Dundulanyä

Dundulanyä (endoglossonym dundulanyä ḫamfafa; IPA [dundulɐnjɛ], [dundulɐnjɛ ħɐmɸɐɸɐ]) is the most spoken language on the planet Eventoa (Dun.: Lelḫajāṃrya). It is the official language of the Confederation of the United Dundulanyä Republics, the pluricultural political entity which occupies the majority of the two southern hemisphere continents, Lusaṃrīte – where the language itself originated – and Jūhma, where it is the main lingua franca.

Dundulanyä itself has a long history, being first attested about 2600 years before the present in the areas of Central Lusaṃrīte, in the region of Taktapṣikha, where the Dundulanyä civilization first developed; through religious, cultural and political expansion, people and language spread across many areas of the continent, most notably expanding on the north shore of the Inland Seas by the end of Classical Lusaṃrītene Antiquity. As the most advanced civilization on Lusaṃrīte, the Dundulanyä spread their language to become the main lingua franca of trade and culture in most of the continent and in eastern Jūhma; then, the massive demographical changes brought by the epidemics that were the result of increased contact with the Northern hemisphere civilizations effectively enabled the Dundulanyä culture to spread in areas where formerly other cultures had been dominant. By the modern and contemporary eras, a more standardized version of classical Dundulanyä remained the lingua franca among multiple peoples across Lusaṃrīte and Jūhma, and the situation remained more or less the same after the collapse of the Fifth Dundulanyä Empire and through the Three Leagues Period.

Today, Dundulanyä is the official language of the Confederation of the United Dundulanyä Republics (laḫlurī dundulanyä lilēṣkorukṣartē śūsmurdibeṣarān); the standard language is a heavily prescriptive and codified version of the classical language, with many of the less regular forms having fallen out of use after one millennium of being essentially a second language for the totality of its speakers; high style language and creative usage, however, still uses forms no longer used in the everyday language. Dundulanyä, coexisting in diglossia with hundreds of languages – its own daughter languages, creoles based on Dundulanyä, or completely unrelated ones – together known as the "vernaculars" or tūsahufāni, is the main language for the 1,9 billion people living in the Confederation, a number to which should be added a substantial amount of foreign users in virtually all other countries in Lusaṃrīte and Jūhma.

For clearer reference of all subsections, a separate index of this page is available.

Phonology

This section describes the phonology of Dundulanyä. Unless specified, the language treated here (and throughout all related pages) is the modern standard in the most neutral pronunciation, which is the most plausible reconstruction of Classical Dundulanyä. See the History section for more.

Dundulanyä has a large phonemic inventory in both consonants and vowels and a fair amount of active morphophonemic sandhi processes. Apophony is a prominent feature of its morphophonology.

Standard Dundulanyä has a large consonant inventory consisting of 43 consonants (hīmbayāṃsai, literally "coloring sounds"), traditionally grouped into seven points of articulation, of which one, the laryngeal, groups consonants with a similar behavior pronounced in the far back of the oral cavity, but which actually have different articulations (uvular, pharyngeal and glottal). Consonants are furthermore categorized as being either soft (bhyoḍāhai hīmbayāṃsai) or hard (randāhai hīmbayāṃsai), a distinction which in most cases is realized as presence or lack of aspiration, which is meaningful in Dundulanyä morphophonology (external sandhi).

Notably, Dundulanyä has a series of linguolabial consonants, which on Eventoa are very rare just like on Earth, except for the northern and central parts of Lusaṃrīte where Dundulanyä evolved.

The following table lists the consonant phonemes of Standard Dundulanyä, together with their orthographical representation in bold.

For simplicity of transcription, from this point onwards the dental consonants /t̪ t̪ʰ d̪ d̪ʱ/ will be transcribed simply as /t tʰ d dʱ/.

Standard Dundulanyä, being a prescriptive pronunciation standard of a language with an average-to-high number of consonant phonemes, has little allophony, and the IPA values given above can be treated as being valid in all contexts, with the exception of the phoneme realized as vowel nasalization (which is, anyway, only contrastive with other nasals in the adjacency of the five consonants /d dʱ s ʂ ɕ/). Among the wide variety of local pronunciations, there are at least two cases notable enough to be worth mentioning, particularly due to the prescriptive standard, in those cases, being minoritary:

• /ɖ/ and /ɖʱ/ are generally represented by the stop realizations, however, in the contemporary spoken language, except when adjacent to another consonant, they are most commonly realized as any of [ɽ(ʱ) ɭ(ʱ) ɻ(ʱ)] depending on the geographical origin of the speaker, realizations influenced by the historical development of Classical Dundulanyä /ɖ ɖʱ/ in the modern vernaculars.
• The /ɢ/ phoneme is represented here by its most accepted contemporary pronunciation, as there is some debate about its prevailing quality in Classical Dundulanyä. It is also the phoneme which realization varies the most throughout the Dundulanyä-speaking world, often having different realizations depending on the position in the word, or often merging with other phonemes — generally with one of /ɡ/, /k/ or /ʔ/.

/ŋ/ is phonemic only in the name of the corresponding letter and, diachronically, through sandhi in simplifications of /N/ + velar stop clusters; such instances are, however, to be considered phonemic as the original form is only apparent either throughout the declension or in different styles, see e.g. ṣṭhīṭaṅ "yesterday", tataṅ "today" (← ṣṭhīṭaṅga, tataṅga, used in the declension of the nominal forms except for the direct singular).

The /pʰ/ phoneme is marginal; it has a separate letter in the script, but as a phoneme it is only found in the name of the letter itself, in a few words of onomatopoeic origin, and as the result of sandhi (from the clusters -p h- or -p ḫ-); the vast majority of contemporary speakers merge it with /ɸ~f/.

Some maximalist analyses of contemporary Dundulanyä phonology include other phonemes beyond the standard set; however, the most common analysis, used throughout this and related articles, has the benefit of having a nearly 1:1 correspondence between phonemes and graphemes. For example, a few modern grammarians include a palato-labial series, corresponding to palatal + /ʋ/ clusters in the analysis above, realized as [Cʷ] in many modern pronunciations (cf. [ɕʷɐ̹ŋɡɐ] for /ɕʋɐŋɡɐ/ śvaṅga "money").

With the partial exception of /ħ/, words may only end in soft consonants and/or clusters of an approximant followed by a single soft stop or fricative. In the romanization, some apparent exceptions may be seen due to sandhi in words followed by clitics, such as in logh va "I don't go" [lɔɡʱʋɐ].

The vowel inventory of Dundulanyä consists of 14 phonemes, of which six are short vowels, four are long vowels, two are diphthongs and the final two are short and long versions of a syllabic consonant, which pattern as vowels due to them filling a syllable nucleus.

For simplicity of transcription, from this point onwards the open vowel /äː/ will be transcribed simply as /aː/.

The IPA values given above are consistent with their realizations in Standard Dundulanyä. It should be noted that the standard realizations of the two diphthongs are mostly prescriptive and, in fact, minoritary in the Dundulanyä-speaking world, being common among speakers from the North Shore (excluding Līlah), parts of Śola, the Śusopai (Western Lusaṃrīte) and most of Jūhma. The majority of speakers – in Taktapṣikha, Śubhāla, the Toyubeshian islands, Western Jūhma, and the majority of inland Central and Southern Lusaṃrīte – pronounce them as [ɛɪ̯ ɔʊ̯]. In Northern Lusaṃrīte and southwards along the coast, including the city of Līlah and the Dendāɂneye, as well as in some of the northern islands, the intermediate pronunciation [æɪ̯ ɑʊ̯] with more open but non-centralized first elements are most commonly heard.

Allophonic nasalization

Vowel nasalization is a prominent feature which, however, is not considered phonemic as it always arises from sequences of a vowel and a following nasal consonant. Phonemic nasalization, denoted orthographically by the letter ṃ, is only found preceding the five consonants mentioned in the Consonants section, as an exception to the rules listed below.

Vowel nasalization arises – and determines spelling – in the following cases:

1. /VːNC/, where /C/ is a voiceless stop, is always realized as [ṼːC] and written VṃC, with the exception of morpheme boundaries in compound words^[P.1], where any non-labial nasal consonant is preserved in writing only:
   1. khūṃtah (a carnivore felid predator) /kʰuːNtɐh/ [kʰũːtɐʔ]
   2. but temēṅkūraṇa "pier, wharf" (temēn(e)-kūraṇa) /temeːŋku:rɐɳɐ/ [temẽːku:rɐɳɐ]
2. /VːNC/, where /C/ is any other consonant, is always realized as [ṼːNC] and written with the nasal consonant homorganic to C:
   1. hīmba "colour, hue, melody" /ɦiːmbɐ/ [ɦĩːmbɐ]
   2. as an apparent exception to both this and the following rule, alveolar /l/ is always preceded by nasalization, written ṃ: ḍaṃla "ice" /ɖɐ̃lɐ/ [ɖɐ̃lɐ]
3. /VNC/ is always realized as [ṼNC] and written with the homorganic nasal consonant:
   1. dambu "fruit" /dɐmbu/ [dɐ̃mbu]; noṇḍa "shoulder" /nɔɳɖɐ/ [nɔ̃ɳɖɐ]

Apophony

A salient characteristic of Dundulanyä is a pervasive system of apophony (also referred to as vowel gradation or ablaut throughout the present document; in Dundulanyä camiyāṃsachiṣa, literally “vowel stairs”), which is central to the morphological processes of noun declension, verb conjugation, and derivational morphology.

There are eight different apophonical patterns which, together with the absence of said feature, form the basis of the classification system of all verbal roots in the language. The overwhelming majority of roots are monosyllabic, and the few bi- or polysyllabic ones are all either irregular or do not undergo apophony.

Roots undergoing apophony change their vowel according to three different grades:

• the zero grade or ślūtya ("remnant", from the root √ślo- "to be left");
• the middle grade or būcūya ("flat", from the root √būc- "to be flat"), which also is the citation form of all roots;
• the higher grade or udhyukṣṇise ("grown within", from the root udhi-√ukṣṇy- "to grow within").

Dundulanyä roots are categorized into one of nine apophonical classes or dhoptai (sing. dhopta); the eight classes corresponding to apophonical patterns are marked in English with the Roman numerals I to VIII, reflecting the Dundulanyä nomenclature using ordinal numerals^[P.2]; the class of roots not undergoing apophony is marked as class 0 and known natively as kuḍachiṣadīra dhopta (literally "class outside the '[vowel] stair'"). The classes are listed in the following table:

The majority of roots belong to either class 0 or to classes II, III, or IV. Other classes are much rarer, with class VIII being the least common overall. Class I often have a sonorant after the vowel, continuing formations and patterns parallel to class IV in reconstructed Pre-Dundulanyä.

Due to their shape, class I roots may have further simplifications in the zero grade, or changes only explained through reconstructions of the unattested ancestor of Dundulanyä, an example being the root √haf- "to insert, fill, plug into" whose zero grade is iṣf-. Class I roots which have ya- or va- in the middle grade have, due to regular sandhi, i- and u- respectively in the zero grade, as e.g. √yam- "to eat", whose zero grade is im-. While it is not a rule, a common pattern is for class I roots with -an- (or, rarely, -am-) in the middle grade to have -a- in the zero grade, as with √nant "to hug; to huddle, crouch, curl", with the zero grade nat-; however, it is not regular as some roots have a long vowel in the zero grade instead, cf. √hand- "to be hard, stiff", zero grade hād-.

A special instance of sandhi occurring with class III roots is that a -vo- sequence in the middle grade results in long -ū- in the zero grade, as e.g. in √tvorg- "to fear", zero grade tūrg-.

A few class I roots have a long vowel in the middle and higher grade and a short vowel in the zero grade, such as √sākh- "to prepare", with zero grade sakh-, higher grade sākh-.

Irregularities include a few class II and III roots which have a long vowel in the zero grade even if their shape is not CV-. This sort of irregularity is found in common roots such as √lobh- "to write" (zero grade lūbh-) and √gos- "to cut" (zero grade gūs-). However, most roots with a CVC structure and a long vowel are of class 0, such as √līd- “to teach” or √mīld- “to be new”.

Completely irregular roots are few and notable because they do not follow any apophonical class at all, or appear to be a mix of different classes, an example being √nind- "to lead", with zero grade nad- and higher grade nīnd-.

