Cenyani grammar reference

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Derivation

Most of the lists below will probably be expanded eventually.

Conversions to adverbs is described in adjectives. To derive an adverb from a noun or verb, convert it first to an adjective, then turn the adjective into an adverb.

Most of the derivational suffixes described below are sometimes used on other parts of speech than they “should” be used on. Some examples:

nóras
(“to frustrate”) = nóro (“frustration”, noun) + -as (causative, which is used on verbs and adjectives)
nóroct
(“frustrated at being unable to scratch a persistent itch”) = nóroci (“frustration at being unable to scratch a persistent itch”, noun) + -t (past participle), as if to describe someone stricken by nóroci
róšia
(“villager, citizen”) = roš (“town, city, village”, noun) + present tense + -a (agent), as if to describe someone who “villages”, i.e., someone who inhabits a settlement
prrníldi
(“light rain, drizzle”) = prrn (“to rain”, verb) + -íldi (diminutive) – also less commonly used to mean “to rain lightly, to drizzle”


From nouns

To adjectives

Most of the derivation in this direction is done with the suffix -ani, whose a often replaces any vowel or diphthong the noun may end in. The suffix is a very generic adjective-converter that means something like “of or related to ‹noun›” or “‹noun›-like”. A good example of such an adjective is the word cenyani, which means “of or relating to the cenya”. (The name of the language, Cenyani, is a noun, but it is an irregularly formed one.)

To form more descriptive adjectives or adjectives with more restrictive descriptions, the noun is combined with an appropriate adjective into a compound word, but this isn’t very common: the -ani prefix is enough under most circumstances.

Note, too, that noun phrases with adpositions are frequently used in an adjective-like manner as well, especially the adposition -[r]er (“without”). A phrase such as “the hatless man” would be expressed as “the man hat-without”.

To verbs

There are several different ways to turn nouns into verbs, using suffixes and prefixes according to the list below.

-ec
is slightly difficult to translate, but it usually creates a verb that describes an action that is somehow or other (however vaguely) related to the noun: tanš (“joke”) gets turned into tanšec, which means “to joke”. Many inanimate nouns use the equivalent but obsolete suffix -ad, such as ssco (“tooth”) which becomes sscad (“to bite”). The vowel of the suffix often replaces any vowel or diphthong the noun may end in.
Etymologically, the suffix is related to the indefinite accusative form, which ends in -c most of the time. The -ad comes from old Cenyani, where there was an inanimate gender whose accusative indeed ended in -d (see the indefinite pronouns for an example of the inanimate inflection pattern).
Some nouns also undergo a slight change – mostly a dropping of the last vowel or syllable – when this suffix is used, especially nouns that have been derived from adjectives. One noun that undergoes such a change is aštum (“morning”), which becomes aštec (“to wake up”).
-an
is similar to the above, but is typically used when the meaning of the verb relates more to a quality or state of the noun than an action associated with it. The suffix is etymologically related to both -ani (see above) and an (“to be”). For example, roy (“liquid, fluid”) becomes royan (“to flow”) and íro (“fire”) becomes íran (“to burn, be on fire”).
yé-
is a mostly deprecated prefix that turns nouns into [primarily transitive] verbs which roughly translate to “to use ‹noun› on ‹object›”. It comes from the verb yé, which is a transitive verb meaning “to use sth on smn/sth” (usually in a slightly more figurative meaning). If the stressed syllable of the noun has a long vowel, this prefix usually shortens it, and the prefix is always stressed. For example, from rá (“arm”) has been derived yéra, which means “to hug, embrace”.

Derivation from nouns to verbs is not always straightforward or even particularly logical. For instance, nari (“eye”) has no relation whatsoever to aš (“to see, look (at)”), and the derived verb naran rather means “to be vigilant; to keep an eye out”.

To other nouns

In this category is only one suffix, -ldi, the diminutive suffix. As is typical of diminutive suffixes, it denotes something smaller than that encoded by the original word. This suffix forces the stress of the word to move to the syllable directly preceding the suffix, lengthening that vowel (if it is a vowel that can be lengthened, of course), and shortening any long vowels in the word. If the noun does not end in a vowel, an -í- is inserted between the suffix and the noun, and becomes the stressed syllable.

Examples of words using this prefix are onáldi and yanáldi, meaning “boy” and “girl” respectively. They come from ona “man; (adult) male” and yana “woman; (adult) female”, respectively. It’s pretty straightforward for a change.


From verbs

To adjectives

Verbs are typically transformed into participles, which are special adjectival forms of the verb.

To express more complicated relationships between things, relative clauses must be used instead. It is worth noting that the present participle describes someone or something that does what the verb describes (i.e. is the actant), whereas the past participle describes someone or something to whom/which that has happened. “The eaten fruit” describes a fruit which someone has eaten, whereas “the eating animal” describes an animal that is eating rather than an animal that is being eaten.

Also keep in mind that the participles behave exactly like adjectives, including case inflection and comparison and all that stuff.

To nouns

Converting verbs to nouns is a fairly trivial matter, but there is one suffix which causes the exact meaning of the noun to be slightly unpredictable.

-Vt
is a common suffix that is typically used for actions, or nouns that describe the result or logical consequence of the verb. The vowel of the suffix is typically an a or e, but o also occurrs. For example, yéra (“to hug, embrace”) can be turned into yérat, which means “a hug/embrace”, and prrn (“to rain”) becomes prrnet (“rain”).
-et and -at are often used for actions or the result thereof, while -ot is more frequently used for things associated with the verb or action, especially things required to carry out the action. There are several exceptions, notably ešet (“food; meal”, from eš, “to eat”).
The vowel of the suffix usually replaces any vowel or diphthong the verb may end in.
pres= + -a
is an agent suffix, equivalent to the English -er suffix: it denotes someone (or something) that does what the verb describes, especially if the person does it regularly (but not necessarily at the moment). Note that this suffix is applied to the neutral present tense of the verb. The word sánia – from san (“to fly”) – would refer to someone who flies, especially one with a habit of flying; a pilot, perhaps.

To other verbs

-as
is a fairly common suffix, at least on verbs, which produces a transitive verb that translates loosely to “to make smn/sth ‹original verb›” (it’s a causative suffix). Using eš as an example once more, ešas would mean “to make (smn) eat” – or, as it is more commonly understood, “to forcefeed”. Some verbs produced with this suffix have negative connotations, but this is not a common feature of causative verbs. An example of a word without a negative connotation is íranas, which comes from íran and means “to set on fire”.
If the original verb was transitive and you want to use it in a transitive manner, such as, for example, expressing not only that you forcefed someone, but what you forcefed them as well, the adposition -[r]aþ is used for the original verb’s direct object. What this means is that a sentence such as “I forcefed him noxrrti” would have the -[r]aþ adposition on noxrrti, whereas “he” is in the accusative. Like so: ešaset ä óm noxrrtiraþ.

In addition to the -as suffix above, Cenyani has a number of adverbal prefixes. These mostly encode some kind of motion – for example, al- “up”, áta- “forward” – but also some other concepts not directly related to motion – í- “apart”. In all cases, there exist separate adverbs for all these prefixes, and they should actually be used instead of the prefixes. The adverbal prefixes are instead used to derive new words with meanings related to what the prefix suggests. The definition of the new word may be narrower than what would be yielded from using a separate adverb, and not rarely do these words have idiomatic uses.

For instance, aredšo (from ar- “out” + edšo “to pull”) does not merely refer to pulling something out of something else; it refers specifically to pulling out after sex – or, sometimes, prior to ejaculation, as a form of contraceptive. Similarly, átayem (from áta- “forward” + yem “to give, hand over”) does not mean “to give forward” or anything like that, but rather “to pronounce”.

Transitivity does not necessarily remain the same when a verb is modified with these prefixes – edšo is (primarily) transitive, while aredšo never is.


From adjectives

To nouns

There is only really a single suffix for turning adjectives into nouns, and that is -ot. It is pretty much equivalent to English -ness. For example, né (“dark, dim”) becomes néot (“darkness; night”). The connection between the adjective and the noun is sometimes rather abstract: octo (“large, big”) gets transformed into ocrot (note the change, octo→ocr-), which does not mean “bigness” but rather “size”.

Adjectives can also act as nouns and are then called nominal/substantial adjectives.

To verbs

Much like with adjective-to-noun conversions, there is only really a single suffix for turning adjectives into verbs as well: -as. The verb it creates is ambitransitive (either intransitive or transitive, depending entirely on usage and context). The intransitive usage translates to “to become ‹adj›”, and the transitive usage to “to make (smn/sth) ‹adj›”.

For example, hašas from haš (“quiet; silent”) means “to become silent” or “to silence” depending on how it is used. Hašaset on means “He became silent” (or “He shut up” if you will), while Hašaset om ä means “I silenced him”.

And once again, the precise meaning may be a bit abstract, figurative or even idiomatic. Using octo again, the corresponding -as verb is ocras which has both the predictable meanings “to grow” and “to enlarge” as well as the idiomatic “to artificially inflate the importance or significance of something” (to make something “bigger” than it really is, if you will).


Compound nouns

As in English, compound nouns in Cenyani are head-final. This means the word aštutimi is a type of timi, and aštu(m) describes what type of timi it is. In this noun, timi is the head, while aštum is the modifier.

When two nouns are joined together to form a compound, the main thing to look out for is illegal consonant clusters. In the case of aštutimi, for instance, the -m in aštum had to be dropped, because -mt- is not permitted in Cenyani. When there is a clash between consonants, more often than not, the modifier drops its final consonant; the head is never changed at all.

In some cases – especially if the modifier ends in a consonant cluster – a linking vowel may be put between the words. The choice of linking vowel is completely arbitrary and there is no fixed rule of any kind.

Although syllabic consonants, strictly speaking, cannot be directly adjacent to vowels, this is usually allowed in compound nouns.

Double plosives – bb, cc, dd, gg, pp and tt – are always reduced to a single one.

Note that Cenyani compound nouns have not always been head-final, which is why you can still find words like nóroci, which is a type of nóro rather than a type of orac.