Namari language

The Namari language (Namari: なまいことば namaikotoba) is a language spoken in Likkra. It is one of the two official languages of the Kingdom of Namari, and an official language of the Kingdom of Likkra.

Namari is related to Japanese and the two languages share a significant portion of their vocabularies. However, the two languages have, at best, only partial mutual intelligibility, due to the divergent grammar of Namari, significant sound changes which set the two languages apart and the preference towards native words in Namari.

History
Records of the early history of the language are largely non-existent. As such, the early language must be reconstructed, based on what little contemporary evidence there is, as well as evidence from the modern language, Japanese and the Ryukyuan languages. It is hypothesised that Namari split from Japanese at around the third or fourth century, well after eastern Likkra was inhabited by the predecessors of the Namari people.

The Old Namari period is considered to be between c. 650 and 1180. While inscriptions and writings in Namari can be found before 650, they are too few to be of any use, and were often written in scripts ill-suited for Namari (e.g. Chinese script). During this period, the language had six vowels (/a/, /i/, /u/, /e/, /o/ and /ə/), two diphthongs (/aj/, which merged with /e/ in c. 900, and /aw/, which merged with /o/ in c. 750), and 17 consonants (consisting of the nasals /m/ and /n/, the rhotic /r/ (which is hypothesised to have been unconditionally palatalised), semivowels /w/ and /j/ and sets of four voiceless (/p/, /t/, /s/, /k/), voiced (/b/, /d/, /z/, /g/) and nasalised (/ᵐb/, /ⁿd/, /ⁿz/, /ᵑg/) obstruents). The voiced obstruents merged with their voiceless counterparts word-initially in c. 750, and with their nasalised counterparts word-medially in c. 800. Finally, /ə/ merged with /o/ in c. 1050. Old Namari syllables were strictly CV (V representing both vowels and diphthongs), with V syllables only occurring word-initially and vowel hiatus removed either by elision (merging the two vowels into a single vowel or diphthong) or epenthesis (adding a consonant such as /s/ between the vowels). Nasalised obstruents and /r/ never occurred word-initially, with all exceptions being found in loanwords.

The language during the Old Namari period greatly resembled Old Japanese, and may have been a dialect of Old Japanese. Some of the dialectal differences found in Old Namari include differences in words due to regional sound changes, and differences in grammar (e.g. the use of the Old Namari past tenses). As an example, western Old Namari dialects used yoki for "snow", while eastern dialects, reflecting their proximity to the Portal Monolith leading to Japan, used yuki, which is identical to the Western Old Japanese word for "snow" and reflects a historical sound change which raised the Proto-Japonic mid vowels */e/ and */o/ to /i/ and /u/ respectively in non-word-final positions. Another example can be found in the use of perfect forms between Old Namari dialects. Eastern dialects had two suffixes denoting the perfect (infinitive + -nu and infinitive + -ta), while western dialects only had the -ta perfect.

While this was a gradual process, Chinese loanwords appeared in Old Namari. Unlike in Japanese, these loanwords did not displace native words in most cases, and were often used side-by-side. The introduction of Chinese loanwords resulted in a change in the phonological inventory and phonotactics of Namari, introducing a set of aspirated stops alongside the voiceless and voiced/nasalised stops, and allowing a wider range of syllables to occur. These loanwords may also be indirectly responsible for the transition of Old Namari from a syllable-timed to a mora-timed language.

The Old Namari period ended upon the completion of the Likkran invasion of Namari. The period from 1180 to 1612 is considered to be the Middle Namari period, which was marked by significant changes in grammar, phonology and vocabulary. It was this period in which intervocalic /p/ was lost, paralleling a similar sound change in Japanese and the Ryukyuan languages. Influence from Guruni and Nodaimese, both Continental Nodaimic languages, resulted in a significant change in verbal morphology, introducing the nine-tense system still in use today, and reinforced the use of dual and plural markers as number markers (as opposed to collective markers, although in the modern language the dual can still be used as a collective). The case markers were reanalysed as suffixes.

One of the most significant changes which distinguished Namari from Japanese occurred in the Middle Namari period. In c. 1300, all palatalised /r/ changed unconditionally into /j/. This, combined with the fact that in Old Namari, all /r/ in native words were palatalised, meant that /r/ was completely lost in native words and /r/ could only be found in loanwords where /r/ was never palatalised (i.e. not before /i/ or /j/). Also, in c. 1400, intervocalic /w/ was lost. Namari morphophonology began to change as well, with perfect and participle forms in athematic (quinquegrade) verbs undergoing sound changes.

The Middle Namari period ended upon the end of the Second Likkran War. Modern Namari is considered to begin in 1612. In this period the language began to resemble its current form. Final /i/ and /u/ after /n/ was lost (unless the /n/ was geminated), resulting in changes in the declension of nouns which had ended in -nu (it went into the second declension, with nominative -ni and genitive -nuno/-nuga, nouns ending in -ni were unaffected; this came about because -i was a nominative marker for athematic nouns), and the verbal conjugation system regularised, eliminating the n-irregular category and merging monograde verbs with polysyllabic roots into their bigrade counterparts.

The standard variety of the modern language can be considered a koiné. Maintained by the Likkra-Namari Joint Language Academy, the standard language combines aspects of dialects spoken throughout Likkra and Namari and was first codified in 1919. The academy has, among other things, modernised the orthography to align it with actual pronunciation (e.g. oshiu, meaning "to teach/to tell", was originally written as をしふ woshipu; in the modern orthography, it is now おしう), and eliminated the use of Han characters, instead mandating that all texts be written entirely in kana.

Consonants

 * Namari /w/ is labiovelar in articulation.
 * Namari /r/ is an unusual consonant; while it is an alveolar or postalveolar flap, its laterality is undefined (both [ɺ] and [ɾ] occur in free variation).
 * The moraic nasal (denoted as /ɴ/ and written as  or ) does not have a defined place of articulation. It is [m] before labial consonants, [n] before alveolar stops, /θ/ and /r/, and [ŋ] before velar consonants. For other cases, it forms a nasal vowel (see the section on nasal vowels).
 * Namari [h] is an allophone of /x/ and /ɸ/ before /a/.
 * Namari [ç] is an allophone of /x/ before /i/.
 * Namari [t͡s] occurs in free variation with [s].
 * Namari [d͡z] occurs in free variation with [z].
 * Namari [d͡ʑ] occurs in free variation with [ʑ].

Namari traditionally split the stops into three categories: voiceless (Namari: naoto), aspirated (Namari: ikioto) and voiced (Namari: aioto). In the modern language, though, the aspirated consonants have become fricatives (/x/, /θ/, /ɸ/) and in many cases the voiceless consonants are aspirated and the voiced consonants voiceless (the original pronunciations are preserved only after /ɴ/). The following table details the actual pronunciation of voiceless, aspirated and voiced stops in each environment:

All consonants except the semivowels /j/ and /w/ can be palatalised. Note that aspirated consonants revert to their voiceless counterparts when they are palatalised.

However, note the following special cases: Additionally, some dialects palatalise /k/ and /x/ to /t͡ɕ/ (instead of /kʲ/) and /g/ to /ʑ/ (instead of /gʲ/).

The consonants /s/, /z/, /t/, /θ/ and /d/ are always palatalised before /i/ (except in very recent loanwords for /t/, /θ/ and /d/).

Namari originally had labialised consonants (/kʷ/, /xʷ/ and /gʷ/), however, they have changed to labial consonants (/p/, /w/ and /b/).

Vowels
A distinctive feature of Namari is its large vowel inventory. While Japanese only has five vowels and for much of its history never had more than six, extensive monophthongisation in Namari resulted in a large vowel inventory, especially for long vowels. Namari has five short vowels, ten long vowels, five overlong vowels, six short diphthongs and six long diphthongs.

Short vowels
Namari has five short vowels (along with one allophonic variant of /u/):

[ɯ] is an allophone of /u/ after /j/. Some speakers pronounce /a/ as [ɑ].

Long vowels and diphthongs
Long vowels: Note that the vowel denoted as [ɛː] (from /ai/) is often pronounced closer to [æː] by many speakers, and [ɤː] (/eu/) may be closer to [əː] to many speakers. Some speakers pronounce /aː/ as [ɑː]. [ɯː] is not considered a phoneme because it is only found after [j] or palatalised consonants, and [uː] is never found after [j] or palatalised consonants.

