There are N parts of speech: nouns, determiners, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions.
Nouns are singular by default. They can be made plural by adding the suffix -tin, e.g. waldantin, "writers."
Had is like "the."
Verbs have suffixes to agree with the person.
| |
1st person |
2nd person |
3rd person
|
| Singular |
-u |
-o |
-a
|
| Dual |
-um |
-om |
-am
|
| Plural |
-un |
-on |
-an
|
Tenses are formed by markers after the verb. A verb by itself, without any marker, is in the present indefinite tense, e.g. razu, "I write."
| |
Simple |
Habitual |
Progressive |
Perfect |
Perfect progressive
|
| Past |
ga ("I wrote") |
ga la ("I used to write") |
gan ("I was writing") |
ga lo ("I had written") |
gan lo ("I had been writing")
|
| Present |
ka ("I write") |
ka la ("I write") |
kan ("I am writing") |
ka lo ("I have written") |
kan lo ("I have been writing")
|
| Future |
fa ("I will write") |
fa la ("I will write") |
fan ("I will be writing") |
fa lo ("I will have written") |
fan lo ("I will have been writing")
|
We need markers for modality (allowed to = may, supposed to = must/should, conditional = would, possible = could, necessary = need/have to, desire = want to, responsibility = allow/cause to, etc).
Adjectives come after the determiner and before the noun, e.g. had dek man, "the tall man."
- wal + dan = write + do-er = writer
- wal + om = write + thing = book
- ba + wal = place + write = office
- ba + wal + om = place + write + thing = library
Clause and sentence structure
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Jangli is a SOV (subject–object–verb) language. It is also pro-drop; subject pronouns can be omitted when they can be inferred from the verb's conjugation.
Dependent clauses come after the determiner and adjectives, but before the noun, and are introduced by ko, which is like "that;" e.g. had dek ko walom wala ga man, "the tall man that wrote a book." Or: Had ko Jane pe it lata ga la at balat maku, "I work at the school that Jane used to teach in."
