Basics

Azarennya is clause-oriented. A clause consists of zero or more clause markers, one or two noun phrases, and one verb phrase.

The clause marker, if present, is always first in the clause. It specifies how the clause is connected to what has already been said. The English equivalent will usually be a conjunction.

A phrase consists of an article, the main word, and any modifiers. It is the article that marks the phrase as either a noun phrase or a verb phrase, as many nouns can also be used as verbs. (NOTE: There are a number of nouns and verbs that are immutably nouns and verbs and therefore do not need to be preceded by an article. These include pronouns, certain classifier nouns usable as pronouns, and certain very common verbs. The Azarenji think of these words as "shortcuts.")

Word order determines which noun phrase is the subject: If N is a noun phrase and V is the verb phrase, then:

NNV means OSV (object of the verb comes first).
NVN means SVO (subject comes first).
VNN means VOS (subject comes last).

Whichever comes first in the clause is the clause's topic.

The object must be present. If the verb is intransitive (or equivalent to an adjective), the object must be “se”.

A clause is either narrative (to share new or newly significant information) or descriptive (to point out something already known, in order to make it clear what is being discussed).

Subordinate clauses (clauses nested inside a main clause) do not exist; one clause must be finished (or abandoned) before another is started.

Modifier hierarchy?

Suppose you have a verb phrase consisting of a verb V and two modifiers M and N in that order. Does N modify M, or does it modify V? Is there a way to change this, so that if it normally modifies V it can still be made to modify M (or vice versa)? Can you use a noun and a verb together as a modifier (e.g., "SV" modifiers like "moth-eaten" [moths eat it] and/or "SV" modifiers like "fried-chicken-eating" [he eats fried chicken])?

But what does that do to the idea of avoiding the nesting of clauses? How about closing the narrative clause, making a quick list of descriptive clauses, and then opening another narrative clause?

Noun phrases

A noun phrase consists of a noun marker, a noun, and an optional string of modifiers. A pronoun is a word (usually with one syllable) that can stand in as a noun phrase.

Noun markers include:

go — "the (singular)": indicates exactly ONE being or object, and one that has already been introduced.
le — "the (plural)": indicates any quantity other than one — a fraction, a group, or an uncountable mass — something already introduced.
anya — "a, an, a certain": indicates exactly ONE being or object; introduces it.
ale — "some": introduces a fraction, group, or mass.

Pronouns include:

mi — "I, me"
ze — "you (singular)"
an — "he, she, it"
nas — "we, us"
zwa — "you (plural)"
dos — "they, them"
nei — "who? what? which?": indicates a blank that the listener is asked to fill in.

Verb phrases

A verb phrase consists of a verb marker, a verb, and an optional string of modifiers.

Verb markers include:

-da — appended to each verb marker in a descriptive clause; equivalent to "-ing" on a participle in English.
Markers for "present time" (actions going on right now, or incomplete right now):
- zhan — "now": indicates an action occurring at this moment (progressive)
- kwe — indicates an action that has been "quit" (stopped and probably will not be completed)
- den — indicates an action that has been "paused" (stopped but probably will be resumed in the near future)
- tyen — indicates an action that will be done in the near future
- gha — indicates an action completed very recently
Markers for "narrative time" (a time other than the present):
- ve — "then": indicates an action occurring at a specific time other than the present
- van — "before then": indicates an action occurring before a specific time that is not the present
- vol — "after then": indicates an action occurring after a specific time that is not the present

More notes

Object marking (di, se, ne)

OBSOLETE: Unless the noun phrase is one of a handful of simple pronouns (including "se"), the noun phrase (subject or object) is always introduced with one of the noun articles, most commonly "o" for a singular noun already introduced, and others for plural nouns, nouns being introduced, things that no longer merit the noun used to identify them, etc.

Some facts:

A "concept word" can be either a noun or a verb.
A clause can occur in SVO, VOS, or OSV order (the first item is the topic of the clause).
A clause may also be SVVV — a noun followed by a string of intransitive verbs or adjectives.

Therefore there needs to be a particle in the middle of a clause to disambiguate the clause.

The object of a clause will be marked with a preceding particle — di (derived from "the", which otherwise has not survived into Azarennya). Thus the basic layout of a clause is "X X di X" (SVO), or "di X X X" (OSV), or "X di X X" (VOS).

An intransitive verb has as its "object" the particle se. So the clause layout becomes "X X se" (SV-) or "X se X" (V-S). You could use "se X X" (-SV), but this is comparatively rare and is usually used only for emphasis, or to correct a misinterpretation (and not, say, for effect; "se" doesn't refer to anything, although it came from "self").

A descriptive clause is simply a subject followed by a chain of verbs and adjectives. If one of the verbs is followed by an object, the object must be preceded by ne. Intransitive verbs don't have to be marked with a "fake object" particle in this case. (Note that verbs in a descriptive clause can be translated into English as participles.)

So:

*Pattern*	*Clause type*
di A B C	Narrative: object (A), subject (B), verb (C) (OSV order), with the object as topic
A di B C	Narrative: verb (A), object (B), subject (C) (VOS order), with the verb as topic
A B di C	Narrative: subject (A), verb (B), object (C) (SVO order), with the subject as topic
se A B	Narrative: subject (A) and intransitive verb or adjective (B) (SV order), not commonly used
A se B	Narrative: intransitive verb or adjective (A) and subject (B) (VS order), with the verb as topic
A B se	Narrative: subject (A) and intransitive verb or adjective (B) (SV order), with the subject as topic
A B C	Descriptive: noun (A) and two intransitive verb participles (B, C)
ne A B C	Descriptive: INCORRECT.
A ne B C	Descriptive: INCORRECT.
A B ne C	Descriptive: noun (A) and one transitive verb participle (B) with an object (C)

Verb articles

Tense

Tense in Azarennya is always relative to the "talk time," which is the time when the events being narrated take place. (There should be a clause-marker pair to let you switch between the "talk time" and the present.) Most verbs will not be marked for tense, and verbs that are marked for tense would be translated into English using pluperfect ("I had gone") or future perfect ("I would have gone" or "I will have gone"), if the time is "talk time". If the time is simply the present, then verbs marked for tense are translated into simple past or future verbs.

Repetition

(habituality ["I do it for a living", "I used to do it"], repetition [once only, or multiple times])

Progress

This would probably be expressed with a "stacked clause," e.g., "I start I do it" or "I start he do it".

Nominalization of clauses

To nominalize a clause, just prepend a noun article to it, such as "di". This is how clauses like "I had him start work" and "He saw her cleaning" would be implemented in Azarennya: "I did cause di [clause] he start work" and "He did see di [clause] she clean se".

Clause markers

A simple a at the start of a clause may indicate that the following statement happened — "he went to work" (talk time) or "he is going to work" (present time).

An alternative would indicate that the action recurs but is not necessarily happening in the "narrative moment" — "he used to go to work" or "he would go to work" (talk time) or "he goes to work" (present time).

SyntaxNotes