Láadan/Láadan Grammar Reference

Letters in Láadan
Notes

A. Words cannot end with the letters "h", "w", or "y".

B. Split up double-consonants with the letter "e".

Example: hesh = grass, hoth = place, hesh+e+hoth = heshehoth = park.

C. Split up double-vowels with the same accents with the letter "h".

Example: ra = not, en = understand, ra+h+en = rahen = misunderstand

D. Two vowels next to each other are only allowed if one of them is accented.

Example: Láadan, Aáláan

Accented Vowels
A letter with an accent mark gets pronounced with a slightly higher pitch, and slightly more emphasis.


 * Low tone – Example, /lō/ or /lò/
 * High tone – Example, /ló/

With two vowels side-by-side, there can be an accent on the first vowel or the second vowel. These have different sounds:


 * Loó – /lǒː/
 * Lóo – /lôː/

Pronouns
Pronouns can be neutral, though if a gender is assumed it is generally feminine.

Beloved, honored, or despised
You can change the pronouns to match some feeling about who you're talking about:


 * Beloved - change the "e" vowel with "a". la, lazh, lan, ba, bazh, ban, na, nazh, nan
 * Honored - change the "e" vowel with "i". li, lizh, lin, bi, bizh, bin, ni, nizh, nin
 * Despised - add "lhe-" to the beginning. lhele, lhelezh, lhelen, lhebe, lhebezh, lheben, lhene, lhenezh, lhenen

Speech Act Morpheme
At the beginning of a phrase, a sentence marker is added to indicate what kind of sentence it is.

Extensions
You can attach a suffix to each of these in order to further specify the speaker/writer's intentions:

Evidence Morpheme
An evidence marker is added to the end of a sentence. If there are several sentences strung together and context is clear, these can be omitted from additional sentences.

Content Words and Function Words
Láadan does not have traditional verbs, nouns, and adjectives, as in English. There are two types of words: Content words, and Function words.

Most content words can be used as both verbs and nouns. (“Dance”, “Dancing”, would both be “Amedara”).

Verbs and adjectives are the same class of words. (“Red”, “To be red”, would both be “Laya”).

Identifier Case
Láadan does not have a verb for “to be”, as in English. If you want to state [noun A] is [noun B], any verb will be left off and the subject and identifier will be used:

Object Case
Use the “-th” suffix to mark the object in a sentence.

An object is an item being acted on. In the sentence “I ate rice.” – Rice is the object. In Esperanto, this would be “Mi manĝas rizon”, where rice (rizo) has an object marker -n.

Notes:


 * If an act can only go one way (I can learn Láadan, but Láadan cannot learn me), the object marker is not necessary.
 * Remember that double-consonants get split up by an "e". (Láadan+e+th)

Interrogative degree markers
The interrogative marker, "-haba", can be used to ask "to what degree?"



Duration markers
A Duration marker can be added to the beginning of a verb.

Repetition marker
A Repetition Morpheme can also be used to specify a pattern in which something is done.

Pluralization
The prefix “me-” is used to indicate plural. However, it is used on the verb – not the noun.

Adjective with noun
If you want to modify a noun by combining it with an adjective, you add the “wo-” prefix on both the adjective and the noun.

Negation
To make a sentence negative, put “ra” immediately after the verb.

You can also negate other words by prefixing it with "ra". For instance:

And/Or
"i" is used for "and".

"e" is used for "or".

Yes/No Questions
When asking yes/no questions, the word order will be the same, but “Báa” (question type-of-sentence marker) will be used instead of “Bíi”, and you leave off the evidence marker.

"Yes" is "Em".

"No" is "Ra".

Interrogative Questions
In English, we have words like who, what, when, where, why…

In Láadan, who/what/when/where questions still begin with “Báa”. The third person pronoun “be” is used in place for what is being asked about (or a plural form), and the suffix “–báa” to mark it as what we’re asking about.

Tenses
In a sentence, you can add tenses like "ril" (now), "eril" (past), to clarify the time which the action happened. Here is a list of tenses:

Embedding sentences
Once you're comfortable with basic sentence structures, you may want to include one sentence in another. For example, "Did you know that [grandma died]?", where "Grandma died" is its own sentence, but is included in a larger sentence.

