradigms, since reflexivity applies to the verb before the addition of tense; compare devévénóng “I was myself” with *devengvén.

                        A3. Adjectives

            Adjectives must agree with the nouns they describe in number and case. Therefore, if the noun is plural, the adjective must also have the plural ending –á/-há; compare úm galbód áddá “a red shoe” and úmá galbódá áddáhá “red shoes”.

            Adverbs are formed from adjectives via the suffix –dí. When following a voiceless consonant, this suffix devoices to –tí; lúpsh “fresh”, lúpshtí “freshly”.

            Intensity of the quality is expressed with four words, three of which may be thought of as different intensities of “very”. In order from least to greatest intensity, they are jó, joe, and joi. The fourth word, zhi, is opposite in meaning to these three, i.e. it weakens the adjective.

            There are two comparative suffixes, one positive and one negative; respectively, they are –ú and –nú. There are also a positive and negative superlative, respectively –hí and –bí. Finally, the neutral comparative (meaning “as ___ as”) suffix is –ue. The consonants of the superlative suffixes elide when the adjective to which they are attached ends with a consonant with different voicing, while the n of the negative comparative only assimilates to match the adjective’s final consonant if it is nasal.

            shtóg “green”

            shtógú “greener than”

            shtógí “the greenest”

            shtógue “as green as”

            shtógnú “less green than”

            shtógbí “the least green”

            To express excess in a quality, the preposition fégá “over” is suffixed to the adjective in excess: érshátfégá “too strong”. Similarly, a quality in deficiency is expressed by suffixing vôheish “under” to the appropriate adjective, as in érshátvóheish “not strong enough”; note the loss of the preposition’s irregular stress, as primary stress shifts to the adjective. Finally, if there is enough of a quality, óg “at” is suffixed: érshátóg “strong enough”. These prepositions are added to nous "this much" and shous "that much" to make the same distinctions with nouns, resulting in expressions such as júmgló nousfégá "too much wine" and yúsh shousvóheish "not enough money". In all three cases, neither the suffixed preposition nor the stem mutates to comply with phonological constraints, although the appropriate epenthetic consonant is inserted between óg and an adjective ending in a vowel.

                        A4. The Article

            Only an indefinite article exists in Gomain; without it, nouns are assumed to be definite. The singular form of the article is úm. It must agree with its nouns in number: thus one may speak of úm dhédeⁿ "a rock" or úmá dhédená "rocks". NB: dhédená without the article is assumed to mean “the rocks”.

                        A5. Pronouns

            The personal pronoun paradigm for the nominative case is as follows:

            In the accusative and dative cases, the first vowels of the personal pronouns undergo a shift towards ó, while the impersonal pronouns take d- as a prefix. The resultant forms are:

            *The first-person plural forms given are respectively inclusive and exclusive of second persons. These accusative forms can be put in the instrumental or vocative cases by adding the standard prefixes for those cases, such as aichí “oh, you” or éke “by him”.

The correlatives add case prefixes when appropriate. They are as follows: