Grammar notes (longer version with charts here):Word order is SVO. Relative and nominal clauses are both introduced by the relativizer/nominalizer sil. Interrogative sentences are indicated by the presence of an interrogative word, but word order does not change.
Determiners (deictics, numbers, articles) and prepositions precede nouns, and adjectives follow them. Nouns have gender, but it is not marked on the nouns; it is marked on the adjectives that modify them and the verbs for which they are the subject.
Nouns inflect for case, of which there are seven (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, locative, causative). Only four of these are used in the text. Inflection is by a mix of prefixes and suffixes.
Pronouns inflect irregularly for case and are given in their inflected forms above except where noted. In some cases, the singular third person pronoun differs by gender.
Adjectives follow the noun and agree with it in gender (if singular) or number (if plural). In the singular, no suffix indicates a male noun, and -s indicates a female noun. -d indicates a plural noun.
Adjectives can modify a noun or be the object of the copula.
Modals precede verbs, and adverbs follow them. Verbs conjugate for gender or number of the subject (gender if singular, number if plural). Tense, mood, and aspect are indicated by the modals. Verbs in the infinitive can follow the conjugated verb to modify it.
The modal verb system is based on the three-part Creole system:
The modals always appear in the order "seta delye dava". No modals indicates non-past indicative, aka the simple present. All three modals would indicate "would have been doing", or "was about to be doing", or "intended to be doing"...
- seta indicates past tense.
- delye indicates irrealis mode, and has its own auxiliary particles to indicate certain moods; it is used for future events, probable, potential, wished-for, hypothetical, conditional, and "coulda/shoulda/woulda" constructions.
- dava indicates imperfective aspect, including progressive, iterative, and habitual aspects.
The copula, ey, disappears in the presence of modals. Therefore, modals without a verb after them should be considered a form of the copula. Since the copula is considered naturally imperfective, dava is not used with it.
Adverbs usually end in "ya". Some adverbs have comparative and superlative forms, which are listed in the vocabulary where appropriate.
Charts of verb conjugations, noun declensions, and the pronoun matrix can be seen here.