Overlong vowels:

Namari has six diphthongs, all falling: [ai̯], [ui̯], [oi̯], [au̯], [iu̯], [eu̯]. The [j] in [jɯː] (/iu/) is not considered part of the vowel (it triggers palatalisation instead).

The long vowels and diphthongs are formed according to the following table (a "." is a syllable boundary):

The formation of long vowels and diphthongs normally occurs from the beginning of the word to the end (e.g. oei is [oi̯.i], not *[o.eː]), however, the formation of long and overlong vowels from repeated vowel phonemes is prioritised (e.g. oeeu is [o.eːu̯], not *[oi̯.ɤː] and would be written oēu). If a long vowel resulting from repeated vowels is then followed by /i/ or /u/, it may form a long diphthong (e.g. ōi is [oːi̯]). The six long diphthongs are [aːi̯], [uːi̯], [oːi̯], [aːu̯], [iːu̯] and [eːu̯].

For sequences of repeated vowels:
 * 1 vowel: short vowel (a is [a])
 * 2 vowels: long vowel (aa is [aː] and written as ā)
 * 3 vowels: overlong vowel (aaa is [aːː] and written as â)
 * 4 vowels: two long vowels (aaaa is [aː.aː] and written as āā)
 * 5 vowels: overlong vowel followed by a long vowel (aaaaa is [aːː.aː] and written as âā)
 * For more vowels, they will be written as follows: ââ, âāā, ââā, âââ, ââāā, etc.

Nasal vowels
In Namari, vowels are nasalised with compensatory lengthening if a syllable ends with a nasal either at the end of a word or before /j/ or /w/. Note that even if the nasalised vowel is not preceded by a consonant, it does not participate in vowel assimilation with the preceding vowel (e.g. ae /ae/ would be pronounced [ai̯] but aen /aeɴ/ would be pronounced as [a.ẽː]). Note that compensatory lengthening still occurs before /s/ and /z/, but nasality is lost. Note that long and overlong vowels are not nasalised, and the moraic nasal after the vowel will be realised as [ŋ] (aēn would be pronounced as [a.eːŋ]).

Sandhi
In Namari, there are a number of phonological processes which occur across morpheme boundaries. Collectively, these processes are referred to as sandhi (Namari: tunae).

Consonant gemination
When two morphemes are combined, if the first morpheme ends in a -ku, -tu or -pu it can assimilate with the initial consonant (k-, s-, t-, n-, p-, m- and palatalised, voiced and aspirated versions of these consonants can be geminated) of the second morpheme, forming a geminated consonant. This only occurs in derivational morphology. Note that geminated voiced consonants are actually realised as -ng-, -nd- and -mp-; and that gemination of /z/ will result in an irregular change (due to /ɴ/ being lost before /z/ and resulting in compensatory lenghtening of the previous vowel, however, it will still be written as -nz-). Application of this process is not consistent, and often there are variations with and without assimilation.

Intervocalic voicing
When two morphemes are combined in derivational morphology, it is possible that the initial consonant of the second morpheme will become voiced, in a process referred to as rendaku (Namari: tunaenigoshi). While for some morphemes the form used in compounds is always voiced (e.g. piyoi (clear) will always become -biyoi) and some morphemes become voiced depending on the intended meaning, others follow a set of rules as to whether voicing occurs: Note that these rules are not always adhered to (however, for compounds which are not names, the above rules state exactly when voicing does not occur). In particluar, names often have variations with and without voicing.
 * If the second morpheme contains any voiced obstruent in any location, voicing does not occur (this is referred to as Lyman's Law). A voiced obstruent is any of /g/, /z/, /d/ and /b/ and any palatalised forms of these consonants.
 * If the final mora of the first morpheme contains a voiced obstruent or /s/ (or its palatalised form), voicing does not occur. If the first morpheme ends in a consonant, rendaku does not apply as another sandhi rule (cross-morpheme assimilation of consonants) takes over.
 * If the resulting word is a copulative compound (e.g. yama (mountain) + kā (river) → yamakā (mountains and rivers), cf. yamagā (mountain's river)) then voicing does not occur.

