Syntax
Bravalic has a fairly simple syntax as it uses a similar structure to that of romance languages such as Portuguese and Spanish, however in terms of its basic sentence structure, it follows a pattern similar to that of Arabic.
Basic Sentence Structures
Bravalic has a Verb-Subject-Object (VSO) word order. This is where the verb, the action word, come before the subject, the doer of the verb, and the object, the thing being done. This word order can be tricky to get a hang of, as English uses an SVO word order:
Example:
Cuvásí danego cethudhan
The dog loves the cat
As you can see from the sentence above, the verb cuvásí is at the beginning of the sentence whereas in the English sentence the verb loves is in the middle.
Now, the word cethudhan is the direct object of the sentence, which means (as I’ve said above) it is the thing being done or “verbed” by the subject of the sentence; however, consider the sentence here:
Lufátí danego deqaca cethudhaba
The dog writes a letter to the cat
As you can see, the word deqaca (a letter) has now become the direct object of the sentence as it is being “verbed” by the subject danego (the dog) through the verb lufátí (writes). But what about cethudhaba (to the cat)? This is the indirect object which is a thing which is indirectly affected by the verb, for example in English: “Frank gave Alice flowers”, Alice is not the thing being given, but the flowers are given to her.
The indirect object in English can identified in two way: one, from the example sentence, where it comes immediately after the verb before the direct object; the other way is using “to” or “for”: “Frank gave flowers to/for Alice.”
In Bravalic, no word is used before the indirect object as it is defined through the dative case (don’t worry, I will explain this later) and is usually placed at the end of the sentence.
Questions
In Bravalic, like in English, the sentence structure changes when a question is being asked. This change is called a syntactic transformation and occurs often with the change in the semantics (meaning) of the sentence; I developed a language where it changes tense through transformations! Now, in Bravalic, the transformation moves the verb of the sentence from the front to the end, after the object:
Declarative Sentence:
zhulámí cethudha jaragom
The cat sees the mouse
Interrogative Sentence:
Cethudha jaragom zhuloymí?
Does the cat see the mouse?
As you have probably noticed, the verb zhulámí (sees) in the declarative sentence, has changed to zhuloymí in the interrogative sentence. This is because the verb has changed from the indicative mood to the interrogative mood; don’t worry, I will go through this later on.
Adjective Placement
Unlike in English, but similar to that of many romance languages, Bravalic place the adjective after the noun. The adjective also has to agree with the gender, case and whether it is singular, dual or plural. Please don’t worry if you’re unsure on any of these term, I will expand on them when I describe nouns and adjectives later:
shovosí edri
The white spirit
I will expand on adjectives later, they are more complicated than they seem…
Basic Sentence Structures
Bravalic has a Verb-Subject-Object (VSO) word order. This is where the verb, the action word, come before the subject, the doer of the verb, and the object, the thing being done. This word order can be tricky to get a hang of, as English uses an SVO word order:
Example:
Cuvásí danego cethudhan
The dog loves the cat
As you can see from the sentence above, the verb cuvásí is at the beginning of the sentence whereas in the English sentence the verb loves is in the middle.
Now, the word cethudhan is the direct object of the sentence, which means (as I’ve said above) it is the thing being done or “verbed” by the subject of the sentence; however, consider the sentence here:
Lufátí danego deqaca cethudhaba
The dog writes a letter to the cat
As you can see, the word deqaca (a letter) has now become the direct object of the sentence as it is being “verbed” by the subject danego (the dog) through the verb lufátí (writes). But what about cethudhaba (to the cat)? This is the indirect object which is a thing which is indirectly affected by the verb, for example in English: “Frank gave Alice flowers”, Alice is not the thing being given, but the flowers are given to her.
The indirect object in English can identified in two way: one, from the example sentence, where it comes immediately after the verb before the direct object; the other way is using “to” or “for”: “Frank gave flowers to/for Alice.”
In Bravalic, no word is used before the indirect object as it is defined through the dative case (don’t worry, I will explain this later) and is usually placed at the end of the sentence.