Consonant sandhi

Sandhi in Dundulanyä (natively mīraṃdīdda "reaction") is generally only reflected in the orthography internally; however, much of the same rules are also applied in speech only as external sandhi.

In the vast majority of cases, the second consonant in a row assimilates the preceding one(s).

The most basic rules are the following:

1. Nasals assimilate to the point of articulation of any following consonant except for y (where no assimilation occurs), l (all nasals become ṃ, phonetically realized as vowel nasalization), and before d dh s ṣ ś, where there is a phonemic contrast between the homorganic nasal and ṃ; the latter is, in sandhi, the result of a preceding m. See however the previous section on allophonic nasalization.
2. All plosives assimilate in voicing to a following stop; if the first one is aspirated, then aspiration shifts to the second one.
   The aspiration shift only applies to following plosives: voicing and any other kind of assimilation considered, aspiration remains on plosives if the following consonant is a sibilant, a sonorant, or a semivowel. However, aspiration in -ths- clusters (the only possible plosive+sibilant cluster that does not assimilate to a palatal) is, in virtually every contemporary pronunciation of Dundulanyä, absent, and therefore only retained in writing. Only in very careful pronunciation (when pronouncing a word slowly) aspiration is heard, see e.g. saṃrāthsepūṃta “classification system; file system” /sɐNʀaːtʰsepuːNtɐ/ [sɐ̃ʀaːtsepũːtɐ].
3. Dentals also assimilate to any adjacent (preceding or following) retroflexes, while labials assimilate to adjacent linguolabials.

In a few cases, doubling sandhi occurs, defined as irregular results of the occurrence of two identical consonants side by side. In most cases, consonants are geminated, except for the following ones:

• -yy- becomes -jñ-;
  • -aiy- sequences are underlyingly -āyy- and therefore become -ājñ-;
• -vv- becomes -bb-;
  • -auv- sequences are underlyingly -āvv- and therefore become -ābb-;
• -rr- becomes -hr-;
• -hh- becomes -hl-;

In stop sandhi, a few further changes apart from basic voicing, retroflex and linguolabial assimilation occur. The following tables show sandhi changes for stops (aspirated stops follow the same rules as their unaspirated ones, with aspiration emerging in the latter element):

Geminated stops preceded by any other consonant are degeminated (e.g. -mpp- to -mp-).

The consonants h and ḫ fortify preceding plosives (except ɂ), turning them into aspirated ones. -Ch- sequences results in an aspirate, while -Cḫ- ones in a geminated aspirate plosive. The sequences -ɂh- and -ɂḫ- both result in -ḫḫ-.

h, furthermore, changes to r̃ in front of linguolabials.

Sibilants trigger various different changes:

1. while interacting with each other, -ss- remains unchanged, though simplified to s if the latter s is followed by any consonant other than y;
2. any other combination of sibilants results in kṣ;
3. retroflex ṣ, followed by a dental stop, turns it into ṭ or ṭh according to aspiration, by the general rule of retroflex assimilation;
4. the consonants s or ś if followed by any voiced stop disappear, with compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel. The same change is triggered by ṣ in the same environments, although with retroflex assimilation if the following stop is dental;
5. coronal stops followed by ṣ or ś result in a palatal affricate;
6. the sequences -ṅk(h)[ṣ/ś]- and -ṅg(h)[ṣ/ś]- likewise result in -ñc(h)- and -ñj(h)-;
7. all sibilants become r in front of q.

Vowel sandhi

Dundulanyä vowel sandhi is generally regular, though sometimes the results are influenced by what likely was the situation in the proto-language. In vowel sandhi, it is most meaningful to divide adjacent vowels by whether they are similar – agreeing in quality – or dissimilar.

Similar vowels – thus /a i e u ʀ̩/ only diverging in quantity – merge in these ways:

• two short vowels merge to form a long one, as e.g. a + a = ā;
• a short and a long vowel (in either order) form a long one, e.g. a + ā = ā.

Dissimilar vowels usually merge, wherever possible, through reduction to the corresponding semivowel. Wherever needed, ṛ and ṝ become the semivowel r, while i and u become y v before other vowels. In the same context, ī and ū add a semivowel after them, instead of turning themselves into one.

Other vowels change as follow:

• e o become ay- and av- before other vowels;
• ai au similarly become āy- and āv-;
• ä adds a semivowel y afterwards;
• The sequences -a i- and -a u- become, respectively, e o;
• The sequences -a e- and -a o- become ai au;
• The sequences -ā i- and -ā e- both become ai and, similarly, -ā u- and -ā o- both become au.

For the latter three sound changes, it is helpful to note that it is a generalization of reconstructed sound changes, with e.g. *ay, *āy becoming Dundulanyä e ai and, similarly, *aw, *āw becoming o au.

Note that the semivowels v y r become the corresponding vowels u i ṛ when surrounded by other consonants. This is particularly notable for example in verbal forms of roots ending in consonant + semivowel clusters, see e.g. with the root for "to cradle, cuddle": √hamvy-∅-∅-h → *hamvyh → hamvih.

Epenthetic vowels

Epenthetic vowels are usually discussed together with sandhi. They are often used in verbal conjugations, as no Dundulanyä word may end in two consonants. The epenthetic vowel used depends on the preceding consonant:

• u is inserted after labials and linguolabials;
• i is inserted after palatals;
• a is inserted after all other consonants.

Note that y, v, and r in these cases turn into the corresponding vowels i, u, and ṛ.

Sandhi in consonant stem nouns

This section describes the sandhi processes occurring in forming the oblique stem (used for every form except for the direct singular) of consonant stem nouns ending in a sonorant, i.e. those also known as m-stems (citation form in -am), n-stems (citation form in -an), and l-stems (citation form in -al). These stems undergo special sandhi processes if the final -a- is preceded by a -CR- cluster, with R being any sonorant.

All such nouns are reconstructed as having a syllabic consonant in Pre-Dundulanyä (PreD), but such syllabic consonants – m̥, n̥ and l̥ – are no longer found in Dundulanyä. This results in the special sandhi changes:

• -Cna- and -Cma- nouns have their oblique stem in -Ca- (through intermediate Pre-Dundulanyä forms in *-Cn̥-, *-Cm̥-), as e.g. in yasmam “tooth” → oblique stem yasam- (from PreD *yasm̥m-), whence ergative sg. yasamē;
• -Cla- nouns have their oblique stem in -Cṛ- (through intermediate *-Cl̥-), as e.g. in sislam “door” → oblique stem sisṛm- (from PreD *sisl̥m-), whence accusative sg. sisṛmat.

Such stems are also used in derivational morphology, as e.g. prāsisṛmapa “backyard” for an example with the root sislam.

Syntax

Dundulanyä is a topic-prominent and almost exclusively head-final language. Its morphosyntactic alignment is characterized by a system of symmetrical voice, interplaying with a topic-comment word order; OSV- or SOV-like syntax is chosen depending on how the topic itself is marked.

Dundulanyä is described as being a topic-prominent language with a topic-comment word order. In Dundulanyä terminology, a sentence can have either an explicit topic (iḍiṭa tatsampra) an unmarked or implicit topic (idviḍiṭa tatsampra, also called tadgarḫē iḍiṭa tatsampra or darūmmē iḍiṭa tatsampra) depending on whether it is marked by the topic marker or through verbal agreement. The topic (tatsampra), whether explicit or unmarked, is always the first element of the sentence, with the comment (padnīse) coming afterwards.

The structure of the comment, or of a sentence with marked topic, could be described as OSV; however, such a terminology doesn't accurately describe the roles of the constituents due to the symmetrical voice system of Dundulanyä. The "subject", the second constituent in such a comment, is whatever argument the sentence is focussed on through the use of trigger morphemes on the verb: the subject therefore is the constituent that agrees with the verb, however it can take the role of patient, agent, dative argument, or any other one depending on the trigger used. The verb always comes last in the sentence, with the lone exception of non-mandatory word-final particles.

Owing to the fact of the topic always coming first, and due to the full comment structure being subordinate to the presence or absence of an explicitely marked topic, the Dundulanyä word order could be more accurately described as being SOV in sentences with unmarked topic and OSV in sentences with explicit topic.

In the first two example sentences the topic is unmarked and therefore have the same word order, with the variation being that the “subject” is the semantic patient śiloma “papaya” in the first sentence, agreeing with the verb in virtue of the patient trigger (zero morpheme), and the semantic agent epena “child” in the second one, agreeing with the verb because of the agent trigger -ū-. In the third example, the semantic roles are the same as in the first, but there is an explicit topic, marked by the particle ba, which accordingly takes first place in the sentence, while within the comment the “subject” is closest to the verb, coming after the “object”.

Sentential topics are generally only connected through a combination of juxtaposition and anaphora, with one of the “manner” correlatives referencing to the preceding sentence, as in the first of the following examples. Note, in the latter one, that direct quotation is handled by the quotative marker tati instead.

Note that on a purely syntactical level these types of sentences are structured as if they had an unmarked topic, and thus with a SOV-like constituent order, with līdade “teacher”, the triggered argument, coming before the complement (here, a dative argument) yajajak “to the student”.

Topics, whether explicit or unmarked, are pervasive in Dundulanyä syntax and semantics, interplaying with all words in a sentence. For example, as Dundulanyä lacks a reflexive possessive, certain words which are semantically possessed are intended to be possessed by the topic, and an explicitely possessive morpheme implies a different possessor:

As amamū “mother” is a semantically possessed noun, in the first sentence, without any possessive morpheme, the implicit possessor is the topic, therefore “daughter”. With an explicit possessor, in the second sentence it is implied that the mother could be anybody but the topic's^[S.1].

Complement order

The typical organization of the sentence is, therefore:

Note that temporal complements may, in certain circumstances, act as if they were explicit topics, but not marked with ba. In that case, the structure followed is, in fact, the same as for sentences with explicit topics, i.e. with the direct argument immediately preceding the verb.

Explicit and unmarked topics

Explicit topic (iḍiṭa tatsampra) is typically used for marking an element that has a semantic but not syntactic role in the sentence. Many basic sentences make use of explicit topicalization, such as existentials, predicative possessions, or telling one's age:

Explicit topics, while having no syntactic role, are often raised as topics of multiple juxtaposed sentences:

In some cases, the usage of an explicit topic is truly for emphasis; compare the next example sentence, with an explicit topic, with the following one:

Attributive and relative juxtaposition

Juxtaposition is, furthermore, the syntactical device used for attributives and relative clauses. Dundulanyä does not have a morphological class of adjectives (excluding a very small number of so-called "adjective-like words"), nor does it have relative pronouns.
With the regular word order being strictly verb-final, verbs which precede other constituents are attributives:

As shown by the examples above, there is no syntactical difference between adjectives and relatives. See the following examples for more complex sentences:

Such a sentence, while grammatically sound and normal in the written language, is not that common in speech due to the nestled sentences, as it is has a simple OSV order (with a temporal adverb in the topic slot) but an object with two attributive verbs: ṣthīṭaṅ lorpūltā nyutyuva / yunī agrimyaṅ naviṣyat "the book which was lying on a rocking chair yesterday and I accidentally found".
In the spoken language, a more common alternative is using sentential juxtaposition and repetition of the word naviṣya "book", as in the following example:

Sentential juxtaposition is also used with unmarked topics, implicitely taking the first sentence's unmarked topic as the marked topic of the second. See the following example, which can also be realized as juxtaposiiton in English:

Copula

The Dundulanyä copula is the particle ga. It is an invariable particle which links two nouns and has its own, unique, syntax, linking two phrases in the structure P1 ga P2. Its first and foremost function is to identify the coincidence between P1 and P2, i.e. P1 = P2.

One of the copular arguments can also be semantically indefinite:

The ga copula is only used in the present, or wherever the non-present state is inherently specified by a temporal adverb. Otherwise, the regular verb jallah (√jall-, 0) functions as the non-present copula:

The same particle ga doubles as the adpositive particle, linking two nouns together:

The negative copula is simply idu (not), with the same usage and the same replacement verb:

The "morphological" first and second person pronouns have synthetic, fused, copular forms:

Present evidential forms of the copula are verbs, analyzed as having either a zero root or a root fused with the evidential marker:

Predicative undeclinable words

A small, closed set of predicative undeclinable words (also known as "adjective-like" words) can be used both adnominally and as full predicates. In the present, they do not require any verb, just like the copula (using idu in the negative); in the non-present, they use a form of √jall-. These words are all quite common:

• cami — great, important, big;
• lalla — high, tall; higher, next;
• taili "many, much", didya "more" and kaili "most";
• umūm "good, well" and mämän "better";
• maibu — enough;
• lumpyä "first", hälinaika "second", and more broadly all ordinal numerals.

