Lingua Franca Nova grammar

This article is an outline of the grammar of Lingua Franca Nova, a proposed international auxiliary language originally created by C. George Boeree and elaborated by the members of the LFN community. LFN has an analytic grammar and resembles the grammars of languages such as the Haitian Creole, Papiamento, and Afrikaans. On the other hand, it uses a vocabulary drawn from several modern romance languages - Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French, and Italian.[1][2]

Complete grammars are available in English, French, Esperanto, and LFN.[3]

Word order

LFN has a strict word order.[1][3] The general word order is:

subject noun phrase — verb phrase (— object noun phrase)
Joan core — "John runs"
Maria oia Joan — "Maria hears John"

A noun phrase has this order:

(determiners —) (quantifiers —) noun (— adjectives)
La tre omes grande... — "The three large men..."
La multe femes peti... — "The many small women..."

A verb phrase has this order:

(tense/mood —) (leading verb —) verb (— adverb)
...ia nesesa come rapida — "...needed to eat quickly..."
...va debe come lente — "...will have to eat slowly..."

A prepositional phrase generally follows what it modifies, and has this order:

preposition — noun phrase
...en la cosina — "...in the kitchen"
...pos medianote — "...after midnight"

Nouns

The roles of nouns in a sentence are indicated through prepositions and word order. There are no cases.[1][3]

Nouns are commonly preceded by determiners. Plural nouns are formed by appending -s to nouns ending in vowels or -es to nouns ending in consonants. This does not alter the stress:

Mass nouns include liquids, powders, and substances, such as acua (water), arena (sand), and lenio (wood). They do not normally require determiners or the plural. However, one may add these to indicate specific examples or different types:

Gender is typically not indicated. If necessary, nouns may be followed by mas (male) or fema (female):

A few terms for family members and traditional roles do show distinctions of gender. For example:

Apposition — the use of one noun to modify another — is mostly limited to names and titles:

Determiners

Determiners in LFN precede the noun they modify. There are two articles: la (the) and un (a), used as in English:[1][3]

Other words function similarly:

tota — all
esta — this, these
acel — that, those
cada — every, each
cualce — whatever, whichever
alga — some, several, a few
no — no, zero 		multe — many, much
poca — few, little
plu — more
min — less, fewer
otra — other
mesma — same
tal — such

Pronouns

Personal pronouns are invariant:[1][3]

me — I, me
tu — you (singular (thou))
el — she, her, he, him
lo — it 		nos — we, us
vos — you (plural)
los — they, them

El is used for people and higher animals. Its use can be extended metaphorically to lower animals, robots, the moon, hurricanes, etc. Lo is used for things, simple animals, plants, ideas, etc.

There are no gender distinctions between "he" and "she". If gender is significant, one can use words like la fem, la om, la xica, la xico, la fema, la mas (the woman, the man, the girl, the boy, the female, the male), etc.

Unlike in the Romance languages, there is no polite/impolite contrast for the second person: tu is always used for the singular, vos always for the plural.

There is an indefinite pronoun on, which is used like German "man" or French "on":

The reflexive pronouns are also me, tu, nos, and vos. For the third person, singular and plural, lfn uses se:

The possessive determiners are the same as the reflexive pronouns. One can use la me, etc., before a verbal noun when it is the subject of a sentence or clause:

Instead of possessive pronouns, LFN uses expressions such as lo de me or repetition of the object of possession:

Other pronouns include the following:

cadun — everyone, everybody
algun — someone, somebody
cualcun — whomever, anyone, anybody
nun — no one, nobody
esta, estas — this, these
multe — many, much		 cada cosa — everything
alga cosa — something
cualce cosa — whatever, anything
no cosa — nothing
acel, aceles — that, those
poca — few, little

Verbs

There are no conjugations of verbs in LFN. The basic form remains the same regardless of person, number, or tense.[1][3]

The present tense is represented by the basic verb:

The present tense is also used to indicate habitual actions and states, facts of nature, and as a "historical" tense, such as when relating a story that has been clearly established as occurring in the past:

The past tense is indicated by the particle ia:

The future tense is indicated by the particle va:

The particle ta indicates the irrealis mood and can be used where other languages might use a conditional or subjunctive mood. Its use is optional:

One combination ― ia ta ― is permitted to express "would have":

Certain adverbs and verbal constructions add precision to the tenses:

Negation is indicated by putting no before the tense particle or (in the present tense) the verb. Double negatives should be avoided:

Commands are indicated by dropping the subject pronoun. Hortative sentences include the subject, but are preceded by ta ce:

Lo and on are used as dummy pronouns before verbs that refer to weather or other general situations:

A verb that is fundamentally intransitive may be used as a transitive causal verb by moving the original subject to the object position, and adding a new subject:

Verbs can be made into adjectives: The active participle is formed by adding -nte to the verb. For example, come becomes comente, meaning "eating". This should never be used as a gerund, as it often is in English.

One can emphasize the idea that the subject is in the midst of an activity or process (the progressive aspect) using the active participle. Or one can use expressions such as en la media de:

The passive participle is formed by adding -da to the verb. For example, come becomes comeda, meaning "eaten". This should not be confused with the past tense.