Cross-morpheme assimilation of consonants
If the first morpheme ends in a consonant, this can create a geminated consonant at the morpheme boundary. Only the initial consonant of the second morpheme determines if this occurs, and what the resulting consonant will be (e.g. k- can result in either -kk- or -ng-, g- always results in -ng-, y- results in a palatalised version of the first morpheme's final consonant). Assimilation cannot occur if either consonant at the morpheme boundary is /r/ (unless the first morpheme ends in -r and the second morpheme begins with y-, in which case -ry- will be formed), the final consonant of the first morpheme is aspirated (note that final /j/ and /w/ are considered vowels, not consonants) or the final consonant is voiced and the initial consonant of the second morpheme is aspirated. In this case, an epenthetic /u/ is inserted at the morpheme boundary instead.

This rule is particularly important for third declension (athematic) nouns.

Orthography
Namari is primarily written using kana (Namari: kanna) script borrowed from Japan. Like in Japanese, Namari uses two different sets of kana: hiragana (Namari: piyaganna) and katakana (Namari: katakanna). Hiragana is the main script used in Namari, with katakana only used in the same way italics are used in English (unlike in Japanese, where katakana is also used to denote loanwords from more recent sources such as English, Portuguese and Mandarin Chinese).

In the past, Han characters (Namari: hanji) or Chinese characters were also used in writing, in much the same way as in Japanese (e.g. 書く for kaku, 見い for mī, 赤かい for akakai and 人が for pitoga). However, orthographic reforms undertaken by the governemts of Likkra and Namari in the early 20th century have all but eliminated the use of Han characters in the language. By the early 21st century, Han characters are only used for disambiguation in formal documents, and only if the document text must be unambiguous. Note that in Namari, character education is still undertaken due to Japanese being compulsory at schools.

Kana
Both sets of kana can be arranged in a 10x5+1 grid. This arrangement is referred to in Namari as esone. Each consonant represents a "row" (although they are columns in the following tables, they can be arranged so that the consonants run top-to-bottom instead of right-to-left) named after the first kana in each row (a-row, ka-row etc.), and each vowel represents a "section" (represented as rows running top-to-bottom in the following tables; they can instead be arranged as columns left-to-right).

Hiragana:

Katakana:

The /ji/, /wu/ and /je/ spaces are not filled, as they are equivalent to /i/, /u/ and /e/, respectively. The /wo/ kana (equivalent to /o/) are in brackets as they are only used in the old orthography (using Han characters), and only as an accusative case marker.

Diacritics
There are two diacritics used for kana: the dakuten (Namari: dakuten, dakutem-) and the handakuten (Namari: pandakuten, pandakutem-). The dakuten is used to denote voiced consonants (/g/ from /k/, /z/ from /s/, /d/ from /t/ and /b/ from /p/), while the handakuten is used to denote aspirated consonants (/x/ from /k/, /θ/ from /t/, /ɸ/ from /p/).

Aspirated consonants:

Voiced consonants:

Small kana
There are five small kana in use in Namari: っ, ゃ, ゅ, ぇ and ょ. The っ kana (a small /tu/) indicates that the following consonant is geminated, while the other four (small /ja/, /ju/, /e/ and /jo/) represent palatalised consonants followed by their corresponding vowel when placed after a kana in the /i/ section (e.g. ちょ for cho, きゅ for kyu).

Other characters
The prolonged sound marker (ー) denotes long and overlong vowels. Long vowels are marked using one marker (e.g. かー for kā), overlong vowels using two (e.g. かーー for kâ). Note that long and overlong vowels can also be represented by repeating the vowel (using the kana in the a-row and the section corresponding to the vowel to be lengthened, e.g. かあ for kā).

Han characters
Han characters were once used to write Namari. However, after the orthographic reforms of 1919, they became all but obsolete. When they are used, they are used in a manner similar to how the characters are used in Japanese. Each character has at least one reading, and sometimes several. Almost all characters have a Sino-Namari reading (Namari: otono yomi) and many have "native" readings (Namari: oshiega yomi). The Sino-Namari readings are loanwords derived from Chinese, while "native" readings usually derive from words native to Namari (although some "native" readings are actually loanwords, typically from Japanese).