Embed statement: -hé
The "-hé" marker can be used to embed one statement within another statement. "-hé" will be added to the last word in the internal sentence.

Embed question: -hée
This marker can be used to embed a question within a sentence. The external sentence can also be a question, or it can be a statement. "-hée" will be added to the last word in the internal sentence.

Embed relative clause: -háa
A relative clause modifies a noun. With the statement and question embedding markers above, the internal sentences are relatively standalone ("the rain is cold." "do you think that [the rain is cold]?"). Here, however, the relative clause will modify the sentence as a whole.



Comparison
Note the difference between using "-hé" and "-háa":

Passive Voice Marker -shub
Maybe you want to describe what is happening in a more passive voice; for example, changing "Jane coveted the treasure" (active), "The treasure was coveted by Jane".

The first version, we would order it something like:

Speech-act-morpheme verb subject object evidence-morpheme

Where the subject is Jane and the object is the treasure.

Passive sentence with an Agent
In order to change the original active sentence to passive move the subject, which is the Agent doing the action, (Jane) after the verb and the object (treasure) immediately before the verb. The object is now in the focus position.

Passive sentence without an Agent
You would also add the suffix -shub onto the end of the subject (Jane).

If your sentence does not have an Agent subject (The treasure is coveted), then you will still move your object before the verb, and add the -shub suffix to the verb.

Preposition-like Markers
In Láadan, there are no prepositions. Instead, there are suffixes added to the end of words.

Goal Marker: -di
This is similar to the “to” preposition. Append “-di” to the goal. (“I am going to the store” – store would be the goal).

Source Marker: -de
This is similar to the “from” preposition. Append “-de” to the source. (“I came from home” – home would be the source).

Association Markers: -den, -dan
This is similar to “with”. There are two forms of with: “-den” (neutral), and “-dan” (with pleasure).

Instrument Marker: -nan
This is similar to “with” or “per”, denoting a tool being used to accomplish a task. The suffix is “-nan”.

Beneficiary Markers: -da, -dá, -dáa, -daá
This marker is for when you’re doing something “for” someone or something else. There are a few variations:

Location Markers: -ha, -ya
This is similar to the preposition “at”. To denote location in space, use “-ha”. To denote location in time, use “-ya”.

Manner Marker: -nal
To denote a manner with which something is done, use the marker “-nal”.

Reason Marker: -wáan
To mark a reason, add the suffix “-wáan”.

Purpose Marker: -wan
Mark the purpose with “-wan”.

Possessive Marker: -tha, -thi, -the, -thu, -tho
There are several forms of the possessive marker:

Path marker: -mu
Let's say that we want to say that we're going from point A to point C, by going *through* point B. In this case, we'd mark point B as the "path", using the *-mu* marker.

Noun Declensions
Additional detail can be added to words, such as emotions (happiness, anger, etc.). By adding on to these words, using the first and second declensions, you can encode more information in a single word, instead of having to formulate lengthy sentences to describe your current state.

Second Declension: Blame/reason...
The second declension can be used to specify reason, blame, and futility of the statement. You can essentially answer three questions with each suffix:


 * 1) There is a reason that I feel this way: (True/False)
 * 2) There is someone to blame for this situation: (True/False)
 * 3) There is something that can be done about the situation: (True/False)

In the table below, "T" symbolizes "True", and "F" symbolizes "False".

Anger: bara, bala, bama, bana, bina



Compounding
As in English, compounds are usually head-final. That is, a mid-(e)math animal-building is a kind of building (a ‘stable’), not a kind of animal. A bud-(e)halid clothing-competition = ‘masquerade’ is a kind of competition, not a kind of clothing.

There are a small number of exceptions, though. A bud-(e)shun clothing-ceremony is "ritual clothing", not a kind of ceremony. Similarly dale-shun object-ceremony = ‘ritual object’. Od-obeyal cloth-gold is a kind of cloth decorated with gold, not a kind of gold (though this may be a metaphor).