Questions
In Bravalic, like in English, the sentence structure changes when a question is being asked. This change is called a syntactic transformation and occurs often with the change in the semantics (meaning) of the sentence; I developed a language where it changes tense through transformations! Now, in Bravalic, the transformation moves the verb of the sentence from the front to the end, after the object:
Declarative Sentence:
zhulámí cethudha jaragom
The cat sees the mouse
Interrogative Sentence:
Cethudha jaragom zhuloymí?
Does the cat see the mouse?
As you have probably noticed, the verb zhulámí (sees) in the declarative sentence, has changed to zhuloymí in the interrogative sentence. This is because the verb has changed from the indicative mood to the interrogative mood; don’t worry, I will go through this later on.
Adjective Placement
Unlike in English, but similar to that of many romance languages, Bravalic place the adjective after the noun. The adjective also has to agree with the gender, case and whether it is singular, dual or plural. Please don’t worry if you’re unsure on any of these term, I will expand on them when I describe nouns and adjectives later:
shovosí edri
The white spirit
I will expand on adjectives later, they are more complicated than they seem…
There is more to Bravalic syntax than the beginning section. Bravalic has quite a complex structure when it comes to word order when it comes to increasing the amount of words in a sentence:
Relative Clauses:
Sentential arguments are entire sentences that are taken by a verb as its subject or object. In Bravalic, these are constructed by two things: the use of the words do at the beginning of the sentence and lo at the end to indicate the start and end of the sentential argument; the other requirement is a transformation where the subject and the object swap places making a VOS word order:
Example:
Jecásí do busigí cethan danego lom
I know that the dog has a cat
As you have probably noticed, the word lo has turned to lom as the sentence has been taken as the object. Here’s an example of a sentence as the subject:
Fugálí do cuvisí jaregom cethudhá lo
It’s possible the cat loves the dog
Another relative clause is one that modifies (describes) a noun. These are indicated by the same word order as all relative clauses, but rather than lo, the relative pronoun iqa is used at the start of the sentence:
Lufátí serego do busigí vanadan iqa deqazhan
The man, who has a sword, writes letters
There are relative clauses that modify the noun that actually take the noun as the object:
Juvání serego do cuvisí iqam serudhá, jaromaw
The man, who the women loves, catches mice
In this case, the relative pronoun iqa, becomes iqam so it is in the accusative, but when this is the case, it comes after the verb, because of the word order.
When a preposition takes an entire sentence, the particle lé is used instead, however the relative transformation is not used, just the usual VSO word order:
Jaqa do lufití dano deqaca lé
Like a dog writing a letter
The particle do is only really used for formal or written situation, in informal conversation, the particle is hardly ever used for the prepositional clause. For all other clauses, do is an obligatory requirement.
Relative Clauses:
Sentential arguments are entire sentences that are taken by a verb as its subject or object. In Bravalic, these are constructed by two things: the use of the words do at the beginning of the sentence and lo at the end to indicate the start and end of the sentential argument; the other requirement is a transformation where the subject and the object swap places making a VOS word order:
Example:
Jecásí do busigí cethan danego lom
I know that the dog has a cat
As you have probably noticed, the word lo has turned to lom as the sentence has been taken as the object. Here’s an example of a sentence as the subject:
Fugálí do cuvisí jaregom cethudhá lo
It’s possible the cat loves the dog
Another relative clause is one that modifies (describes) a noun. These are indicated by the same word order as all relative clauses, but rather than lo, the relative pronoun iqa is used at the start of the sentence:
Lufátí serego do busigí vanadan iqa deqazhan
The man, who has a sword, writes letters
There are relative clauses that modify the noun that actually take the noun as the object:
Juvání serego do cuvisí iqam serudhá, jaromaw
The man, who the women loves, catches mice
In this case, the relative pronoun iqa, becomes iqam so it is in the accusative, but when this is the case, it comes after the verb, because of the word order.
When a preposition takes an entire sentence, the particle lé is used instead, however the relative transformation is not used, just the usual VSO word order:
Jaqa do lufití dano deqaca lé
Like a dog writing a letter
The particle do is only really used for formal or written situation, in informal conversation, the particle is hardly ever used for the prepositional clause. For all other clauses, do is an obligatory requirement.