These words, even more commonly than any other in Dundulanyä, employ full reduplication as an intensifier:

• cami cami — very important;
• lalla lalla — very tall;
• taili taili — a lot;
• didya didya — a lot more;
• umūm umūm — very good;
• etc.

In colloquial styles they can be triplicated for even greater emphasis.

These words are not used with ga, but need idu in a negative sentence:

The word didya "more" is either a copular adjective on its own, or part of a copular adjective phrase, therefore not considered a form of the copula:

Epiphrasis

Epiphrasis (anumyūse) is the most common deviation from standard word order. In many cases, it is an emphatic device, adding more information:

See also the following example of an emphatic epiphrasis, where the epiphrastical clause contains a locative and an adverbial argument:

Some particles, most notably itta "instead", are frequently used to introduce epiphrastical clauses, in those cases where the verb would be the same as in the main clause:

Emphatic deviations from standard word order

For the sake of art, or just to place emphasis on different elements, there can be deviations from the standard word order, excluding the semi-regular case of epiphrasis explained earlier. Such cases often employ as syntactical strategies anaphora, pauses (in speech) and/or emphatic particles (in writing), or more of them. See the following example:

Compare, for example, the same sentence in normal syntax (and in two slight variations), stripped of its emphasis:

Evidentials

The use of evidentials is fairly straightforward, although it must be noted that it is a mandatory morpheme: the apparent lack of an evidential is a zero morpheme, which corresponds to direct knowledge, certifying the fact through the speaker's own experience.

The experiential (-∅-) is implied by default, marking the direct knowledge by the speaker than an event happened, or that something is or isn't.

Conventionally, it is also used to present undisputed historical and scientific facts:

An experiential may be used pragmatically in a sentence like "someone did this" when the speaker did not actually see the action being carried out, but there's no other reasonable possibility. This is generally coupled with assertive existentials.

However, expressions of epistemic modality such as "must ..." fall into the realm of evidentials, in this case an inferential.

The so-called first inferential (-(ɂ)ä-) implies that the speaker formulates the sentence based on evidence they judge as trustworthy:

When presenting a new stance that can change the general consensus, even if based on observation, it is customary to use the first inferential:

The second inferential (-eb(i)-) is, as far as evidentiality is concerned, the same as the first inferential, but with a difference in epistemic modality, for it implies that the evidence for the sentence is doubted on:

The assumptive evidential (-ukiɂ(a)-), on the other hand, differs from the inferentials and the experiential as the speaker did not witness the event they report, they did not have evidence for it, and they did not hear about from someone else. It may be translated into English as "I suppose" or "probably":

The so-called first reportative (-emi-) states that the speaker learned about the event they report from somebody else, and (like the first inferential), this hearsay knowledge is judged as trustworthy:

The second reportative (-enab(u)-) has the same difference from the first reportative as the second inferential has from the first inferential, namely, that the source of information is doubted on.

The tense-aspectual system

The Dundulanyä tense-aspectual system is formed by three times of action (past, present, and future) and two aspects (imperfective and perfective). It is however often considered to be a monoaspectual system, as the tense-aspect combinations (hereafter simply tenses, cf. Dundulanyä vīdruṭa, pl. vīdruṭai) which are not strictly perfective are not imperfective, but do not distinguish aspect at all — in fact, they can (and, especially with reference to the past, very frequently) have a perfective meaning too.

Past and perfect

Past and perfect are the two Dundulanyä (morphological) tenses that are used to refer to past actions. Their meanings may be summarized this way:

• The past tense (anuśāmita vīdruṭaɂe) always refers to the past, but isn’t always perfective — i.e. is unspecified for aspect;
• The perfect “tense” (svayadra vīdruṭa, lit. "completed tense") is always perfective, but isn’t always past – i.e. is unspecified for tense – and when it does, it has an impact on the present.

These theoretical meanings may be translated into practice as this: the past is most commonly used to express something that happened in the past and does not influence the present, or it is not meaningful to the time of the action.

In an appropriate context, however, the same verb form can carry an imperfective meaning:

The imperfective meaning is usually inferred from context (as in the examples above, by the second verb or by the contrastive conjunction itta) or emphasized by specific words, such as väsa "while" – as in the next example – out of context, a specifically continuous situation can be specified by the analytic construction imperfective subjunctive + vai + appropriate positional-classificatory verb:

The main use of the perfect is to express an event that happened in the past but has a certain impact on the present situation. The example above with the past form junyūnī implies a generic action: the girl in question may have painted her face ten years or five minutes ago, but that is irrelevant to the situation. In this particular sentence, the girl's face may be understood to have now been cleaned, or that she may have cleaned and painted her face again many times — but whether she did is now irrelevant. In the next example, on the other hand, the perfect form ujunyūva does not focus on the action, but on its result. The girl has finished painting her face, and it may be seen that her face is still painted – when she did it is still irrelevant, what is relevant is that at the present (narrative time), her face is still painted.

Perfect in the immediate past

The Dundulanyä perfect has quite a broad usage that, in contrast to English, can lead to some implied meanings. For example, it can be used with adverbs of time such as "yesterday"; cf. the next two sentences:

As already shown by the previous examples, the distinction here is one of present relevance: the sentence with perfect idemaika implies that the effects of the rain shower are still notable, as for example could be the presence of puddles or a clogged drain.

It should be noted that this “impact on the present” is independent from the usage of evidentials, and inferential ones specifically.

Evidentials and the perfect tense are also independent from the usage (or omission) of the cislocative prefix. Imagine, for example, the first sentence being said by someone who was on the telephone with a person in Līlah and heard the rain fall, and the latter said by someone who merely was told that it was raining.

Continuous perfect

The perfect may also be used in a meaning comparable to the English present perfect continuous. This interpretation is generally limited – and implied – by a set of common verbs such as √kṛs- "to wait", udhi-√līd- "to study", (ni-)√sākh- "to prepare", ta-√meś- "to watch", √gar- "to look for", and it may be implied by the atelic usage of motion verbs.

Past and future perfect

By expressing an action which has an impact on the time of narration, the Dundulanyä perfect also has a meaning corresponding to the past perfect or pluperfect of other languages. Often, the non-perfect clause includes the temporal phrase lakā "at [the] moment", correlating the two sentences.

This meaning of anteriority contrasts with the perfective situational, as the latter carries an additional meaning of continuity which is absent in this usage of the perfect indicative.

Note that, out of context, pluperfect and future perfect may be expressed by the analytic construction imperfective subjunctive + vai + either past or future of the appropriate positional-classificatory verb:

Experiential perfect

The Dundulanyä perfect may contrast with the past in having an experiential meaning contrasting with an episodic one:

The situational mood

The situational mood is a converbal formation that expresses contemporaneous actions (in the imperfective) or preceding ones (in the perfective).

In many cases where the main verb is stative or positional, however, the situational is not used, as the verb implies a continuous aspect instead, and the sentences are simply coordinated.

The situational is also used in building concession clauses.

Tense-aspectual modifiers

Some adverbial particles are used together with certain morphological tenses in order to express a certain tense or aspect.

The adverbial particle patsarā marks repetitivity, i.e. "to keep doing something". It is semantically imperfective and, therefore, not used with the perfect:

The frequentative TAM is similar conceptually, but implies a different situation. The iterative patsarā yäyūh implies some kind of volition and/or telicity. On the other hand, the frequentative patsarā äyīsāvu merely states that the action frequently happens.

The adverbial particle gam (with an emphatic variant īgam) implies a moment immediately preceding the one of the tense of the main verb. It generally implies prospective aspect, however, it means "just" with the perfect TAM. gam precedes the verb, but only īgam can be used sentence-initially.

The temporal particle selakat, which means "ago" and "for/since" with nouns, has multiple uses; with subjunctives, it means "until", however as a tense-aspectual modifier it can be used with indicative verbs, in which case it is rather like an inverse situational, placing the entire sentence's emphasis on the topic of what otherwise would be the situational verb. Compare the following example with the situational one in the previous section:

Valency-increasing markers: causatives and applicatives

The causative and applicative markers, which fill slot 5 in the verbal complex, increase the valency of the verb.

The causative (marked by -on-) adds an argument as agent of an originally transitive verb, which semantically causes the original agent to do the action — and is therefore the patient of the causative verb. The original patient then becomes a dative argument:

Causatives can be formed from intransitive verbs too, in which case the original patient remains a patient, and the verb simply adds an agent argument:

The applicative (marked by -im-) promotes an indirect object or a bound object (in Dundulanyä terminology) to patient (accusative argument), and an original patient to a dative argument:

Telicity in perception verbs

The subset of Dundulanyä verbs known as "perception verbs", while grammatically regular, have their own role system which is different from the one found in English or most nominative-accusative languages.

In this subset of verbs, the semantic patient is the one who undergoes the experience of perceiving (seeing, knowing, lacking, etc.), due to the non-volitional nature of the action described.

Perception verbs are therefore inherently atelic and intransitive: the semantic patient is the perceiver, while the perceived thing is an ablative argument. In this respect, it could be said that Dundulanyä extends to physical perception the syntactic treatment of feelings. See for example the two following sentences:

Perception verbs include many common roots in the language, such as √meś- (to see), √śod- (to know, understand), √chlä- (to be happy, glad), √śeñc- (to lack, miss), √vart- (to need), √hend- (to hear), √hälp̃- (to be moved, touched), √lom̃b̃- (to like), or √kol- (to forget).

From most atelic roots, telic transitive verbs can be derived by means of different prefixes (most commonly ta- (here), sam- (to the next one), mīram- (towards), pad- (beyond), sve- (full, all); where the action is conceptualized as negative also viṣ- (away), but more specific meanings can be formed through other prefixes). The results are lexicalized verbs, which are often better translated using different English verbs; cf. the following ones:

• meś- (to see) → ta-meś- (to watch);
• śod- (to know, understand) → saṃ-śod- (to learn) → causative saṃ-śod-on- (to teach);
• hend- (to hear) → ta-hend- (to listen);
• śeñc- (to lack, miss) → vikṣeñc- (viṣ-śeñc-) (to renounce);
• vart- (to need) → ta-vart- (to require, demand);
• kol- (to forget) → viṣ-kol- (to purposefully forget).

Telicity and atelicity in motion verbs

Motion verbs also mark telicity or atelicity; unlike perception verbs, (a)telicity is not an inherent property of the verb root itself: instead, it is marked by using the agent and patient triggers.

Motion verbs with a patient trigger describe an atelic, general action — to walk (to be able to), to walk around aimlessly, to depart without a destination, and so on. Motion verbs with an agent trigger, on the other hand, describe telic actions, with a marked goal or destination:

The imperative

The imperative is used for simple commands:

Due to its semantics, a transitive patient imperative agrees with the patient, usually implying a second-person singular agent:

The aforementioned gam tense-aspectual modifier can be used to form perfective imperatives. Compare the following examples:

Imperatives are used for commands and orders, not wishes or optative sentences, which are expressed using irrealis verbs.

The subjunctive

The subjunctive mood has a variety of uses and is most commonly found when introduced by certain particles. Some particles used with the subjunctive are tho (about, concerning) or rat (avoiding, to avoid):

Adverbs or grammaticalized verbal forms meaning "maybe", "perhaps" or similar – jalnā, prādudroṭṇā, etc. – in formal language require a main clause subjunctive, which is however often replaced by an indicative in less formal styles.

A lone subjunctive has a supine meaning – "in order to" – and can be linked to the antecedent it refers to through topic marking.

Some verbs typically require a subjunctive argument, typically in imperfective aspect — some examples are √dhā- (to let, allow, 0) or ga-√vṛḍ-y-im- (to urge, call for, hurry (applicative), VIII):

More generally, the subjunctive is used when verb forms fill arguments of other verbs instead of nominals, including in copular verbs:

The subjunctive is also used attributively in structures instead of nominals in non-core cases, as for examples in comparative clauses. Cf. the idiomatic phrase idūṣmak raftagh va "I can't help but":

Irrealis verbs

Irrealis verbs are formed with the -g- marker, which fills slot 4 in the verbal structure (right after the evidential marker). Irrealis verbs have a variety of uses, mostly together with certain particles – with the negative marker va being, by far, the most common one – but can also be used on its own, with an optative meaning:

Two common particles used with the irrealis are the aforementioned va, forming negative sentences, and śon, with a prohibitive jussive meaning (usually translated as "don't let"):

Irrealis attributives are implicitely negative, in which case the va particle is always omitted:

Irrealis verbs are also used to form conditional sentences, which are treated in a dedicated section.

