The Grammar of Lingwa de Planeta
The principle of facultative precision
LdP follows the principle of facultative precision in expressing grammatical meanings. It means that it is not obligatory to indicate a grammatical meaning if it may be inferred from the context. E.g. it is not obligatory to use tenses or plural form, but for precision it is possible.
Word order
Word order is direct: subject — predicate — object. An accusative particle "den" placed before the object makes it possible to change its place, e.g. for the sake of emphasis.
Nouns
Most nouns end in -a or consonants.
The basic noun form does not convey the grammatical meaning of singularity. To specify
singularity, use "un" one. In order to specify plurality, the plural form of noun may be used. Its
ending is -(e)s. If a noun ends in a vowel, add -s; otherwise add -es:
man man (male human) - manes men
gina woman — ginas women
boy boy - boys boys.
When speaking generally about a group or class of uniform objects, plural endings are not used: Bobra es animal. - Beavers are animals.
After any indication of plurality (numerals; quantifiers like "mucho" many, much, plural subject,
personal pronouns "nu" we, "li" they), as a rule, plural endings are not used:
mucho yar - many years
Li es hao jen. — They are good people.
Gender is not indicated in most nouns. If there is need to indicate sex, add particles "man-" or
"gin-": man-doga male dog, gin-dogafemale dog. There are also suffixes -o for masculine and
-ina for feminine; if a noun ends in -a, the latter is dropped, otherwise the suffix is simply added:
rega king/queen — rego king — regina queen.
In several cases different words are used for the male and female:
mata/patra — mother/father
oma/opa — grandmother/grandfather
docha/son — daughter/son
kindocha/kinson — granddaughter/grandson
tia/onkla — aunt/uncle
sinior/madam — sir/madam.
Verbs
There are two verb types: i-verbs (type 1) and other verbs (type 2).
i-verbs are the verbs that end in «consonant+i», e.g.:
vidi - to see
audi - to hear
fini - to finish
sidi - to sit
dumi - to think
fobisi - to frighten
pri — to like
chi — to eat
pi — to drink.
Monosyllabic i-verbs like pri, chi, pi constitute a specific subtype characterized by that in derivation their -i is always preserved, e.g.: chi — chier, chiing pi — pier, piing
(ср.: swimi — swimer, swiming).
Examples of type 2 verbs: jan — to know gun - to work
zun - to be occupied with, devote oneself to
shwo - to say, to speak
go - to go
yao - to want
lwo - to fall
flai - to fly
krai - to cry
prei - to pray
joi - to rejoice, be happy
jui - to enjoy, revel in
emploi - to employ
kontinu - to continue.
Verbs with prefixes fa- and mah-, which contain adjectives, are type 2 verbs too: fa-syao - to diminish, become smaller (syao small) fa-muhim - to become more important (muhim important) mah-hao - make better, improve (hao good).
The basic verb form does not convey the grammatical meaning of tense or aspect. The latters can
be specified through special particles.
Particles before the verb:
ve — future tense marker;
he — past tense marker;
zai — marker of continuous aspect;
wud — conditional marker;
gwo — remote past tense marker («some time ago, earlier in life, have been to somewhere or used to do smth»);
sal — immediate future marker («to be going to do smth.»);
yus — immediate past marker («have just done smth»; the word «yus» means «just»);
gei — marks the passive of becoming (unfinished process): dwar gei ofni — the door is being
opened.
Particles after the verb:
-te — past tense marker (means the same as he, but is handy when there are other particles
before the verb);
-she — active participle marker;
-yen — verbal adverb marker;
-ney — passive participle marker:
zwo-ney gunsa — the done work/the work being done
gunsa es zwo-ney — the work is done.
The imperative and incentive particle ba is placed after the verb: Lai ba! - Come! Nu go ba! - Let's go! Lu lai ba! - Let him come!
Negation is formed by means of particle bu. It is placed before the verb or tense particle.
Verbs in LdP may be intransitive and transitive in the same form, if this doesn't cause ambiguity.
Usually, if the verb is followed by an object, the verb is transitive, otherwise it is not:
me begin gun I begin to work — kino begin the film begins.
The prefix fa- ("to get, to become") may serve as intransitivity marker:
astoni to astonish — fa-astoni to be (become) astonished.
The causative prefix mah- may serve as transitivity marker:
lwo to fall — mah-lwo to drop.
The infinitive particle 'tu' is used to substantivise a verb: Tu samaji es tu pardoni. - To understand is to forgive.
To make a verb reflexive, add swa: woshi swa to wash oneself. To make a verb reciprocal, add mutu: lubi mutu to love each other.
There is one exceptional verb — bi to be. It has the present tense form "es" and the past tense
form "bin", in all the other cases it's "bi":
Se es hao. — This is good.
Se bin hao. — This was good.
Se ve bi hao. — This will be good.
Bi hao! — Good luck! Bless you!
Hay olo bi hao! — May everything be good!
Adjectives
Adjectives don't change. Most of them end in -e or (if derived from nouns) in -ney: forte - strong
sekret secret — sekret-ney secret, confidential.
There are also some other endings (-an, -ao). Also some adjective suffixes (-ful, -lik, -shil, -val) end in a consonant.
The adjective usually precedes the noun. However, to stress it or to add a poetic connotation it may be placed after the noun: you may say "She has large blue eyes" either as "Ela hev gran blu okos" or "Ela hev okos gran blu", or even "Ela hev gran okos blu".
The particle "lo" imparts to the adjective the meaning of general notion:
lo hao the good, what is good, lo bade the bad, what is bad, lo resta-ney the rest, lo shwo-ney the said. This particle may be dropped if there is another qualifier: olo uuparen-shwo-ney everything above-said, olo jamile everything beautiful.
If the adjective has the suffix -e, changing it to -a produces a noun with the meaning "something or somebody characterized with this quality":