Building Grammar
Constructed Languages
Course 1 · Chapter 9 · Building Grammar
Chapter 8 gave Meren its sounds. Now it needs a grammar: the rules for turning words into sentences. A grammar looks large, but a designer only makes a handful of big choices. Each one matches a contrast you met in Introduction to Linguistics, Chapters 4 and 5, so this chapter is partly a revision and partly a set of decisions to make.
Choice 1: Word Order
The basic order of subject (S), verb (V) and object (O) is the first choice. Of the six possible orders, a few are very common, and the rest are rare:
| Order | Example language | Pattern |
|---|---|---|
| SVO | English, Esperanto (default) | "I eat fish" |
| SOV | Japanese, Turkish, Hungarian (neutral sentences vary) | "I fish eat" |
| VSO | Welsh | "Eat I fish" |
| OVS | Klingon | "Fish eat I" |
Klingon's object-verb-subject order is a deliberate choice: it is very rare in natural languages and so it makes the language feel alien, which is the effect the designer wanted. The order also comes with other choices, since languages that put the verb last usually put the describing word before the noun and use postpositions (small words after the noun, such as "river-in") instead of prepositions. Keep these in step, because natural languages tend to line them up.
Choice 2: How Words Change
The next choice is how much words change to show their job. This was the typology of Chapter 4 of the Introduction:
| Type | How it works | Example | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolating | Words do not change; separate small words do the work | Toki Pona | Very easy to learn; relies on context |
| Agglutinative | Each piece of meaning is a separate suffix, glued in a fixed order | Esperanto, Klingon, Hungarian | Regular and easy to analyse |
| Fusional | One ending carries several meanings at once | Latin, German, most Romance languages | Compact, but harder to learn and more irregular |
Most conlang designers choose agglutinative, because every suffix has one job, so a learner can build and take apart words by rule. That is the style of both Esperanto and Klingon.
Choice 3: Plurals, Cases, Tense and the Rest
A grammar must say how it marks four things: number (one or many), role (who did what to whom), time, and negation and questions. Each can be marked by a suffix, a separate word, or word order:
| Feature | Esperanto | Klingon | Toki Pona |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plural | suffix -j | suffix (-pu', -mey, -Du' by noun type) | none: context |
| Who did what | object suffix -n | word order and verb prefix | particles li, e |
| Tense | verb endings -as, -is, -os | none: time words instead | none: time words instead |
| Negation | word ne | verb suffix -be' | word ala |
The Naturalism Dial
There is one more decision that is not about forms but about style. A fully regular grammar (every verb alike, no exceptions) is easy to learn but looks artificial. Natural languages are irregular in exactly the words people use most, because common words wear down over time: English is/was/been, Spanish ser/soy/fue. A designer chooses a point on a dial:
- Fully regular: best for an auxlang or an engelang.
- A few irregularities in the most common words: gives an artlang the feel of age. This is the dial that Chapter 6 on Tolkien described.
Meren Grammar: A Sketch
Here are the grammar decisions for Meren. They fit the river-people idea: a calm, regular language with the verb at the end, like the flow of a river. The few words are enough to build the examples; the full vocabulary comes in Chapter 10.
Look for the mistake in the third example yourself: the first exercise asks you to find it. As planned in Chapter 8, stress falls on the first syllable of every word, so tekasa is TE-ka-sa.
- "A conlang grammar must be fully regular." Only if it is an auxlang or an engelang. An artlang can be irregular on purpose.
- "SVO is the natural order." It is the most familiar to English speakers, but SOV is at least as common among the world's languages.
- "More grammar means a better language." A small, consistent grammar is easier to learn and to use well.
Hands-On Exercises
Find and fix the mistake in Si merenn pasuko ke? ("Will you see the river?"), using the Meren rules and the words in the sketch. Then translate: (a) "You see the fish." (b) "I did not see the river." (c) "Will you eat fish?"
📄 View solutionDescribe the grammar type. For Esperanto, Klingon, Toki Pona and Meren, say whether each is isolating, agglutinative or fusional, and give the word order and one evidence from the chapter. Which two are closest in design?
📄 View solutionAdd a naturalism touch to Meren. Choose one very common verb (for example "be" or "go") and give it an irregular form for the past tense. Explain why a language with a long history might have such an irregular word. Then apply the relex test to a Meren sentence of your choice.
📄 View solutionChapter 9 Quick Reference
- Design choices: word order, word-change type, number/role/time/negation, naturalism
- Orders: SVO (English), SOV (Japanese), VSO (Welsh), OVS (Klingon, rare)
- Types: isolating (Toki Pona), agglutinative (Esperanto, Klingon), fusional (Latin)
- Keep the pieces in step: a verb-final language usually has postpositions
- Relex = a conlang that is another language with the words swapped
- Naturalism dial: fully regular for auxlangs; a few irregularities for artlangs
- Meren: SOV; plural -ra; object -n; past -sa; future -ko; negation ha; question ke