Politeness and verbal concord

Politeness in Dundulanyä influences verbal concord due to the fact that the multiple possible pronouns – an open class, as detailed in the dedicated morphology section – always use the subject markers of the corresponding persons. For example, the usage of given names or the hypocoristic forms of given names – which is the most common form of address in informal styles – for the speaker and the hearer is always marked by first- and second-person verbal endings.

Note that none of these sentences contains a vocative phrase, and such pronoun usage is unrelated to vocatives. In fact, the following sentence – while uncommon indeed – wouldn't sound completely weird to Dundulanyä ears, especially if in a broader context:

This usage can be extended to non-singular referents:

Positional and classificatory verbs are the most lexically complex part of Dundulanyä verbs, constituting, together with the rich system of positional prefixes, a distinguishing feature of the language. Such roots are used to describe states of people, animals and objects, as well as the ways in which they are carried, brought or pulled.

Positional-classificatory verbs are categorized for two dimensions: the nature of the patient and the nature of the action. According to the nature of the patient (darūlt jalyīɂe dhoptai), positional-classificatory verbs are distinguished by their reference to the following categories:

1. Spherical objects, or otherwise with approximately the same width, length and height;
2. Long objects (much greater in one dimension than in the others), generally stiff;
3. Ropes or other long, non-stiff objects (e.g. palm leaves);
4. People, pets and farm animals, dolls and plush toys;
5. Masses or generic/uncategorized objects, as well as figurative meanings;
6. Non-contained liquids;
7. Contained liquids;
8. Contained masses of (homogeneous) solids, e.g. seeds, flour;
9. Contained masses of heterogeneous solids, or mixed bundles;
10. Sheets, paper sheets, slabs, also rocks; cut flowers;
11. Large objects that cannot be carried by humans, as well as wild animals.

According to the nature of the action (darūmma jalyīɂe dhoptai), positional-classificatory verbs can be classified as:

1. Stative-existential:
   1. Horizontal ("to be; to lie");
   2. Seated ("to be; to sit");
   3. Vertical ("to be; to stand");
2. Verbs of placing:
   1. Horizontal ("to put, lay");
   2. Seated ("to put, seat");
   3. Vertical ("to put, place");
3. Verbs of carrying:
   1. in the hands or arms;
   2. on the head;
   3. on the back;
   4. by vehicle;
4. Verbs of pulling, dragging;
5. Verbs of throwing.

For most patient natures, the stative-existential meaning is the perfect of the corresponding verb of placing; however, the "people, children, pets and farm animals" category uses the bare root as the stative-existential and the causative as the corresponding verb of placing. All patient nature categories except for "spherical objects" and "contained heterogenous masses" are differentiated in the horizontal stative-existential/placing category, although the horizontal root for the "large objects/wild animals" category is the same one used for vertical position for the "people, children, pets and farm animals" category. In all other action nature categories there is at least one root used for two or more patient nature classes, or at least one such class which lacks a root.

Not all intersections of patient nature and action nature have a corresponding verb; for example, there are no verbs of carrying for the "large objects that cannot be carried by humans/wild animals", nor have most categories verbs for seated and vertical positions. As an extreme example, the "non-contained liquids" category only has the horizontal stative-existential/placing verb and the verb of throwing (which can be simply translated as "to splash").

The verbs of putting, placing and throwing furthermore correspond to verbs of giving when used together with a dative termination:

The ablative marker, meanwhile, forms verbs of taking from verbs of putting, and verbs of catching from verbs of throwing:

Some positional-classificatory verbs have acquired further meanings: for example, the reflexive of "to put down a non-contained liquid" means "to rain", which can then also be specified with the cislocative prefix:

The following table includes all the roots of positional-classificatory verbs.

The "to stand, place vertically" verbs are also used for things that have stands or legs to stand on. For example, chairs and stools are categorized with the √śo- root for spherical or proportionate objects.

See also the vocabulary list about clothing, as the Dundulanyä verbs for "to wear", "to put on" and "to take off" are conceptually an extension of positional-classificatory verbs.

Marking position and motion

Dundulanyä specifies position and motion in space by using the positional verbs introduced above or motion verbs together with the positional prefixes treated in the specific morphology section, with the cislocative prefix and ablative markers on verbs introducing further amounts of specification (and complexity).

The general marking of position and motion is shown by a combination of nominal forms:

• Absolute position in space is marked by the locative case;
• Relative position in space is marked by the bound form;
• Lative arguments are marked by the dative case (which in Dundulanyä is effectively a dative-lative case);
• Ablative arguments are marked by the ablative case.

In the following sentence, for example, the positional prefix īs- "hanging" alone requires a relative position argument, the noun jñu tree in bound form, therefore resulting in the meaning "hanging from the tree". The absolute position argument chir̃ā "in the garden" marks where the tree, and the state marked by the verb, exists:

With some specific markers, such as pen- "in the corner", the absolute/relative distinction marks inclusion or non-inclusion in the place:

The absolute/relative distinction goes beyond the scope of positional and motion verbs, and can be found as argument of any verb with attached positional prefixes:

Bound forms

Dundulanyä nouns have a non-case form, which is called the bound form (avraḍūrūkṣah, pl. avraḍūrūkṣāri) by native grammarians. The bound form does not head nominal clauses; it is used when the noun is the possessor; to mark an argument of relative position governed by a positional verb; and when governed by many adpositions.

In the glottonym itself, dundulanyä ḫamfafa, for example, dundulanyä is a bound form, in this case syncretic with the direct case due to the noun having a stem ending in a vowel. Some more examples of bound forms:

Use of the plural

Dundulanyä nouns have three numbers: singular, dual, and plural. The singular is the lemma form and is also used for a broad categorization, or whenever the plural number is marked by another constituent of the noun phrase. The dual is used for exactly two objects of the noun, and the plural for more than two. See, however, the section on singularia, pluralia (and dualia) tantum.

However, the "broad categorization" of a given object means that there are contexts where the marking of more than two objects is shown by the singular instead of the plural:

• Nouns are always singular after numerals (except, optionally, rirä (two), which they can also be dual after), sora (some), idu (no, any), idūṣam (no other), taili (many, much), didya (more), kaili (most), and ṣubha (few, little).
  After yaiva, the difference in the noun's number expresses a distinction much like the one between English "every" and "all": yaiva täte "every house", yaiva täti "all houses".
• When referring to existence or availability of something, that something is always singular, e.g. the essive sg. of nikoṅka "chair" in dvārma nikūvaṅkī taśavīsa "there are chairs in the room". It may be plural if topicalized, but the overall meaning of the sentence changes — e.g. nikauṅkai ba dvārma taśavīsa "the chairs are in the room".
• When referring to a single person, häɂli (hand), meśiḫe (eye), and p̃agu (ear), and often also junai (foot) (more rarely for nādah (leg) and m̃ukar̃e (arm)) are typically singular and not dual — e.g. ānū miśeḫī meśah "I see it with my eyes" (lit. "with my eye"). In fact, they might be translated as "a person's hands/eyes/ears", given that dual forms are often used to mean e.g. "both hands of two people" and the plural ones for e.g. "many people's hands".
• junēlte (indoor slippers), rapūda ((thick) shoes), mähṣa (boots), and all types of shoes are also used in the singular to refer to a pair of them. The main exception is frāṇagi (straw rope sandals), which is a plurale tantum.

Duals and plurals of given names have the meaning of an associative plural, i.e. marking a group of two (dual) or more (plural) people contextually identified by some kind of relationship to the person the name refers to, such as e.g. "X and friends; X and family; X and partner..."; cf. Kālomīyayi "Kālomīye and people in/of her group".

Note that singular nouns used after numerals and the correlatives listed above always take plural concord on verbs.

Direct and vocative cases

The direct case (drādhūṅga dirūṃrūkṣah) is the most basic and lemma form of the Dundulanyä noun. It is most typically used for the topic, that is, whichever argument is selected by the verbal trigger.

Furthermore, direct case is required by copular verbs. The prototypical example is jallah (√jall-, 0, "to be, exist"), used in the non-present only, but other such verbs are śāmah (√śām-, I, "to consider, think of as" – which has two direct arguments and an essive one), moldah (√mold-, III, "to seem, look like") and snejvah (√snejv-, II, "to be worth, to cost"):

Direct case is also required by certain particles: adpositive ga, tho "about, concerning", benefactive inyo and antibenefactive rat.

The vocative case, often identical in form to the direct case, is used for direct address:

Non-selected arguments

Non-selected arguments, that is, arguments which are not selected as topic by the trigger morpheme in the verb complex, are marked by specific cases:

• Patient → accusative case (transitive verbs); essive case (intransitive verbs);
• Agent → ergative case;
• Instrument → instrumental case;
• Benefacted argument → direct case plus inyo;
• Antibenefacted argument → direct case plus rat;
• Location → locative case;
• Reason → expressed through a causal clause.

Dative, ablative and locative cases

The first and foremost function of the dative (more properly a dative-lative case), ablative and locative cases are to mark, respectively, destination, provenience and state in space:

See also the section on marking position and motion.

Aside from destination, the dative expresses the receiver of a ditransitive verb, and the reverse relation is expressed by the ablative:

There are some intransitive verbs with a dative argument, such as udhi-√līd- "to study":

Note that the corresponding unprefixed verb √līd- "to teach" is transitive but not ditransitive, and with a different distribution of roles than English; in Dundulanyä, one teaches (agent) someone (patient) about something (tho-particle argument).

As semantic opposites, dative and ablative may distinguish different, even opposite, meanings of the same verb:

The dative, furthermore, marks the original patients of causative verbs. In such sentences, the dative argument follows the patient of the causative verb (the causee):

The ablative case is also used to mark the indirect argument of certain verbs. Such verbs include, most notably, perception verbs, but also certain verbs which have been noted to show a certain degree of dependency of the patient, as e.g. śūs-√so- "to count on, rely on", or those where the argument is a – figurative – source, such as √kon- "to remember, recall":

The ablative case is also used in comparative structures, marking the object of comparison:

Essive case and stative constructions

The essive case's prototypical reference is permanence or existence in a given state. A particularly common usage is, in the present tense only, an indefinite state, contrasting with the definiteness implied by the copula:

It is also used, attributively, to mark what something is made of or from:

It is also used to mark the distinctive qualities (identity) with positional verbs:

The essive is typically used for the patient of most intransitive outside of patient-trigger voice:

It is also used for arguments referring ot states or existence, such as e.g. with the verb śāmah (√śām-, I, "to consider, think of as" – which has two direct arguments and an essive one):

The particle se, requiring an essive case noun, forms a translative phrase, with an inchoative meaning, i.e. to enter a given state or to assume a given form:

The sequence of a translative se phrase followed by another essive noun in a copular sentence has the meaning of "to become X from Y":

A translative phrase can also state purpose, generally when it directly affects the selected argument:

The particle mon has the meaning opposite to se, that is, it forms an exessive phrase. Often, it may imply a form of nominal tense, expressing a state which was true in the past, particularly in copular sentences:

Exessive phrases are also used to state something given in exchange for something else, most commonly when talking about money:

Absolute construction

Dundulanyä may use the essive case in order to form an absolute construction, also referenced to as the "essive absolute". It describes a circumstance which the action takes place in, or a cause:

This construction is only possible as long as there is no verb, as Dundulanyä has no participles and such phrases are translated as nonreduced relative clauses. However, verbs can be specified through a different construction, using the situational:

The essive absolute may also be used to give a reasoning in exhortations:

The instrumental case

The prototypical meaning of the instrumental case is to express the instrument of an action, that is, the thing using which something is done:

In Archaic Dundulanyä, the instrumental plural was used to form adverbs — as e.g. in dodonenīka "as if in a chain, chain~". This usage is sometimes still found in lexicalized forms, which are however considered adverbs on their own instead of declined forms of nouns.

