Nauradi

Nauradi is a language isolate spoken in the Nauradi Republic of Eastern Europe. It is written in the Latin alphabet but as the republic was once part of the Soviet Union, it was also written in Cyrillic. As the Nauradi people wish to distance themselves from the Soviet era, Latin is the sole alphabet recognized by the Nauradi Language Institute and the Nauradi government.

Nauradi Verbs

Nauradi has no tenses and conveys all meaning based on aspect and mood. One must rely solely on the context to determine when the action takes place. Accordingly, Nauradi verbs have a wide variety of subtle nuances in meaning.

Aspect

Pefective: Perfective verbs are used to express an action that takes place and ends at one particular point in time. They indicate the finality of the process. Perfective is formed by a prefix to the imperfective verb, by ablaut or a combination of both. If the context does not indicate time, the speaker of Nauradi would understand that the action takes place at the time of speaking.

Imperfective: The imperfective aspect is used to describe an action that covers an unspecified time. It indicates the durative, continuous, or unstarted nature of the process. The imperfective verb is the “dictionary form” of the word. As with the perfective, if the context does not indicate time, the speaker of Nauradi would understand that the action takes place at the time of speaking.

Mood

Realis: This is used for statements of fact, certainty or reality. Just as the dictonary form of the verb is the imperfective, the dictionary form of the verb is realis.

Irrealis: Irrealis covers a broad spectrum of meanings that cannot be assigned to the realm of real time. This mood is used to express statements of uncertainty or conditionality. The irrealis is formed by the addition of a suffix.

Participles

Participles exist for all inflections of the verb and are formed by adding the participle suffix. They can be used as nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

Nauradi Verbs Used in Sentences

Declaratives

Realis Perfective: Actions that are complete or perceived as such. “I went to school last week.” “I’m fixing the car for the last time.” “Tomorrow I will get up at 7:00”

Realis Imperfective: Actions that do not show an actual start or end but still represent statements of reality. “I’m walking to the store at this moment.” “I will buy a house.” “I used to live in New York.”

Commands

Any of the four verb inflections can be used as a command. They are most commonly expressed in the irrealis.

Irrealis perfective: used as a direct command or order.

Irrealis imperfective: used as suggestion. Can often be translated with “perhaps.” Also used in intimate settings to ask someone to do something (“Kiss me”)

Realis Commands: If a command expressed in the realis form, the command would convey a stronger sense, with realis perfective being the stongest sense.

Queries

Queries can be made in either realis or irrealis, and would most commonly appear as realis perfective (where the answer is already known) or irrealis imperfective (where the answer is unknown).

Conditionals

Conditionals are expressed as a protasis and apodasis. The mood of the verbs in both clauses generally match. If the protasis is known to be true, the realis is used. If the protasis is a statment of conjecture, the irrealis is used.

Nauradi Nouns

Nauradi nouns are classified in two genders: animate and inanimate. Further specification can be inidcated in nouns by the addition of suffixes. The dictionary form of all nouns is the indeterminate form.

Animate Nouns

In their indeterminate form, animate nouns express a gender neutral concept; they do not indicate the anatomical sex of the entity they represent. Suffixes are added when it is necessary to indicate that the entity is either male or female. In example, the English word deer, does not indicate either a male or female deer. English will have a futher specialized word to indicate this concept eg. buck or doe. With some exceptions, Nauradi does not have such specialized words, but would add either a male or female suffix to identify the difference.

Inanimate Nouns

These are always indeterminate. Unlike animate nouns, there are no additional specications ascribed to them requiring an affix.

Special Considerations

Anthropomorphism Inanimate nouns can add the animate male/female suffixes in the case of literature or other instances where anthropomorphosis is necessary such as in children's literature. Anthropomorphized inanimate nouns are would still be modified by inanimate ajectives.

Plant Kingdom While plants are biologically animate entities, Nauradi does not assign male or female properties to them. In the rare case that it may be required (as in scientific contexts), the animate male/femanle suffixes can be added. Despite this, they are always treated as animate entities requiring an animate adjective.

Nauradi Personal Pronouns

As there are no cases in Nauradi, personal pronouns exist in only one form. The personal pronoun always preceeds the verb in a declarative and by definition, follows the preposition. Personal pronouns exist in both singular and plural, and common forms for first person singular, second person singular and plural, and third person plural. The first person plural exists in both inclusive and exclusive forms. The third person singular exists for each gender, animate and inanimate.

Dative-Accusative Construct: The normal declarative structure in Nauradi is Subject-Verb-Object. In the case where two personal pronouns directly follow the verb, it is understood that those are first the indirect object (dative) and then the direct object (accusative).

Articles

Nauradi uses no articles.

Number

Nauradi has two numbers, singular and plural. Plural is indicated by suffix in most cases though a few words exist that use the same form for singular and plural.

Nauradi Adjectives

Adjectives agree with their associated nouns in both gender and number. They preceed their associated noun in sentence structure. Agreement is formed by adding a suffix indicating gender and number. Comparison of adjectives is at four levels, positive, comparative, superlative, and exaggerated. Comparative forms are indicated by prefix.

Nauradi Adverbs

Like adjectives, adverbs preceed the word which they modify. Comparison is formed with the same prefixes as adjectives.