Before the 1919 reforms, people were expected to know at least 3,000 different characters to achieve literacy.

For more information on the characters themselves, see Chinese characters.

Romanisation
The following romanisation system is in place:
 * With the exception of long and overlong vowels, all vowels are written separately (with , ,, ,  representing /a/, /i/, /u/, /e/ and /o/ respectively). Long vowels are marked with a macron (ā) and overlong vowels are marked with a circumflex (â).
 * /ɴ/ is written as  unless a /p/, /ɸ/ or /b/ follows, where it is instead written as . If a vowel or /j/ follows /ɴ/, it is written as .
 * /x/ is written as , unless it follows /ɴ/ where it is instead written as .
 * /θ/ is written as, unless it is palatalised or an /i/ follows it, where it is instead written as  (representing /t͡ɕ/).
 * /ɸ/ is written as , unless /a/ follows it (and the /ɸ/ does not follow /ɴ/), where it is instead written as  (e.g. the topic marker, ぱ, is romanised as ha, however, あんぱ is romanised as ampha). All instances of /ɸ/ following /ɴ/ are written as .
 * /k/ is written as 
 * /g/ is written as <g>
 * /s/ is written as, unless it is palatalised or an /i/ follows it, where it is instead written as <sh> (representing /ɕ/).
 * /z/ is written as <z>, unless it is palatalised or an /i/ follows it, where it is instead written as <j> (representing /ʑ/).
 * /t/ is written as <t>, unless it is palatalised or an /i/ follows it, where it is instead written as <ch> (representing /t͡ɕ/).
 * /d/ is written as <d>, unless it is palatalised or an /i/ follows it, where it is instead written as <j> (representing /ʑ/).
 * /p/ is written as.
 * /b/ is written as <b>.
 * /r/ is written as <r>.
 * /n/ is written as <n>.
 * /m/ is written as <m>.
 * /j/ is written as <y>.
 * /w/ is written as <w>.
 * All palatalised consonants, unless otherwise mentioned above, are romanised with <y> following the consonant (e.g. kya for きゃ, sha for しゃ).

Nouns
Nouns in Namari decline for case (12 cases) and number (singular, dual and plural). In addition, nouns have topic and focus markers. Nouns can be split into three general declensional classes, depending on how they construct the nominative case. The first two declension classes are thematic (vowel-stem), while the third is athematic (consonant-stem). The first declension has unmarked nominatives, while the second declension constructs the nominative (and vocative) by changing the final vowel. The third declension marks the nominative with a suffix.

List of cases:
 * The nominative case (Namari: naotegata) marks the agent of the verb. It can either be unmarked, marked with -i, or marked by a change in the final vowel (-a → -e, -o → -e, -o → -i, -e → -i, -u → -i). Note that in some cases, the nominative is marked using the genitive case.
 * The accusative case (Namari: mukaiotegata) marks the direct object of the verb. It is typically marked with -o.
 * The vocative case (Namari: yobiotegata) indicates that the noun in question is being addressed. It is only used in formal and poetic language, having largely been replaced by the nominative in colloquial language. It is marked with -yo.
 * The genitive case (Namari: mochiotegata) indicates that the noun in question modifies another noun. It is typically used to signify possession. It corresponds to the English preposition 'of'. Inanimate nouns are marked for the genitive with -no, animate nouns with -ga.
 * Note that infinitive forms of verbs are considered "animate", in order to prevent confusion with the negative attributive form of the verb (since in some verbs the imperfective form, from which the negative derives, and the infinitive form are identical).
 * The dative case (Namari: moyaiotegata) marks the indirect object of the verb, or a beneficiary. It corresponds somewhat to the English preposition 'to'. It is marked with -n for thematic nouns and -ni for athematic nouns.
 * The instrumental case (Namari: michiotegata) marks the means by which the verb is performed. It corresponds to one sense of the English preposition 'with'. It is marked with -de.
 * The comitative case (Namari: tomonaiotegata) marks any noun which accompanies the agent in the action. It corresponds to the other sense of the English preposition 'with'. It is marked with -to.
 * The ablative case (Namari: kayaotegata) marks the origin of an action. It corresponds to the English preposition 'from'. It is marked with -kaya.
 * The allative case (Namari: yukiotegata) marks the destination of an action. It corresponds to the English preposition 'towards'. It is marked with -mpe for thematic nouns and -pe for athematic nouns.
 * The comparative case (Namari: yukaiotegata) marks a noun by which a comparison is made. In this sense it very roughly corresponds to the English preposition 'than'. It is marked with -yoi.
 * The terminative case (Namari: pateotegata) marks the limit of an action. It is marked with -made
 * The locative case (Namari: tokoyōtegata) marks the location in which the action is performed. It is marked with -nde for thematic nouns and -nite for athematic nouns.