Cardinal numerals

Ordinal numerals

Ordinal numerals are words that can be used attributively, adverbially and (pro)nominally. They are declined only in the latter case:

Collective numerals

The Dundulanyä collective numerals – which do not exist for zero and one – are declined as nominals and precede the noun they refer to. They are mandatorily used in order to count pluralia tantum, including ethnic groups:

In more general usage, collective numerals imply groups with a greater cohesiveness, i.e. subjects that act collectively, or sets taken as a single whole. In these cases, collective numerals require a singular noun, but take plural concord, as with cardinals. Compare the following two examples:

As an extension of this meaning, sentences using a collective numeral generally encode the entirety of a group, which can be rendered into English with "all X of...":

Distributive numerals

Distributive numerals are indeclinable words which encode distribution of multiple units of something. They generally answer questions such as "how many each?" and, as with cardinal and collective numerals, require a singular noun but plural concord on the verb:

Adverbial and multiplicative numerals

Adverbial and multiplicative numerals both have a purely multiplicative or proportional meaning, i.e. "X times" or "X times as large". Adverbial numerals only exist for 0 to 4, while all numerals have multiplicative forms. Multiplicative numerals are indeclinable and can be used both pronominally and adnominally. When used attributively, nouns can be in any number, depending on meaning.

Adverbials and multiplicatives are also used when reading multiplications and powers:

Dundulanyä has a rich system of demonstratives and correlatives – whose morphology is explained in a dedicated section – with their own syntactical peculiarities, especially for what concerns deixis.

All correlatives distinguish three degrees of deixis, two of them with the speaker as origo, the other one electing the hearer in that role. For clarity, the three classes will be detailed as proximal for the one characterized by closeness to the speaker; medial for the one characterized by closeness to the hearer; distal for the one defined by the distance (in space or time) from both speaker and hearer.

This distinction is most unambiguous when pointing to elements in space:

Note the distal pronominal demonstrative in the latter example, which emphasizes the distance in space of the window the hearer is pointing at.

In the temporal -vet series and in other non-spatial ones, the difference between the three deictical classes is more properly defined on the basis of shared knowledge between speaker and hearer. The proximal class (as long as not in the remote past) is used with reference to the speaker's knowledge, the medial to the hearer's and the distal class to shared knowledge. See the following examples:

As already shown in the above examples, the be-series of correlatives, the interrogative class, is not fronted — i.e. Dundulanyä has no wh-fronting. Note also that interrogative correlatives are not used with the ho clitic marking open questions:

Conditionals

Conditional sentences are formed by using irrealis verbs in two clauses joined by the conjunction trī "then". The protasis expresses the condition and can be either positive or negative, in a realis mood unless conditions are unrealizable (a different case treated below). The apodosis expresses the result and is always irrealis, although either positive or negative:

The protasis is also irrealis if it describes a hypothetical and unrealizable condition. In this case, the conjunction is not trī but āyau "thence".

English and other Western European readers may be tricked and use this kind of construction with āyau as a conditional; however, using it for a non-future condition always implies that the condition is unrealizable. A sentence like "naviṣyat iyīgūm āyau hiyū uśugdam" is correct, but would be parsed "If I had read the book, which in no way could have been possible, then I would have known it", with a strong emphasis on "no way".

A future conditional may be built with trī (see above), but can also be expressed using an irrealis protasis and āyau, in which case emphasis is placed on the lower probability of the protasis, doubting it will happen. In this case, the two clauses agree in polarity:

It is possible to omit the protasis, leaving the condition implied; in this case the declarative particle ya is added at the end of the sentence:

Concession clauses

Concession clauses in Dundulanyä are built by using the irrealis or negative form of the situational mood:

Correlatives and complex sentences

Correlatives are also used as resumptives in forming complex, nonreduced sentences, such as with sentential objects:

Declarative content clauses

Declarative content clauses are built by mere juxtaposition:

Causal and consecutive clauses

Dundulanyä causal clauses are marked by the reason trigger or by the conjunction mäne. In colloquial styles, they can also be marked by mere juxtaposition:

Note that an imperative cannot be marked with a reason trigger, so only the following exhortation is grammatical:

Causals may also be rendered as essive absolutes:

Consecutive clauses of the form "X so Y that Z" are rendered via a parallel construction with Z being a perfect form attributed (juxtaposed) to a repeated verb:

Quoted speech

Dundulanyä does not have a proper distinction between direct and indirect speech, as the quotative particle tati is used instead. tati follows a quoted sentence, which is basically how Dundulanyä handles indirect speech.

This is the norm even in more complex sentences, such as the following example, where the quoted sentence is nestled between a causal clause and the main part of the sentence:

The verb √śod- (II, to know, understand) requires sentences to be juxtaposed; note that Dundulanyä follows the natural sequence of tenses:

This also applies to future in the past:

Indirect interrogative clauses

Indirect interrogative clauses are, to all extents and purposes, quoted sentences where the main verb is not a declarative verb, but either a question (√śad- to ask, I), the negative form of a knowledge or perception verb, direct interrogative, or an imperative.

In the case of sentences with √śod-, as in quoted speech, tati is not used.

Indirect interrogatives and their main verbs can be regularly combined with other forms of quoted speech:

Morphology

Dundulanyä is a highly inflected language with a synthetic morphology. Five parts of speech are traditionally distinguished: nouns, verbs, pronouns and correlatives, numerals, and particles.

Dundulanyä inflectional morphology is almost entirely suffixing, save for the system of apophony explained earlier, and a marginal number of inflectional prefixes, mostly in verbs. Derivational morphology, on the other hand, employs up to four different strategies: suffixes, prefixes, and to a lesser extent circumfixes and infixes, or the combination of more or them, as well as eventually apophony on top of that.

The Dundulanyä noun (rañjiḫe, pl. rāñjiḫi) is highly inflected — it has numbers and cases as inflectional categories:

• Three numbers (smuḍai):
  • Singular (emibundīra smuḍa)
  • Dual (rirändīra smuḍa)
  • Plural (tailindīra smuḍa)
• Nine cases (dirūṃrūkṣāri):
  • Direct (drādhūṅga dirūṃrūkṣah)
  • Vocative (ṛjadīra dirūṃrūkṣah)
  • Ergative (drīyadīra dirūṃrūkṣah)
  • Accusative (darūltuṅga dirūṃrūkṣah)
  • Dative (mälindīra dirūṃrūkṣah)
  • Ablative (smrāṇuṅga dirūṃrūkṣah)
  • Locative (tadyapadīra dirūṃrūkṣah)
  • Essive (jalīndīra dirūṃrūkṣah)
  • Instrumental (dṛvundīra dirūṃrūkṣah)

There are a few nouns which lack number; a few are singularia tantum and lack a plural (e.g. tambīya "lips"), while others are pluralia tantum — most notably including all ethnicities, whose singular form is analytical, made by using the bound form to the word lila (person), e.g. dundulanyä lilarān (a Dundulanyä).

The consensus among linguists is that Dundulanyä does not have grammatical gender or noun classes; however, it should be noted that natural gender is shown on some nouns referring to humans, and furthermore there is the inherent classification system of positional-classificatory verbs.

Dundulanyä nouns are complex, due to the existence of multiple declension patterns. They are primarily categorized by whether they refer to nouns that undergo apophonical changes or not; secondarily, they are categorized by their stem type.

There are four apophonical declensions: root nouns, the -e declension, the -a declension, and zero-ending nouns with vowel suffixes (-u, -i, -ṛ).

Except for root nouns, apophonical nouns are formed by a root and a suffix, and apophony alternates between them. Many such suffixes are derivational and productive, but some are no longer productive and limited to a small number of terms (such as -in- forming certain male kinship terms). In a few cases, the suffix may actually be an infix, such as the (non-productive) one in the word lorbhe "stele", ultimately from √lobh- "to write" (cf. direct singular lorbhe but locative singular lūrabhā, dative plural lūrābhumi).

Non-apophonical declensions can be grouped into three groups: the "first consonant stem declension" or -e declension, the vowel-final stem declension, and zero-ending nouns with stems ending in liquids, nasals or the glottal stop (-h).

Nouns belonging to the latter declension have a prop vowel -a- in their citation form. This is because liquids and nasals could be syllabic in Dundulanyä's ancestor language, but among them only r/ṛ remains as a consonant/vowel pair in Dundulanyä itself.

The extremely common -a declension is a subset of the vowel-final stem declension; however, it is peculiar because it behaves in some forms like a consonant stem declension, and like a vowel stem in others. Both for apophonical and non-apophonical declensions, the -a and -e declensions most likely marked some kind of noun class distinction in the proto-language, which has been lost in the evolution of what became Dundulanyä.

Apophonical declensions

The first and second apophonical declensions have the same patterns, but slightly different endings; the first apophonical declension has the same endings as the (non-apophonical) first consonant stem declension, while the second the same endings as non-apophonical -a nouns (with the exception of locative singular and the singular and plural bound forms).

Root nouns have the same apophonical pattern as -i, -u, -ṛ nouns, but the endings are directly added to the root, triggering the appropriate sandhi changes.

Apophonical nouns ending in -i, -u, -ṛ are mainly distinguished by having different patterns from the first and second apophonical declensions. -ṛ nouns are extremely rare, and only three such nouns figure among the general usage vocabulary: khaikṛ (II) "goose", gāṃsṛ "passage, ford" (I, with the synchronically irregular zero grade gas-), and mētṛ (V) "vessel, pot, cooking pot".

Table notes:

1. The underlying form is -ār.

Non-apophonical declensions

The following tables show the non-apophonical declensions.

Table notes:

1. In colloquial Dundulanyä, such nouns are often declined like -a nouns, given that their declensions are similar, the main difference being vowel lengthening in most forms.
2. Morphemically buney, as the vocative of -a nouns is the stem without the final -a; as per regular sandhi, syllable-final ey becomes ī.

Table notes:

1. The underlying forms are in -r.
2. Morphemically glūḫ0m-nī and glūḫm-nīka, with the regular -mn- → -ṃr- sandhi change.

Dundulanyä nouns generally do not end in long vowels; the few exceptions that do (generally of onomatopoeic or baby talk origin) are treated as irregular nouns. The most common nouns ending in long vowels are certainly amamū "mother" and atabū (or batū) "father", which (due to regular sandhi) have -ūv- before vocalic endings (e.g. ergative plural amamūvām), but an irregular direct plural in -ūv-i, i.e. amamūvi, atabūvi, batūvi.

The -ṛ declension diverges from those ending in other vowels in various forms, such as the direct singular, where nouns end in -ah (-ar, reduced to the corresponding soft consonant) instead of the simple vowel -ṛ; their lemma form is in fact identical in shape to -ah nouns, although adding particles reveals the true nature of the final consonant (cf. ñältah, ñältahbu "sister, my sister"; śuthah, śutharbu "husband, my husband"; ñältahin śutharin "either [the] sister or [the] husband").

-ai nouns and the much rarer -au nouns are variants of the -i and -u declensions respectively: these nouns end in -ā-i and -ā-u and are otherwise regularly declined. Due to sandhi, there is, however, more case syncretism than in the normal declensions. While these nouns are somewhat rare in the general lexicon, quite a few of them are basic lexical items and therefore often used, such as mbai "bread", junai "foot", lunai "tea", lanai "island", havau "gold" or prānilau "tomorrow" (the latter an irregular derivation).
Note that the very common suffix -myau, used in toponyms to form territories from the name of cities, is not an -au noun but an apophonical root noun from the root √myo- (a positional-classificatory verb).

Irregular vocatives

A few very common words (mostly kinship terms) have irregular vocative forms:

• ñältah "(male's) sister" – ñäli or ñäl
• glūḫam "(female's) brother" – galū or glū
• kālike "(female's) younger sister" – kāl or kālli or kalli
• praśke "(male's) older brother" – pāśi
• amamū "mother" – mā or māmu
• atabū or batū "father" – bā or bābu

Irregular nouns

A few Dundulanyä nouns are irregular (outside of the few vocatives in the section above). Most of them are suppletive in the plural, or have irregular stems.

As mentioned above, a few irregular nouns end in long vowels; the most common ones are amamū "mother", atabū and batū (both "father"). These behave mostly as -u stem nouns and have, due to regular sandhi, ūv- before vocalic endings, except for having an irregular direct, vocative and bound form plural in -ūvi (amamūvi, atabūvi, batūvi).

huline "woman" has the suppletive plural hulūni (regularly declined); its general combining stem is hulun- (although in some cases hulin- is also found)^[M.1].

svo, the most common honorific, is most commonly used as an indeclinable adpositive title before the noun it refers to; however, it may used as a standalone noun, in which case it behaves as an -o stem noun except before vocalic endings, where it has the stem svom- instead of the expected *svav-; the irregular behaviour is due to it being a shortening of the original honorific svomardam, already found in both full and shortened forms in Classical Dundulanyä.

irāḍe "animal (including humans)" is a consonant stem noun in the singular and dual, but declines as an -a stem noun in the plural, i.e. direct pl. irāḍai.