The passive participle can be used to express the passive voice. Or one can usa a generic subject pronoun instead:

Verbs can be used as nouns without change by adding la or other determiner. Without a determiner, the word serves as an infinitive or gerund:

In LFN, verbs often come in pairs. Some "leading" verbs are like modal verbs in English. However, the idea of leading verbs goes beyond modals to include "attitudinal" verbs such as finje (pretend) and pare (seem). There is no equivalent to the word "to," and the "following" verb is left in its simplest form:

Adjectives

Adjectives follow the noun they modify, with two exceptions: Bon (good) and mal (bad) may come before the noun, due to their frequent use. Unlike the natural Romance languages, adjectives in LFN do not have gender or plural forms, i.e. they don't "agree" with the nouns they describe.[1][3]

The comparative is made with plu (more) or min (less). "The most" is la plu and "the least" is la min:

Equivalence is indicated with tan... como:

Like verbs, adjectives can be used as nouns. For example, bela means "beautiful", but un bela means "a beautiful one" or "a beauty." This works with participles, too: la studiante and la studiada mean "the student" and "the studied," respectively, from the verb studia, "study."

An adjective can be made into an abstract noun by adding -ia (-ity, -ness, -ship, -hood). In this way bela becomes belia, meaning beauty. This can also be used with nouns: madre (mother) becomes madria (motherhood).

Adverbs

LFN doesn't have an explicit way of marking adverbs.[1][3] Instead, any adjective can be used as an adverb by placing it after a verb or at the very beginning of the sentence. Un om felis for example means "a happy man", whereas el dansa felis means "he/she dances happily". Adverbs used to modify adjectives precede the adjective.

Examples of common adverbs include the following:

aora ― now
alora ― then
ancora ― still, yet
ja ― already
sempre ― always
nunca ― never
an ― even 		ier ― yesterday
oji ― today
doman ― tomorrow
asi ― here
ala ― there
tro ― too
apena ― barely, scarcely

Prepositions

Prepositions are placed before the noun or noun phrase, and the prepositional phrase is placed after the noun being modified, or, if used adverbially, after the verb or at the beginning of the sentence.[1][3] There are 22 basic prepositions in LFN:

a ― at, to
ante ― before, in front of
asta ― until
ca ― than
como ― like
con ― with
contra ― against
de ― of, from, since
en ― in, into, during
entre ― between, among
estra ― out of, except 		longo ― along
par ― by
per ― for, in order to
pos ― after, behind, according to
sin ― without
sirca ― around, approximately
su ― below, under, beneath
supra ― above, over
sur ― on, about, concerning
tra ― through
ultra ― beyond, past, across

Some prepositions can be used as adverbs by placing a or de before them.

Coordinating conjunctions

There are three coordinating conjunctions in LFN and three correlative conjunctions:[1][3]

e ― and
o ― or
ma ― but, yet 		e ... e ... ― both ... and ...
o ... o ... ― either ... or ...
no ... (e) no ... ― neither ... nor ...

Questions

There are a number of interrogative words that are used to introduce questions:[1][3][4]

cual ― what, which
ci ― who, whom
de ci ― whose, of whom
cuando ― when 		do ― where
como ― how
cuanto ― how much, how many
perce ― why

(Most of these are also used to introduce subordinate clauses, discussed below.)

For example:

Questions may include one of these words or may be indicated by rising intonation alone. One may also express questions by beginning the sentence with the interrogative particle esce ("is it that... ?") or by adding no (no) or si (yes) to the end of the sentence. In writing, questions always end with a question mark (?):

Clauses

Relative clauses (or adjective clauses) function like adjectives. There are two relative pronouns which typically introduce relative clauses:[3]

cual ― which, that
ci ― who, whom

Relative clauses follow the noun or noun phrase that they modify:

Relative pronouns may be preceded by prepositions:

Cuando and do can also be used to introduce relative clauses:

Noun clauses function the same way that nouns and noun phrases do in a sentence.[3] Two subordinating conjunctions commonly introduce noun clauses:

ce ― that
esce ― whether

For example:

Relative pronouns and interrogative words can also introduce noun clauses:

Adverbial clauses function like adverbs, modifying the verb or the sentence as a whole. Some are introduced by these subordinating conjunctions:[3]

si ― if
afin ― so that, in order that
car ― because

Adverbial clauses usually follow the main clause:

Some of the interrogative words can also be used to introduce adverbial clauses:

Do and cuando are often preceded by prepositions:

a do ― to where, whither
de do ― from where, whence
ante cuando ― before
pos cuando ― after 		en cuando ― while
asta cuando ― until
de cuando ― since

For example:

Numbers

Numbers in LFN are as follows:[3]

0 ― zero
1 ― un
2 ― du
3 ― tre
4 ― cuatro
5 ― sinco 		6 ― ses
7 ― sete
8 ― oto
9 ― nove
10 ― des

Higher numbers are constructed as follows:

11 ― des-un
20 ― dudes
100 ― sento
321 ― tresento-dudes-un		 1000 ― mil
45 678 ― cuatrodes-sinco mil sessento-setedes-oto
1 000 000 ― milion
1 000 000 000 ― mil milion

Numbers that express quantity precede the noun; numbers that express order follow the noun:

Fractions are constructed with -i, e.g. dui, tri, cuatri,... desi, senti, mili, etc.

Multiples and groups can be referred to with -uple, as in duple ― double, duo, couple, pair.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Harrison, Richard H. (2008) Lingua Franca Nova. Invented Languages, 1, pp. 30 –33.
  2. ↑ Fisahn, Stefan (2005) Plansprache: Lingua Franca Nova. Contraste, 244, p. 12.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 LFN Grammar
  4. ↑ Christo Moskovsky & Alan Libert (2006) Questions in Natural and Artificial Languages. Journal of Universal Language 7, pp 65-120 http://www.unish.org/upload/word/7-2-03-QuestionsInNat%26ALs2.pdf
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