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Introduction and Conventions
Murždo ki Opšari
The following pages are a description of the grammar of Rhean. There are a lot of linguistic terms used throughout the site, but each term as it applies to Rhean is explained and demonstrated with examples. You don't have to know these terms beforehand, but remember (for example) that the way Rhean uses its dative case is not the same way another language with a dative case might use it. Examples are given in Rhean and English, with an interlinear between them to show how the Rhean structures break down. It looks like this:
Myola čan yačonin olamiom.
beer-GEN three glasses-ACC drink-1SG:PAST
I drank three glasses of beer.
The interlinears are based on the Leipzig Glossing Rules (here, if you're curious) but with a few differences. The Rhean sentence is preserved intact: the morphemes aren't separated with hyphens and the text is not aligned word-by-word with the interlinear. I did make sure that one Rhean word in the text always corresponds to exactly one "word" (however many hyphens and abbreviations it includes) in the interlinear. Commas, exclamation marks, etc. are included in the interlinear if they come in the middle of a Rhean example, as this helps to give a reference point:
Toču kura! Todom surnyet!
this:way-DAT come-3SG ! here-INST hide:self-2SG:IMP
(He) is coming this way! Hide here!
Where there's a hyphen in the interlinear, that means the Rhean form separates neatly into morphemes: toču is transparently toč and -u. A colon in the interlinear usually means that the form doesn't break down neatly. All the forms of ček "to be" are treated this way: aše -> be:3SG:PAST. The pronouns are also not broken down: loǩem -> you:INST. Sometimes a colon is used when there is a neat join between pieces but the boundary is irrelevant. For example, the first person future suffix -irmi is made of a future piece -ir- and a first person piece -mi, but since -mi only ever occurs with -ir-, the whole thing can be treated as a single suffix -1SG:FUT. The colon is also used where a Rhean word has to be translated with two or more English words, like surn- 'hide:self' above.
Here are the abbreviations used in the grammar:
ACC - accusative case
(-ACC) - unmarked accusative
ADV - adverb suffix
APPOS - appositional particle e
AVP - adverbial participle
BE - "to be" suffix -igek
CAUS - causative prefix pro-
COMP - comparative
COND - conditional clause closing particle ba
DAT - dative case
EMPH - emphasis particle
FTP - future participle
FUT - future tense
GEN - genitive case
HYP - hypothetical mood
IMP - imperative
INF - infinitive
INST - instrumental
MID - middle voice prefix ji-
N - noun-making suffix such as -urz
NEG - negation particle mu
NEG- - negation prefix mi-
NOM - nominative case
OBJ - object preposition o
PASS - passive
PAST - past tense
PRP - present participle
PTP - past participle
QU - question particle ču
REL - relative clause marker -na
SUBJ - subject preposition ai
SUP - superlative
UN - "undo" prefix dan-
V - verb-maker, such
as -herak or -sacek
VOC - vocative particle a
1SG - first person singular "I" conjugation
1PL - first person plural "we" conjugation
2SG - second person singular "you / thou" conjugation
2PL - second person plural "you / y'all / youse"
conjugation
3SG - third person singular "he / she / it" conjugation
3PL - third person plural "they" conjugation