Singularia and pluralia tantum

The following tables include categories of singularia and pluralia tantum in Dundulanyä:

A few nouns do not have a singular, but can have a dual and a plural form. Their citation form is usually the dual:

• maihādhūve "parents", kardātatalavibive "hide-and-seek" (most commonly a plurale tantum)

Counted among pluralia tantum are certain words which are not defective in number, but whose plural forms have an additional meaning alongside the one of the singular form, like in the following examples:

• hamvilti "nursery" (hamvilte "cradle"), īskāvidai "playground" (īskāvida "swing"), utofi "clothes" (utofe "cloth"), garaṇai "clock, watch" (garaṇa "hour"), anutū "universe" (anutu "space, invisible sky")

Unlike ethnonyms, nouns formed with the suffix -ulu, often identifying a person from a certain place (e.g. lailulu, naṅgaśaurulu) are not pluralia tantum and have regularly-formed plurals (in -ulū).

The verb (darūmma, pl. darūmmai) is the most inflected part of speech in Dundulanyä. Forms are quite complex and generally formed in an agglutinative manner — even if there are fusional elements for what concerns tense, aspect, and subject agreement.

The language exhibits a system of symmetrical voices as part of its morphosyntactic alignment, and the argument the verb agrees with is controlled by a particular morpheme inside the verb complex. Due to the complex structure and the semantic categories expressed by the morphemes or roots, a single verb form can often correspond to a more complex English sentence:

The morpheme order of Dundulanyä verbs is the following; elements in bold are required, even if some of them may be zero morphemes:

Verbs have four stems: present, past, perfect and frequentative; the latter two are always distinct, while roots which do not undergo apophony have the same stems for the present and the past. These stems are used with different sets of personal agreement endings; different combinations of stems and endings are used to form a variety of tense-aspect combinations.

A few irregular verbs have suppletive stems, and a smaller number of verbs is defective, lacking one or more stems. However, the vast majority of Dundulanyä verbs is regular, with apparent irregularities being explained by irregular or peculiar behavior of the verb roots themselves (especially class I ones), e.g. in verbs such as śadah "I am asked" – āḍan "I was asked" – āḍam "I have been asked", āḍ- being the regular zero grade of the class I root √śad-^[M.2].

Root incorporation

Some verb roots may be used with either a verbal or a nominal incorporated root which comes right before the stem in the verb complex, in slot -1. Incorporated verb roots always have the apophonical zero grade, while incorporated nominal roots are actually a closed class of prefixes etymologically related to certain nouns that broadly identify the object (usually the patient) of the verb.

Incorporated verb roots form root+root complexes where the incorporated root adds a dimension of meaning to the main one, such as with the root jūpūn- "to work in a hurry" from pūn- "to work" with the incorporated root jo- "to hurry", or nililobh- "to write down through brainstorming" from lobh- "to write" with nily- "to think".

Incorporated nominal roots include for example morphemes such as tan- for a long object (cf. taṇḍa "stick, cane") resulting in forms such as taṃlobh- "to affix; carve (on a stick, a post)", or ghar- for "wood" with forms such as ghahräś- "to debark" (√räś- "to peel") or gharṇevy- "to carve wood" (nevy- "to shape").

The prefix yau- fills the incorporated nominal root slot, however it denotes repetition and patient plurality and is always used together with the agentive trigger, as shown in forms such as yaukṛsūn "I waited for all of them", yaucikhūn "I offered [them] a drink one by one".
Similarly, the prefixes sya- (exhaustive), tra- (iterative) and cū- (excessive) fill the slot of the incorporated root. sya- is uncommon in the modern language, as it is often used as a synonym of yau-; the original difference being that it does not apply to transitive verbs only, and it does not imply a repeated or prolonged action. Cf. forms such as syanīyūn "I said it all", tranīyūn "I said it again", cūnīyūn "I said too much".

A verb root can also be reduplicated using the zero-grade version of itself as the incorporated root. The resulting verbs can have different meanings but usually intensive (as a less formal alternative to the intensive TAM) or iterative-continuous, e.g. cyūcyavūh "I really want it" (√cyo- "to want"). Some reduplicated stems are effectively lexicalized, such as nīne- "to repeat" (√ne- "to say"), and can therefore form the base for further derived forms, e.g. imyamam "glutton" (√yam- "to eat").

Inverse deixis and ablative motion

While apparently similar, the inverse deixis marker (slot -2) or cislocative – the -s(a)- prefix – and the ablative motion marker (slot 2) – the -y(a)- suffix – are distinct and, in fact, not mutually exclusive. While the ablative motion marker cannot be used without the positional prefix – with the exception of positional-classificatory verbs – the cislocative can.

The cislocative prefix marks an action towards the deictic center, generally the speaker, marked as divergent from the default state which is action from the deictic center: see e.g. lavi (lo-i) "you go (walk)" vs. cislocative salavi (sa-lo-i) "you come (on foot)" for an example without a positional prefix; however, it can also be used together with such prefix as in e.g. gālavi (gā-lo-i) "you walk in" vs. gāslavi (gā-s(a)-lo-i) "you come in (on foot)".

The ablative motion marker – which forces zero-grade apophony on the present stem – on the other hand, inverts the direction marked by the positional/directional prefix, which is allative by default (i.e. to a place), making it ablative (i.e. from a place): gāmeśūh (gā-meś-ū-h) "I look inside" vs. gāmiśyūh (gā-miś-y-ū-h) "I look from the inside". The ablative marker is, due to how positional and motion verbs work in Dundulanyä, most commonly used and useful with transitive verbs, as in e.g. kuḍḍombhūsa (kuḍ-dombh-ū-sa) "you two bring outside" vs. kuḍḍumbhyūsa (kuḍ-dumbh-y-ū-sa) "you two bring from outside".

The cislocative and the ablative marker can, in fact, be used together, in forms such as kujadumbhyūsa (kuḍ-sa-dumbh-y-ū-sa) "you two bring [us] from outside", gāslunyi "you come (on foot) from the inside".

Stem and TAM formation

The four basic stems are formed as follows:

• The present stem is the root with the middle grade vowel;
• The past stem is the root with the zero grade vowel;
  • For non-apophonical roots, the present and past stems are therefore identical.
• The perfect stem is the root with the zero grade vowel and an augment which is identical to the vowel of the root itself (shortened, if it is long) if the vowel is any of a, e, i, u; otherwise:
  • if the stem vowel is o, ä, ṛ or ṝ, the augment is a;
  • if the stem vowel is a diphthong, only the first element is taken as the augment.
• The frequentative stem is the root with the zero grade vowel plus the middle grade vowel as the augment, and adding -sā (with the appropriate sandhi changes). Again, there are some exceptions to the general augment rule:
  • if the stem vowel is ṛ or ṝ, the augment is ā;
  • otherwise, the same rules as the perfect augment apply.
• The intensive (or energetic) stem, which does not form tenses but a mood, is formed with a higher grade augment and a middle grade root vowel.

All TAM affixes – excluding the augment, which is considered a part of the stem – are inserted into slot 1.

Some affixes may force the stem vowel to be in a certain apophonical grade, such as the ablative motion marker shown in the previous section, which forces a present stem to have a zero grade vowel regardless.

Examples of stems with different roots:

There are also tense markers which are added to the above stems to form the base for other TAM:

• The future formant is -iṣy- (or -ṣy- after vowels), added to the past stem (more precisely, to the zero grade root);
  • While there is no difference for most verbs, this is meaningful in the case of verbs with suppletive stems: for example, meś- has the suppletive past stem āsmy-, but the future stem is miśiṣy-.
• The situational is formed with the marker -āp-, added to either the zero grade root or the perfect stem.

The situational is a non-finite verb form which can express a contemporaneous (e.g. "while ...-ing") or anterior action (e.g. "after having ...-ed"), both as a circumstance or as a reason (e.g. "given that..."). Together with the irrealis marker, it forms concessive clauses.

The various tenses (more appropriately tense-aspect combinations) and moods are formed by the combination of the above stems and different terminations:

• Present: present stem + present terminations
• Past: past stem + past terminations
• Perfect: perfect stem + perfect terminations
• Frequentative: frequentative stem + frequentative terminations
• Future: future "stem" + perfect terminations
• Imperfective situational: zero grade root plus -āp- formant + present terminations
• Perfective situational: perfect stem with -āp- formant + perfect terminations

The intensive, which is a tense-aspect-mood combination, has only two aspects: imperfective and perfective (today both found in very formal styles, but otherwise considered too bookish for general use):

• Imperfective intensive: intensive stem + present terminations
• Perfective intensive: intensive stem + perfect terminations

The imperative is generally considered apart from the other stems, as it is only used in second person singular and plural and first person plural forms: its stem is the bare stem but with the higher grade vowel (i.e. maiś- for the root meś-), with the present terminations for the two plural forms but endingless for the singular.

The subjunctive does not have its own stem, but is formed as a sort of reverse intensive: it has specific endings which are used together with the zero-grade stem (for the imperfective subjunctive) and with the perfect stem (for the perfective subjunctive).

Junyai ("hues")

The forms called, in traditional Dundulanyä grammar, junyai (sg. junya, literally "shade, hue") are special stems (hence filling only the "stem" portion of the verb complex) which denote particular meanings, often corresponding to moods. There are four junyai: desiderative, necessitative, potential, and permissive, formed as follows, through reduplication (with different vowel grades in the stem and in the reduplication) and suffixes:

• Desiderative: zero-grade reduplication + middle-grade root + -s;
• Necessitative: middle-grade reduplication + zero-grade root + -sū;
• Potential: zero-grade reduplication + middle-grade root + -nā;
• Permissive: reduplication with the vowel ī (ū after non-nasal labials) + zero-grade root + -ūd;

Examples with various roots:

Slots 3 to 6: evidentials, irrealis, valency and triggers

The evidential markers fill slot 3 of the verb complex:

Slot 4 can only be filled by the irrealis marker -g, whose usage is detailed in the corresponding Syntax section.

Slot 5 can be filled by either the causative marker -on- or the applicative marker -im-, together known as the valency-increasing suffixes, also treated in a dedicated Syntax section.

Slot 6 contains the trigger (voice) markers:

Slots 7 and 8: personal and dative agreement markers

Slot 7 contains the personal agreement markers, i.e. the subject (triggered argument) concord. There are five sets of endings for the different TAMs:

A note about the 2nd person subjunctive ending: in Classical Dundulanyä, subjunctive 2nd person terminations -ās (singular) and -aus (plural) are found in many texts. In the early and mid Classical period, the distribution is clearly dialectal: the dialects of coastal Taktapṣikha and the course of the Hundhura downstream from the confluence of the Lāmbera, the Lātlaka region to the southeast, as well as the majority of the Yuṣṇiya valley (western Taktapṣikha) and North Shore colonies of these territories use the -ās/-aus forms, with the rest of Taktapṣikha, nearly all of Śubhāla (which underwent Dundulanyäization during the Classical period) as well as – forming a linguistic island – the Śola peninsula (far northern Taktapṣikha, between two of the Inland Seas) using the -āt/-aut forms. By the late Classical period, -āt/-aut forms became predominant because of both sound changes (especially in the North Shore) and greater cultural and political dominance of some -āt/-aut cities such as Nallalitle (along the Lāmbera), Mūmäfumbe and Līlekhaite (in Śubhāla), Udunna (in Śola), and Ṭäleneśāma (on the North Shore)^[M.3], although sometimes even the same authors used both forms, in a few cases even in the same text. In the post-Classical period, -āt/-aut became the standard forms, although local languages in -ās/-aus areas developed from the original ones.

The forms with vowel in the present are used after a consonant; the 3SG form is therefore a zero-marker in many common forms such as after the agent voice marker (cf. teṇa "3SG is fed" and teṇū "3SG feeds").

Slot 8 contains the set of dative terminations, showing indirect object concord. The terminations are the same as the possessive suffixes used with nouns, except for 1SG and 1DU having -m- instead of -b- as the thematic consonant:

Suppletive verb stems

A few verbs have suppletive stems:

• √meś- (II) "to see", suppletive past stem āsmy-;
• √lo- (III) "to go, walk" has an alternation between lo- in the present forms and lun- in the other stems. The perfect stem, however, is suppletive mām-.

