Classical Arithide grammar

The grammar of Classical Arithide is characterised by a degree of inflection unseen in most modern tongues, and notably absent from its own modern descendant. Due to this inflectionary tendency, Classical Arithide possesses considerably free word order, especially in poetry, but syntax commonly and usually retains the traditional order of Subject Object Verb. Classical Arithide is a topic-prominent language, left-branching, prepositional (on the rare occasions where prepositions are employed), verb-framed, pro-drop and lexically-classed; it does not use articles. While some of these characteristics, such as its pro-drop and genderless character, simplify the learning process, the task is invariably complicated by the complexity of the language's inflection.

The Classical Arithide inflection system involves 8 declension classes of nouns, each inflected for 11 cases and two numbers; two classes of verbs, each conjugated in four voices, three aspects, four sub-aspects and seven moods, and which each produce an assortment of various derivative forms; two classes of adjectives, the nominal behaving like regular nouns, and the verbal behaving like regular verbs; adverbs, the most common of which are generally indeclinable but most of which are derivations of adjectives and hence declined as per their class.

Nouns

Main article: Classical Arithide declension

The use in Classical Arithide of lexical classing in nouns means that each declension class represents a broad group of nouns that share a certain characteristic. Traditional grammatical analysis takes the number of declension classes in Classical Arithide to be six, but the sub-classes that are sometimes sufficiently distinct from their ostensible parent class render the number about double. Factoring in overlapping and coincident declensions, modern grammarians generally accept the existence of 8 discrete groups, numbered declension classes I to VIII respectively. Only 7 classes were lexical: classes I to IV were productive classes due to their nature—they are still productive in Modern Arithide—and the separate but largely coincident declensions of the nouns thence derived were categorised under an eighth class.

Nouns of the first declension end in -os, and are associated lexically with abstractions: actions (vagos, "act of going"), states (stantos, "weight"), qualities (fugirnos, "dangerousness"), among others (sonos, "daily life"). The second declension ends in -as and is associated with places: kitaras "hall". The third (-ir) and fourth (-rir) both indicate a negative denotation or connotation associated with the noun, and were treated traditionally as variants of one declension, but separately nowadays because of the differences in their declension; they are also the only declensions where disyllabic nouns are stressed on the last syllable; vokir "evil", kirir "faux pas". The fifth declension consists of nouns ending in either -er or -a, and the association here is with people, society and culture: ither "person", medier "wife", steima "measurement". The sixth declension consists solely of the agentive derivatives of verbs, and hence all end in -on. The seventh is made up of nouns ending in -i, but no apparent lexical connection has been found that sufficiently encompasses the nouns in the category. The eighth, and last, declension class comprises the derived nouns, ending in any of -os, -as or -ir, and is the most regular declension class due to its character: it is the only class in which no irregularity is observed in any individual noun.

The 11 noun cases of Classical Arithide are:

• Nominative, which marks the subject of a verb
• Topical, which marks the topic of a sentence
• Accusative, which marks the object of a verb
• Genitive, which marks possession by
• Dative, which marks motion towards, and by extension benefaction to etc.
• Locative, which marks location (with places) or indicates shift of grammatical focus (with objects and people)
• Ablative, which marks motion away or existence apart, and by extension is used with prepositions such as parō "about, regarding" or etel "by (agentive)"
• Instrumental, which marks instruments, and by extension accompaniment, using the preposition etel "with"
• Vocative, which marks direct address
• Connective, which is an open-ended stem form to which certain affixes or other nouns are appended, e.g. salumos "heaven" + innos "top" > saluminnum "in heaven" (lit. "on heaven"; innos is in the locative) and allas "city" + dolō "around" (from dolos "surroundings") > alladolō "around the city" ¹

• Essive, which marks existence as

¹

Alladolō (connective + prep.) must be distinguished from the similar dolō allior (prep. + ablative); while both might be translated as "around the city", the former refers to the areas outside and surrounding a certain city, while the latter refers to places all around within the city: alladolō siethē sena "there are flowers around the city" vs. dolō allior siethē sena "there are flowers all about the city".

Of these, the connective and essive cases in all nouns are identical, resulting in 10 effective cases.

Prepositions

Due to the extensive inflectionary marking in Classical Arithide, the number of prepositions in common use is very few, although for purposes of scansion, some archaic ones can still be seen in poetry, sometimes in redundancy; the prepositions were revived, however, in Modern Arithide, albeit as postpositions.