Other markers:
 * The focus marker (-zu) indicates the focus of the sentence. Note that the existence of a focus marker in the main clause of a sentence forces the predicative verb into the attributive form; this process is referred to as kakari-musubi (Namari: kakai-musubi).
 * The topic marker (-ha for thematic nouns in the nominative case and all nouns in cases other than the nominative, accusative or dative, -a for athematic nouns in the nominative case, -ba in the accusative case, -mpa/-nya in the dative case) indicates the topic of the sentence.
 * The dual (-na) and plural (-ya) markers modify the number of the noun.

Declension of pito (person):

Declension of ame (rain):

Declension of pachimichi (honey):

Comparison of declensional suffixes with Old Namari noun markers
In Old Namari, case, number, topic and focus marking was done similarly, however, the markers used were invariant and not considered part of the word. None of the markers in Old Namari either changed their form or altered the base noun. Alterations such as ama~ame were often arbitrary and did not possess any significant meaning.

However, some of the declensional suffixes used in the modern language can be traced back to markers in Old Namari:

Origins of other markers:
 * The instrumental case marker (〜で -de) may be a borrowing from Japanese. Old Namari used -se and -shi, which survived in some dialects as -ji.
 * The allative case marker (〜んへ/〜へ -(m)pe) was originally -pe for all nouns and was originally not used as an allative, but a locative marker for verbs of motion. As Old Namari intervocalic /p/ underwent a sound change ([p] → [ɸ] → [h] → [∅]), the /p/ was reinforced by an inserted moraic nasal.
 * The locative case marker (〜んで/〜にて -nde/-nite) may be a borrowing from Japanese, with the same etymology as -de. Old Namari, and some modern dialects, do not have a dedicated locative case. Instead, this role is taken by the accusative case (for verbs of motion), the dative case (for stative verbs) and the instrumental case (for all other verbs).

Personal pronouns
Namari has personal pronouns for all three persons and numbers. It also distinguishes between inclusive and exclusive 'we'. Note that the table below only lists nominative and genitive forms; the other forms are regularly derived from these two forms.

Other pronouns
The table below lists the demonstratives and the interrogative pronouns. Again, only nominative and genitive forms are provided.

A rough translation of the non-human interrogative listed above would be "which", not "what". The word used for "what" in Namari is nani.

Other correlatives (with nominative and genitive singular forms):

Note that the -mo suffix occurs after case markers (as seen in the genitive forms above) and replaces the topic and focus markers (this also prevents kakari-musubi).

Namari lacks relative pronouns. This is because any clause can modify a noun phrase simply by putting the verb in its attributive form and placing itself before the noun phrase to be modified.

Numerals
Namari has two sets of numerals. One set is native to Namari, the other is borrowed from Chinese.

Cardinal numbers:

The native numerals used above are for counting. To denote an amount of an object, one needs a classifier attached to the numeral. The resulting compound is a noun, meaning it must be in the genitive case in order for it to modify a noun.

While older forms of the language had a larger inventory of classifiers, the classifier inventory has been reduced in the modern language, with most nouns using the generic classifier. The compounds derived from the classifiers -tu (generic), -tai (used for people) and -uka (used for days) show irregularity.

Classifier -tu (generic): As seen above, the generic classifier is only used for some numerals, and for those numerals, its form differs. In addition, for 3, 4, 6 and 8, the initial consonant of the classifier is geminated.

Classifier -tai (used for people): Like with the generic classifier, the compounds for 3, 4, 6 and 8 show gemination. In addition, the compounds for 1 and 2 show a reduced form of the classifier (-i).