The word hoth, place, works head-finally in the regular way; dutha-hoth heal-place is ‘hospital’, hesh-(e)hoth grass-place is ‘park’, etc. However, as the prefix ho-, it becomes head-initial. ho-zhazh is ‘airport’ (a place of planes=zhazh), and ho-hal is ‘office’ (hal = work).

Verb-noun compounds usually have verb-object semantics: di-shóo-dal tell-happen-things = ‘to tell the news’. The verb-object compound can point to an external meaning: wida-dith carry-voice means "telephone" (=that which carries the voice).

Another compound order is modifier-verb: óoma-sháad foot-go = walk, go by foot. Of course, the same works for adjectives: muda-(h)éthe pig-clean is a kind of clean (a half-assed clean state). Modifier-verb order can lead to, effectively, an ‘inverted’ object-verb order: oba-(h)éthe body-clean is to clean one’s body, to take a shower or bath (but it’s being encoded as a kind of cleaning; cp. English ‘housecleaning’ vs. ‘clean the house’).

As when inflecting words, consonant clusters are resolved with an -e-: And vowel clusters are resolved with -h-: Vowel clusters can be allowed if it’s the same vowel with different tones (the only kind of vowel cluster present in Láadan): But different vowels or longer sequences get the -h- even with different tones:
 * hal work + zhub insect = halezhub ‘ant’
 * ezha snake + ith light = ezhahith lightning bolt
 * rá- not + alehale music = ráalehale musically deprived
 * muda pig + éthe clean = mudahéthe pig-clean.
 * owa warm = úuzh bedding = owahúuzh ‘blanket’.

When the junction point of a compound repeats the same phonemes, they usually merge into one:
 * rumad + doni hide-dirt → rumadoni (‘dig’), rather than *rumadedoni.
 * óoya + aáláan heart-wave = óoyaáláan (‘pulse’), rather than *óoyahaáláan.

In some cases whole syllables may be dropped: Or the coda (ending) of the last syllable of the first word may be dropped, combining it with the next word:
 * wil let + oba body + mina move → *wilo ba mina → wilomina ‘to perform, act’ (as in theatre)
 * wíyul breath + aáláan wave → wíy ul aáláan → wíyaáláan ‘respiration rate’

This seem to be especially common when the consonant is repeated: Here, the repetition-dropping process removes an entire echoing sequence, preserving the two high tones of lámála:
 * oba body + bedi learn → ob ab edi → obedi ‘to acquire a skill’


 * odama lips + lámála caress → *od amal ámála → odámála ‘kiss’

Parallel compounds (without head, as in Chinese) take the infix -i- ‘and’: Compare these semantics with simple reduplication, which may take the usual -e- to separate consonants:
 * dim-i-dim box-and-box = ‘cupboard’
 * bod-i-bod line-and-line = ‘computer program’
 * ban-i-bel = give-and-take

Parallel compounds (with -i-) suggest repetition, iteration, while reduplication suggests large degree, magnification.
 * hul-e-hul [extreme degree sufix]-[extreme degree suffix] = heck yes, emphatic yes
 * hath-e-hath time-time = forever, eternity

Degree suffixes like -hal ‘to an unusual degree’ are used to coin words:
 * bod line + -hal [unusual degree] = bodehal ‘rod’
 * tham circle + -hal = thamehal ‘globe, planet’
 * sháad come, go + -hul [extreme degree] = sháadehul ‘grow transcendentally’
 * yul wind + -hul = yulehul ‘hurricane’

The negative morpheme/sound lh is usually added to the start or end of a word. It can be temporary/inflectional: And it can also be compounded into new words (derivational): Instead of affixing lh, an 'l' inside the word can mutate into 'lh': This lh-mutation also works for on-the-spot, temporary coinages: In the following word, an infix -lh- between morphemes seems to cause a vowel to echo:
 * awith ‘baby’
 * lhawith or awithelh ‘this darned baby’
 * ada laugh, lhada scorn
 * ranahá drinker, ranahálh alcoholic
 * bediloth knowledge lesson, bedilhoth useless knowledge lesson
 * lol feeling of community, lolh oppressive feeling of community
 * éholob threat, éholhob very malicious threat
 * éelen grapes; éelhen these darned grapes
 * dó strong, rado weak; dó-rado dominate; dó-lh-orado dominate with evil intent.