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.

Parts of Speech

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).

Nauradi Prepositions

While Nauradi does not inflect for case, its 32 prepositions correspond to the cases listed below.

Ablative – movement away from something; the means by which something is accomplished.

Accusative – direct object (the accusative preposition may or may not be present in a sentence. Presence of the preposition tends toward literature or formal speech); governs the personal pronoun as a reflexive

Adessive – adjacent location: near, at, by something

Allative – movement to adjaceny: to something

Antessive – before something

Apudessive – location next to something

Benefactive – for the benefit of, intended for

Comitative – in the company of someone/something

Dative – receiver of action: to, for whom

Delative – movement from the surface: from, off of

Distributive – distribution by piece: per

Distributive-Temporal – how often something happens: daily, hourly, on Sunday

Egressive – beginning of a movement or a time or origin: beginning from something or beginning from some point, I am from the north.

Elative – out of something

Essive – marking a condition as a quality: as a brick is heavy

Genitive – relation or possession

Illative – movement into something

Inessive – inside something

Instrumental – instrument by which something is completed: I hit the ball with a bat

Locative – location: at, on, in something

Orientative – oriented or turned toward something

Partitive – used for amounts: three (of the) books, a cup (of) flour

Pertingent – in contact with: touching something

Privative – lacking something: without a house, homeless

Revertive – backwards to something: against the wall

Subessive – under something: under, below

Sublative – movement onto or below something

Superessive – on the surface: on, on top of

Temporal – specifing a time: at 2:00

Terminative – marking the end of a movement or time

Vialis – movement through: by way of , via

Vocative – used for address typically in prayer, or other formal situations. Implied in informal speech

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.

Nauradi Conjunctions

Coordinating Conjunctions

for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so. There are two forms of the conjucntion and in Nauradi. While there is a common form which simply links elements together, there is a secondary word which links elements within elements. A sample English sentence might be:

We had toast and jam and ham and eggs and coffee and orange juice for breakfast.

Some of the elements in that list are actually a sublist of items which are always together as a single unit:

toast and jam and ham and eggs

The secondary form (represented by the symbol &) is included below to show where it would be used in place of the common form of and:

We had toast & jam and ham & eggs and coffee and orange juice for breakfast.

Correlative Conjunctions

both … and, (n)either … (n)or, and not (only) … but (also) …

Subordinating Conjunctions

although, before, until, while after, although, if, unless, so that, because

Consecutive Conjunctions

Nauradi has two conjunctions which indicate a sequence of events, the first shows a sequence of events in increasing direction and is most often translated "then."

First I went to the store, then to the gas station, then the coffee shop.

The second is most often translated as "before that."

I went to the store and before that the gas station and before that the coffee shop.

Consecutive conjunctions can also be used in a consecutive combination.

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.