Classifier -uka (used for days): While the classifier is nominatively -uka, sound change has affected its actual pronunciation, as well as the pronunciation of numerals 2, 7 and 20. The compound for 50 has a special form. In some cases, the compound for 1 is inexplicably identical to that using the classifier for layers.

Classifier -e (used for layers): While this classifer is otherwise regular, the compound for 10 shows a short /o/ instead of a long /oː/ as would be expected.

Other classifiers used include -tabi (used for iterations), -tose (used for years), -tuku (used for months), -yo (used for nights), -pashiya (used for gods and spiritual tablets), -koto (used for words), -tōi (used for combinations/ways/solutions) and -toki (used for specific periods of time, typically hours in the modern language)

To form ordinal numbers, the suffix -me is attached to the end of the numeral-classifier compound (e.g. putatume means "second [object]", mitabime means "third time" or "third place"). Unlike Japanese, where the -me suffix is in many cases optional (and is not the only way to form ordinals), the use of -me in Namari is required to form ordinals. As a result, Namari has no equivalent of the Japanese suffix -kan to denote time periods (as any numeral-classifier compound denoting time always denotes a period of time in the absence of -me).

Verbs
Verbs in Namari possess a variety of different forms to indicate tense, mood and voice. All of these forms build upon six basic forms:
 * The imperfective root (Namari: shinamotogata)
 * The infinitive root (Namari: sadanamotogata)
 * The attributive root (Namari: kāimotogata)
 * The conclusive root (Namari: oaibamotogata)
 * The perfective root (Namari: suēmotogata)
 * The imperative root (Namari: shimimotogata)

Tenses
In Namari, what are called tenses (Namari: tokigata) are not strictly tense conjugations. Instead they combine tense and aspect.

Namari has the following tenses: Because of the largely recursive nature of Namari conjugation, there are more possible tenses than listed. However, the nine listed above are the most common.
 * The present tense (Namari: imadokigata) refers to events which occur in the present timeframe, without any reference to past or future state (English equivalent example: "I do"). This is the default tense of all verbs.
 * The aorist tense or simple past (Namari: maedokigata) refers to events which occur at a point in the past, without any reference to the state at other times (English equivalent example: "I did"). This is marked by combining the perfective root with -i (r-irregular conjugation).
 * The future tense (Namari: atodokigata) refers to events which occur at a point in the future, without any reference to the state at other times (English equivalent example: "I shall/will do"). This is marked by combining the imperfective root with -mī (for consonant-stem verbs) or -kemī (for vowel-stem verbs). Both markers conjugate as an r-irregular verb.
 * The perfect tense (Namari: patedokigata) refers to events which were completed at or before the present timeframe (English equivalent example: "I have done"). This is marked by combining the infinitive root with -ta and applying the appropriate euphonic changes (for consonant-stem verbs). This marker conjugates irregularly.
 * The progressive tense (Namari: tukkedokigata) refers to events which are ongoing in the present timeframe (English equivalent example: "I am doing"). This is marked by combining the infinitive root with -toi and applying the appropriate euphonic changes (for consonant-stem verbs). This marker conjugates as an r-irregular verb.
 * The imperfect tense (Namari: maedukkedokigata) refers to events which were ongoing at some point in the past (English equivalent example: "I was doing"). This is marked by combining the infinitive root with -toei and applying the appropriate euphonic changes (for consonant-stem verbs). This tense combines the progressive with the aorist.
 * The pluperfect tense (Namari: ōbatedokigata) refers to events which were completed at or before a certain point in the past (English equivalent example: "I had done"). This is marked by combining the perfective root with -tta. This tense combines the aorist with the perfect.
 * The future perfect tense (Namari: atobatedokigata) refers to events which will be completed at or before a certain point in the future (English equivalent example: "I shall/will have done"). This is marked by combining the imperfective root with -mitta (for consonant-stem verbs) or -kemitta (for vowel-stem verbs). This tense combines the future with the perfect.
 * The future progressive tense (Namari: atodukkedokigata) refers to events which will be ongoing at some point in the future (English equivalent example: "I shall/will be doing"). This is marked by combining the imperfective root with -mittoi (for consonant-stem verbs) or -kemittoi (for vowel-stem verbs). This tense combines the future with the progressive.