The system of personal pronouns of both Classical and contemporary Dundulanyä is quite complex due to the honorific system. In modern Dundulanyä, the category of "pronouns" isn't actually syntactically differentiated from other nouns (except for being used anaphorically), to the point that, aside for a small number of "morphological" pronouns, which are usually neutral or informal, the pronominal system includes many possibilities of expressing referents in all persons. Dundulanyä pronouns are, in fact, an open class.

The main reason for the complexity of the pronominal system is that there are many possible variants for each person, depending on the formality of the context, the two-way rank difference between speaker and listener, or the three-way rank difference between the speaker, the listener, and the addressee. These forms persist, even if Dundulanyä society has become quite egalitarian in the last decades, as they are still used as a mark of respect. Some particular forms are also chosen depending on gender.

The fact that there is no syntactical difference between the morphological pronouns and those that are nouns also means that every word used pronominally, including given names, requires that person's verbal concord, i.e. a given name used as a second-person pronoun will be used in concordance with a second-person verb. Honorific adpositions (most notably svo) used together with pronouns do not decline; the title or given name used with them declines instead.

Personal pronouns

First- and second-person pronouns have the same declension as nouns, although with the peculiarity of having neither a vocative nor a bound form and having the same form in the direct and ergative cases, as well as sporadic contractions in a few forms. In the traditional analysis, the singular is taken as the root and it is considered to be a nominal with suppletive stems in the dual and plural.

Table notes:

1. Also īnai, especially used in poetry; the same stem is therefore found for all other forms (īnaih, īnumi, īnenī, etc.).
2. In older Dundulanyä amūvītha.

The reflexive pronoun śaṃḫe is actually a contraction of śaniḫe, meaning "soul" (from √śan- "to breathe); in post-Classical Dundulanyä, the two originally interchangeable forms became specialized, with the contracted form being used as a pronoun and the full one as a noun. Being a contracted form of a 1st apophonical declension noun, it regularly follows that declension (all the forms where the root is in the zero grade, as well as the singular and plural bound forms, are identical to the declined forms of śaniḫe):

The following words include the personal pronouns as well as words used as pronoun equivalents, not actually distinguishable from the personal pronouns listed above, except for the fact that the latter do not have any clear reconstructed etymology and are generally only used as pronouns. Most of them are also markedly feminine or masculine.

First person pronouns

• yuna is the most neutral first person singular pronoun, however its neutrality makes it less preferable to other pronouns (especially in informal contexts, or formal contexts with legal difference in status) in oral speech, while it is the predominant one in written language. It is often used (reciprocally) in business settings, as well as (one-sidedly) by public officials.
• One's given name is informally used as a pronoun; however, as the situations one would use one's own given name pronominally are generally only among friends and family, it is not the given name itself but a hypocoristic form that is used as such.
• śaṃḫe (or rarely the full form śaniḫe), literally meaning "[my]self", is used informally as a first person singular pronoun, and can be perceived as moderately rude when not used among close friends.
• midū is a neutral or semi-formal pronoun generally used by males only; originally, it meant “servant” in a language of late classical Śubhāla, but does not carry much of a self-deprecating meaning in contemporary Dundulanyä, being instead perceived as rude in formal situations where there is a legal difference in status (as with public officials or judges). It is normally used by school pupils talking to their teacher and by PhD students talking to their professors – in written form, they generally refer to themselves as yuna – but is perceived as rude when used by other university students towards professors (in both oral and written form). It is also acceptable, and often used – especially in Jūhma – by sons towards their mothers and older female members of the family.
• bāna (originally meaning "side") is mostly a female equivalent of midū, however, it is generally considered slightly higher, being also used in most, but not all, contexts with a legal status difference – with most public officials, but not judges – or by students towards professors, where a male would be perceived rude using midū.
• nai (most likely a vṛddhi derivation from √ne- "to say") is a nearly exclusively feminine pronoun used in formal contexts by women when talking to men. The same word is also sometimes found as a second-person pronoun reciprocally used by men towards women, although most commonly with honorifics.
• nämona is a pronoun which has different connotations depending on whether it is used by women or men. As a feminine pronoun, it is quite informal and especially used by adolescent girls and older women with close friends, as an alternative to the hypocoristic given name. As a masculine pronoun, it is quite formal, having more or less the same formality as midū, but used more often with strangers.
• cañśe is a nearly universally masculine first person pronoun which is broadly a male equivalent of nämona: it is used informally by adolescent kids and by older males in informal settings with very close (generally also male) friends, generally alternating with the hypocoristic given name; it is also quite often used by sons when speaking to older male members of the family. In Northern Lusaṃrīte and some of the outlying islands, as well as parts of the inland Śusopai (Western Lusaṃrīte), it is also used by females.
• hain (likely from √hind- "to listen") is used, almost exclusively in the spoken language, as a masculine pronoun by male university students talking to professors as well as more broadly when talking to professors, artists, and scientists to emphasize the difference in knowledge. It is also sometimes used by females talking to older female members of the family.

Second person pronouns

Note that the list below includes pronominal forms, not the single honorific titles — which are more properly included as third person forms.

• svo + given name, the general polite form.
• svo + given name + an appropriate title, similar to the above but more polite. During the course of the conversation the title is progressively omitted, resulting in the above form, due to some honorific formulae being quite long.
• svo + title, quite formal and bookish alternative to the above.
• The appropriate honorific formula for certain titles and offices: the most polite usage, usually progressively reduced to svo + given name during the course of a conversation.
• Given name alone: used in semi-formal speech between colleagues and friends with a moderate degree of acquaintance; can be or is rude otherwise. People who generally use the informal name (see below) for one another generally revert to use the given name in semi-formal contexts.
  Note that using the given name, or any other form including the personal name, is considered especially rude as a form of address towards older family members or family members of the same generation who are not siblings — such as brothers or sisters-in-law, unless they're close friends.
• Informal name (hypocoristic), used in informal speech among friends, siblings, (close) cousins, partners, and all family members of a younger generation.
• Kinship term alone, used for older family members or non-siblings – excluding cousins^[M.4] – of the same generation.
• nai (also used as a feminine first person pronoun) is used as a second person pronoun in the reverse context, in formal speech by men addressing women. Most commonly it is used in the honorific form svo nai or svo + given name + nai.

Possessive suffixes

Each person has its respective possessive suffix, which are clitics mostly used to denote possession on nouns.

Possessive suffixes are added to the head of the noun phrase (Dundulanyä does not have Suffixaufnahme), after any case ending but before any conjunctional clitic:

• ñältah; ñältahbu — sister; my sister
• nādaśrūseya cända itta nādaśrūseɂe śyūda. — Your (sg.) bike is orange, while his/her bike is black.
• āyome ga tūfabu tūfayaś? — Is that my ball or your ball?
• naviṣyoṭu hine ga padacyūsebu. — This is my favourite book. (lit.: "among books, this is my favourite")

An explicit possessor is marked used the bound form. Typically, this means using third person clitics, but not exclusively so:

• līdad nādaśrūseɂe — the teacher's bike
• buneyev pūnuḍuhin — the two older sisters' jobs
• dundulanyä ḫamfafa — the Dundulanyä language (lit.: "the language of us, the Dundulanyä")

Bound forms can also be marked with possessive clitics on their own:

• līdadrān nādaśrūseɂe — their teacher's bike
• buneyevbu pūnuḍuhin — my two older sisters' jobs

Correlatives

Dundulanyä has a fairly regular system of correlatives, distinguishing nine types – proximal (close to speaker), medial (close to hearer), distal (far from both speaker and hearer, or remote in time), interrogative, negative/elective existential (depending on sentence polarity), assertive existential, universal, positive alternative, and negative alternative – in twelve categories – adnominal, pronominal (thing), pronominal (person), [person or thing] owner of, time, place, destination, origin, way, reason, quality, quantity.

See the section on correlative syntax above for the usage of these forms.

Table notes:

1. The idu-series of correlatives has a negative meaning in negative sentences, elective existential in positive ones.
2. -rūm correlatives are are bound forms that mark possession, e.g. hirūm naviṣyaɂe "this [person]'s book", idurūm naviṣyaɂe "no one's book", berūm naviṣyaɂe? "whose book is this?" (lit. "who is the owner of [the] book?"). As such, they are always used together with a third-person (generally singular) possessive suffix.

The negative/elective existential, universal and positive alternative series can for thing (pronominal) and person can also take dual number:

• idumive, idoneve "either, neither";
• yaiveve, yāyukaneve "both";
• viṣāmive, viṣkaṇeve "the other one".

Dundulanyä is one of the few human Eventoan languages – together with the other ancient languages grouped as East Taktapṣaikhulu languages, a few other languages scattered in southern Lusaṃrīte, and a handful of others around the world, as well as those which have had considerable influence by Dundulanyä itself – with a pure duodecimal numeral system.

Numerals (sg. dhujāvam, pl. dhujāvāmi) have six different forms: cardinal, ordinal, collective, distributive, adverbial/multiplicative, and fractionary. The numbers from 1 to 4 have separate adverbial multiplicative forms, while all other ones have an invariable form used both as adverbial and "adjectival" multiplicatives. Cardinals from 1 to B and their compounds decline for case; collectives, multiplicatives, and fractionaries always decline, while ordinals are only declined if used as substantives. Distributives do not decline.

All numeral roots in general usage are native, with the exception of zero, which is a learned borrowing from Lannä b̃atha "nothing".

See also the above section on numeral syntax.

As for the two forms for the numeral "one", emi is used in disjunctive counting – count-ins or countdowns – while emibe is used elsewhere. Compounds always have the full form, i.e. forms such as *hälimūmāyemi do not exist, only hälimūmāyemibe.

Some compound words, especially technical and scientific ones, use Lannä morphemes for the quantities from 1 to A (though from 5 onwards they're rarer): khyu- 1, nap̃a- 2, dläku- 3, käht- 4, jändä- 5, m̃uk- 6, häṣeth- 7, ṣäṣän- 8, thävaku- 9, yaitlu- A.

Numbers from 20₁₂ above are simply made by compounding teens and units with the appropriate sandhi changes, like 21₁₂ (25₁₀) hälimūmāyemibe, and then hälimūmairirä, hälimūmaikiṅka, and so on.

The other dozens are:

• 30 (36₁₀) kiṅkamūmai
• 40 (48₁₀) nältamūmai
• 50 (60₁₀) śulkmūmai
• 60 (72₁₀) tuɂṛmūmai
• 70 (84₁₀) chīcämūmai
• 80 (96₁₀) mbulmūmai
• 90 (108₁₀) ḍor̃mūmai
• A0 (120₁₀) tāldamūmai
• B0 (132₁₀) ṣūṇḍmūmai
• and 100 (144₁₀) trāṣoḍa.

13₁₂ originally meant "one finger/three in the second [dozen]", where the -hälī part is a worn form of hälinaika.

Numbers from 100₁₂ to BBB₁₂ are still compounds, e.g. trāṣoḍaimibe, trāṣoḍarirä, and so on.

The other dozenal hundreds are:

• 200 (288₁₀) rirätrāṣoḍa
• 300 (432₁₀) kiṅkatrāṣoḍa
• 400 (576₁₀) nältitrāṣoḍa
• 500 (720₁₀) śulkatrāṣoḍa
• 600 (864₁₀) tuɂlatrāṣoḍa
• 700 (1008₁₀) chīcätrāṣoḍa
• 800 (1152₁₀) mbultrāṣoḍa
• 900 (1296₁₀) ḍor̃atrāṣoḍa
• A00 (1440₁₀) tāldatrāṣoḍa
• B00 (1584₁₀) ṣūḍantrāṣoḍa.

1.000 (1728₁₀) is śāyāja and numbers above are separate words, without sandhi, e.g. 1.001 śāyāja emibe, 6.2A9 (10785₁₀) tuɂla śāyāja rirätrāṣoḍatāldamūmaiḍor̃a.

Note that 2.000₁₂ may be either one of śāyājeve, rirä śāyāja – the most common one – or (only emphatically) rirä śāyājeve.