• ansa + accusative "before (adverbial)"²

• • Ōssi ansa dōno eneōne. She had hoped that her son would return before she dies. (i.e. she is still living, but has given up)
  • cf. Ōssi ansa dōn eneōne. She had hoped that her son would return before he died. (i.e. son still living, but she has given up)
• ansa + temporal locative ablative (see next section) "before (independent)"²

• • Ōssirānōn ansa dōno eneōne. Before she died, she had hoped that her son would return. (i.e. she is dead)
  • cf. Ōssirānōn ansa dōn eneōne. Before he died, she had hoped that her son would return. (i.e. son is dead)
• dolō + ablative "around"
  • Alladolō siethē sena. There are flowers around (surrounding) the city. (See also the next section.)
• etel + ablative "by (agentive)"
  • Etel nossavī pitōn durosta. (They) were planted by a man whom we do not know.
• etel + instrumental "with (accompaniment)"
  • Etel filetis euris vagate. (He) had gone to the park with his/a friend.
• paro or par + ablative "about, regarding"
  • Par kossināt zierrēn nam dialōn fēnus segera. Of humans who have fallen (lit. fallen humans) and the rise of the gods (I) write. (Daldaian the Younger, Songs)
• syba + accusative "after (adverbial)"²

• • Leidoro syba fādou dōno Tētio te illossa. The father wants to name his son "Tētios" after he is born.
• syba + temporal locative ablative (see next section) "after (independent)"²

• • Leidorānōn syba okkor assiera kurrebimna. Since he was born (lit. since birth) he has always quarrelled with his sister.
• te + accusative direct quotation particle
  • Leidoro syba fādou dōno Tētio te illossa. The father wants to name his son "Tētios" after he is born.

²

The difference between the adverbial and the independent variants of these clauses is that the latter must refer only to the subject of the sentence, while the former can apply to either the subject or the object, or both, if so desired.  

Appendent adpositions

The appendent adpositions (or postpositions), so called because they are appended to the connective case of nouns, include the following common ones:

• ānos, ān temporal locative, not added to nouns denoting time; this effectively makes a new noun, which is then declined accordingly
  • Taitiān natāno medeae. When it is night we shall wait for it to be day (lit. for daytime). (Casubus)
  • Filān eiēs nis obissimna. His wine disappears when he is with his friends (lit. when friend-time).
  • Serrānis syndrēs itor evta. The sins of power (lit. of when powerful) reveal the man.
• dolos, dolō "around"
  • Dolō allior siethē sena. There are flowers all about the city.
• innos, innum "top"
  • Epsolinnum lārēs sena. There is a clock on (top of the) building.
  • cf. Epsolum lārēs sena. There is a clock on (the face of etc. but not the top of) the building.
• iros, irae "towards"
  • Fēnus kirirae abulae! (We) will march towards the abode of the gods! (Haratus, Orations)
• iros, iri "within, inside" (inessive marker)
  • Sitin roimiri kithiri flēgos faeos pēda. "In this frail body there lies a robust mind." (Haratus, Orations)
• isos, isae "against, counter"
  • Kodherisae sōpedēs solmē tōgite. The soldiers fought bitterly against the enemy.
• stera, strera "beside"
  • Savlutē orestrera rodēor arifti. Grass grows better beside a river. (Proverb)
• tandos, tandum below"
  • Saluntandum augulē soni. (We) live meagrely under the heavens. (Pladisian, Verses)

Verbs

Main article: Classical Arithide conjugation

Classical Arithide verbs are divided into two classes based on their infinitive endings, namely -ān (Class 1) and -ēn (Class 2). Whereas all vowel-stem verbs take -ān in the infinitive, the converse is not true, and the distinction between the two verb classes in terms of semantic and lexical meaning is not entirely clear, although it has been noted that all causative forms take as their infinitive -ēn.

Verbs in each class are conjugated for three voices, three basic aspects, five derivative aspects, seven moods and four tenses:

Voices

• Active John hits the ball.
• Passive The ball is hit by John.
• Causative Jack makes John hit the ball.

Aspects

• Imperfective, indicating the progression of an action
  • Habitual/Generic I walk to work every day. Mangoes grow on trees.
  • Protractive* I walk on and on; I go on walking.
  • Inceptive* I begin to walk.
  • Prospective* I am about to walk.
  • Frequentative* I walk around.
• Perfective, indicating the completion of an action
  • Habitual I used to walk to work every dat. Mangoes used to grow on trees.
• Perfect I have walked to the cinema (and am now there).

Moods

• Indicative, stating facts, strong beliefs
• Subjunctive*, used with wishes, hopes, doubts, conditions
• Optative* I want to walk.
• Jussive* I want you to walk.
• Imperative Walk!
• Cohortative Let's walk.
• Negative¹

I do not walk.

¹ There are technically two types of the negative mood in Classical Arithide, but traditionally have been conflated into one by the Dethrians, who were not generally able to effectively distinguish between the two (see Classical Arithide conjugation#Negative moods for more information).

Tenses

• Present
• Past
• Progressive, technically an aspect, derived from the imperfective, but covers the continuous tenses of English
• Future

Of the above, those marked with an asterisk form separate verbs (i.e. take their own infinitives), which usually do not hold the full conjugation range. Additionally, the interrogative mood is marked with the auxiliary particle da. Verbs are conjugated on a cascading hierarchy as above. I.e., to the root form of the verb would first be appended affixes indicating voice, followed by aspect, then mood and subsequently tense. The indicative perfective active is not generally marked, hence the existence of four tense-only forms.

Numerals

Measure words

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