The other divisions – numbers over BB.BBB₁₂ – are based on groups of two digits: the two most commonly used ones in common speech are 1.00.000 (248.832₁₀) – a raice – and 1.00.00.000 (35.831.808₁₀) – a lallaraice. The following two groups have their separate words, but are quantities rarely used in common speech: 1.00.00.00.000 (12⁹) (5.159.780.352₁₀) is a tūśvāna and 1.00.00.00.00.000 (12¹¹) (743.008.370.688₁₀) a lallatūśvāna.

Traditional Dundulanyä grammar only recognizes a single part of speech called "particles" (riṇūmyoba, pl. riṇūmyobai, literally "helper(s)") which includes conjunctions, postpositions, and interjections.

Many Dundulanyä particles are grammaticalized usages of other words, some of them no longer being used in their original meaning in contemporary use.

Nominal clitics

The following particles are clitics added to the end of nouns; they are all conjunctive particles that do not require any particular case of a noun. They are exclusively used with nouns, pronouns or numerals, not verbs. Most such clitic particles are added to all nouns they refer to.

• -cu ... -cu — and (in incomplete listings – cf. -t) — e.g. nilāḍacu śusopacu "East and West [and the other cardinal points]"; yuṅgaccu śilomaccu cyavūh "I want a guava, a papaya[, and...]".
• -in ... -in — exclusive or; either ... or. Note that it undergoes irregular sandhi, combining with a preceding -a to the highest grade; e.g. yuṅgain śilomain "either the guava or the papaya".
• -ka ... -ka — inclusive or; e.g. yuṅgaka śilomaka "the guava or the papaya [or something else]".
• -t ... -t — and (in complete listings – cf. -cu) — e.g. vyānat māhanat "left and right"; amamūt mamūtrat niyānit "mom, aunt, and grandma"; yuṅgatat śilomatat cyavūh "I want [only] a guava and a papaya". This nominal clitic has the emphatic standalone form te.

Verbal clitics

The following particles are clitics that, unlike the former, are added to the end of verbs, in their last slot. Verbal clitics can also be combined, sometimes forming contractions. Aside for their usual clitic form, each of these has an emphatic standalone form that is inserted in the Wackernagel position.

• -ṅ (-no after consonants; emphatic nāṅ) — and; added after the second verb — e.g. śilomat imūnī gilśat nundhūnīṅ "3SG ate a papaya and drank gilśa".
• -ec (emphatic: cai) — then, implying consecutivity of two actions — e.g. śilomat imūnī gilśat nundhūnīyec "3SG ate a papaya, then drank gilśa". It can combine with -no to form -nāc "and then".
• -ās (emphatic: sā) — but — e.g. śilomat iyaṃsūnī up̃ap̃at imūnīyās "3SG wanted to eat a papaya, but ate an up̃ap̃a".
• -d (emphatic: dā) — also, too, furthermore — e.g. khurūrap dṛśūrapad "we sang, and we danced too."
• -ś (emphatic: īśa) — polar question marker — e.g. emeni khorūś? "Is Emeni singing?/Does Emeni sing?"

Non-clitic conjunctions

The following are true conjunctions which stand alone instead of being cliticized to nouns or verbs, and are positioned between the clauses they conjoin.

• didya, meaning "and", "also", "too" between sentences, as a different usage of the adverb/adjective-like word otherwise meaning "more".
• fä and bon respectively meaning "yes" and "no", used according to the polarity of the question.
• ga, the copula, is a particle in its adpositive usage, as in e.g. līlah ga marta "city of Līlah, Līlah city".
• itta is a conjunctive particle, translatable as "and", "meanwhile" or "while": nādaśrūseya cända itta nādaśrūseɂe śyūda. "Your (sg.) bike is orange, while his/her bike is black". When preceded by a negated statement, it means "but, instead": yuna idu emeni itta imāma. "I am not Emeni, [I am] Imāma".
• kuka — and, amongst others; while similar to the clitic -cu, it is more emphatic and generally only used together with plural nouns (or singularia tantum, see the second example), and comes after the last of the nouns it refers to. It can be more accurately rendered with periphrases such as "[things] like ..."; e.g. lalāruṇai fanēyai kuka ga irāḍai "Lalāruṇai and capybaras, amongst others, are animals"; nāra maɂiḍa kuka idu dambū itta mugba. "[Foodstuffs] like sorghum or rice are not fruits, but cereals."
• lakā functions as a conjunction meaning "at [the] moment", in which case it correlates two sentences, particularly in non-perfect clauses building sentences with pluperfect meaning. When the correlated sentence (coming after lakā) is not perfect, then it usually carries the meaning of "as soon as" — e.g. ilīya lakā ... "as soon as (s)he was born ..."
• mäne — because, for. It is used sentence-finally: bhayah mäne "because I care".
• patsarā — again and again. It is placed right before the verb: patsarā bhayah "I keep caring".
• trī — then, as a consequence; used in conditional sentences.

Postpositions

Postpositions are a class of particles that form the head of a nominal phrase, requiring the governed noun to be either in bound form or in a specific case. Some postpositions are lexicalized forms of nouns or verbs.

• araṇa (+ bound form (accusative in formal usage)) is an ornative particle, originally a perfect form of the class 0 root √raṇ- "to equip, to confer" — e.g. dvārmev araṇa līve (formal: dvārmeyītha araṇa līve) "two-room flat".
• ba (+ direct case) is the explicit topic marker, marking a topic which otherwise has no syntactical role in the sentence.
• funā (+ ablative case) is a particle meaning "like", "as", or less commonly "in the shape of"; the latter is closer to its etymology, being the locative of fune "shape" — e.g. amamūvūbu funā "like my mother".
• inyo (+ direct case or a subjunctive verb) is the benefactive marker, marking the benefited argument when the verb is not in benefactive-trigger voice. If used with a subjunctive verb, means "in order to", with a nuance of hope — the bare subjunctive already has a supine meaning.
• mon (+ essive case) is an exessive particle, having the meaning of "from a given state", often correlating to past nominal tense. Its usage is described in the Syntax section among the usage of the essive case.
• rat (+ direct case or a subjunctive verb) is the antibenefactive marker, marking the anti-benefited argument when the verb is not in antibenefactive-trigger voice. If used with a subjunctive verb it means "to avoid X".
• se (+ essive case) is a translative particle, having the meaning of "into a given state", often correlating to future nominal tense; it is the opposite of mon. Its usage is described in the Syntax section among the usage of the essive case.
• sure (+ bound form or a subjunctive verb) means "without", e.g. giṣṭhib sure "without anger, without getting angry".
• tho (+ direct case or subjunctive verb) means "on, of, concerning, on the subject of, about".
• va is included among postpositions, however, it is peculiar due to the fact it cannot be used in nominal phrases but only in verbal ones. It is the negative particle, and requires an irrealis verb.
• vai (+ essive case) is the comitative "with" — e.g. ñältību vai "with my sister".

Temporal particles

See the page on Dundulanyä calendar and time, section Expressions of time.

Emphatic particles

Emphatics are a subclass of particles which are used, usually sentence-finally, in order to convey particular feelings of the speaker about the statement.

• äre means "even", marking a positive emphasis (e.g. länonaisā äre ḫamfa! "(S)he even speaks Lẹẹnọ!"), cf. its opposite idūre.
• de is used to give a sentence, especially a command or a proposition, an informal tone — e.g. saṃslīṣya ānat myūviṣyūm de... "I'll just take whatever's coming to me..." or laun de "just [calm down and] take a walk around [here]."
• dī is quite similar to de, but emphasizes a cute or endearing tone — e.g. salaunū dī! "hey, just come here!" or (hä,) jalnā, saṃtvaunū dī! "so call me, maybe!"
• hä is a basic declarative particle when used sentence-finally; it is often used sentence-initially as an introduction (much like "you know, ...") or elsewhere as a generic filler.
• idūre means "not even", marking a negative emphasis (e.g. taheṅgdū va idūre... "(S)he isn't even listening..."), cf. its opposite äre.
• inē is an introductory particle, e.g. "so".
• memēn (sometimes memen) is a tag question expecting a positive answer, e.g. kaṅga lailulu memēn? "you're from Līlah, aren't you?"
• muhon is a tag question much like memēn, but is used when the speaker is in doubt and/or expects a contradictory answer, e.g. ṣṭhīṭaṅ drūṃś muhon? "did I do it yesterday, or...?"
• nā is a generic filler (cf. "I mean"), often combined with hä, e.g. nā (hä) ānū cāhin śodah! "I mean, I already know it!"
• nimā is an introductory particle, the same as inē.
• o expresses either surprise, when at the beginning of a sentence, or that the fact is considered annoying, when at the end — e.g. o sebāre adrūva "wow, (s)he's done it again!" vs. sebāre adrūva o "oh no, (s)he's done it again!"
• pau is a filler with a meaning similar to ton, but it is more properly translated as emphasizing that the speaker considers the statement as a general truth or a widely accepted thing, e.g. ālīce dīdika pau "yeah, everybody knows (s)he acts that way/does that kind of things."
• sāṭ expresses the speaker's doubt about the honesty of the expressed action, e.g. oṅgodvē dṛmin sāṭ "Oṅgodu did it for me, but I don't believe that's what he really wanted" or "as if Oṅgodu really did it for me!"
• ton is a fairly colloquial particle emphasizing that the fact expressed is considered obvious — e.g. tätak spūn ton "I drove home [what else could I do?]", naviṣitūkthā jallan ton "huh, I was at the library, nothing else".

Noun-forming morphemes

There are four morphemes that are used to form general derivatives from verbal roots: -a, -vu, -ib-e and -uḍu. The first two are generally unproductive nowadays (even though a terminal -a is often added to the end of loanwords, it is not considered to be this morpheme), while the latter two are still somewhat used in new coinings. All four morphemes are used with the zero-grade (ślūtya) root.

• lel- (to live) → lila (person; living thing)
• jo- (to hurry) → jūva (hurry) (with epenthetic -v- due to regular sandhi)
• tvorg- (to fear) → tūrgibe (fear)
• mord- (to promise) → murdibe (promise)
• ḫamf- (to express oneself) → ḫamfa (language)
• nyäɂ- (to laugh) → nyäɂvu (laugh) (also nyäɂa)
• dhā- (to let, permit) → dhauḍu (permission)
• ṣrop- (to honor, celebrate) → ṣropuḍu (praise)
• tamb- (to kiss) → tambuḍu (kiss)
• lav- (to go, walk) → lavibe (walk)

-(i)ḫ-e (first apophonical declension) sometimes marks a result of the action denoted by a verb root, but commonly has unpredictable meanings (even agents, particularly body parts).

• lel- (to live) → lelḫe (life)
• rañj- (to name, identify, mark) → rañjiḫe (name; noun)
• tuḫ- (to beat) → tuḫḫe (heart)
• yam- (to eat) → yamiḫe (meal)

-ta has a similar meaning (or unpredictability) as -(i)ḫ-e, but often implies a sense of collectiveness, or an abstract state. Used with the middle-grade (būcūya) root.

• ṣar- (to rule, govern) → ṣarta (government, rule; in compounds: -cracy)
• śod- (to know, understand) → śodda (knowledge; in compounds: -logy)
• ni-sākh- (to create, produce) → nisāktha (production, artifact; the works of an artist)

-uṣ-a (second apophonical declension) forms meaning related to qualities, but sometimes also something used for a determinate action.

• bhaṭ- (to expand, swell, bloat) → bhaṭuṣa (expansion, swelling)
• kṛs- (to wait) → kṛsuṣa (wait)
• meś- (to see) → meśuṣa (visibility)

-na (-ra after t or d; -iyāna after Cy; -uvāna after Cv; -ṝna with a preceding ṛ), with a middle-grade root, is the most common suffix denoting qualities.

• meś- (to see) → meśña (sight)
• ne- (to say, tell, speak) → nena (voice)
• śoc- (to clean) → śocña (cleanliness)
• dhomy- (to hope) → dhomiyāna (hope)
• prā-nart- (to imagine, foresee) → prānartra (imagination; clairvoyance)

-ūmma, with middle grade apophony, is a rarer suffix with a meaning overlapping to -uṣ-a.

• pūn- (to work) → pūnūmma (work [a relationship between employer and employee])
• bhe- (to cure, care for) → bhayūmma (caring)
• dar- (to do) → darūmma (action; verb)
• rav- (to open) → ravūmma (width, breadth)

-anah (-aṇah due to retroflex assimilation by a preceding r; -am̃ah due to linguolabial assimilation by a preceding syllable), with middle grade apophony, denotes an act or process, or its tangible manifestation (see third example).