Moods
Verbs in Namari can also be marked for mood (Namari: nottoigata).

Namari has the following moods: Namari does not have a subjunctive mood.
 * The indicative mood (Namari: naonottoigata) indicates a factual statement. It is the default mood of all verbs, thus it can be conjugated for all tenses.
 * The optative mood (Namari: nozominottoigata) indicates a statement one desires to be true. It is derived from the provisional verb forms and only has two tenses (present: imperfective + -bakai, aorist: perfective + -bakai). The marker conjugates as a verbal adjective.
 * The imperative mood (Namari: shiminottoigata) indicates a command. It uses the imperative root directly and only has one tense (present). The prohibitive (negative imperative) is formed by combining the attributive root with -na.
 * Negative forms of verbs and verbal adjectives do not possess imperative forms.
 * The hortative mood (Namari: kangaenottoigata) indicates a statement that is intended to occur. Alternatively, it can be considered a first-person imperative. It only has one tense (present). It is formed by combining the imperfective root with -mu (consonant-stem verbs) or -kemu (vowel-stem verbs). This marker conjugates as a quinquegrade (consonant-stem) verb. The negative hortative is formed by combining the attributive root with -makai, which conjugates as a verbal adjective.
 * The conditional mood (Namari: tadainottoigata) indicates a statement that would be true if a given conditional statement is also true. It only has three tenses (present, perfect and progressive). It is formed by combining the infinitive root (verbs) or bare stem (adjectives) with -gayu. This marker conjugates as a quinquegrade verb.
 * The desiderative mood (Namari: poshinottoigata) indicates a statement of desire by the subject and can be conjugated for all tenses. It is formed by combining the infinitive root with -takai. This marker conjugates as a verbal adjective.

Non-finite forms
Verbs in Namari also have several non-finite forms:
 * The infinitive (Namari: sadanagata) is a noun form of the verb, formed by using the infinitive root directly. Its meaning is that of either a single instance of the verb (e.g. aiki can mean a walk) or an abstract expression (similar to the to-infinitive of English).
 * There are two types of participles in Namari. The adjectival participle, often referred to as the attributive (Namari: kāigata), is used to modify nouns or noun phrases and uses the attributive root directly. The adverbial participle (Namari: wakegata) is formed by adding -te to the infinitive root and applying the appropriate euphonic changes (for consonant-stem verbs). This form is mainly used as a base for auxillary verbs and to denote additional actions (as in "I did X and he did Y" type sentences, e.g. Panaya saite, pachiya soeyampe tobu meaning "The flowers bloom and the bees fly towards them").
 * The adverbial participle itself is a defective verb, possessing only an infinitive (-te) and imperative (-teyo). The imperative form is used as a more polite version of the plain imperative.
 * The gerund (Namari: nakotobakata) is another noun form of the verb, formed by combining the attributive root with -no. Its meaning is largely the same as that of the English gerund.

Euphonic changes
In Namari, athematic verbs show euphonic changes when forming the participle or perfect form. Normally, the participle is formed by adding the -te suffix to the infinitive, and the perfect by adding the -ta suffix to the infinitive. However, for athematic verbs, this induces changes in pronunciation, resulting in a seemingly irregular form.

The following euphonic changes are observed:

Example conjugations
For the conjugation tables, long vowels which cross morpheme boundaries are written as double vowels for clarity. Normally they would be romanised as a single vowel with a macron.

Conjugation of kaku (to write), an athematic (quinquegrade) verb:


 * The expected form would be kakande, however, the older, unchanged form is used due to the changed form being identical to a negative participle.

The existential verbs ai (for inanimate nouns, imperfective aya) and oi (for animate nouns, imperfective oya) and the copula ya (imperfective yaya) have irregular conclusive forms (as shown in the lemma), but otherwise conjugate identically to other athematic verbs (with the exception being that the regular attributive of ya is not used). Note that the regular negative of ai (ayan) is not used, with a separate verb being used in the negative.

The following tables only list the base forms and a subset of derived forms.

Conjugation of ai (to be/to exist), an irregular verb:


 * As an existential verb, ai lacks a passive.
 * The negative of ai is formed using a suppletive verb nān, which conjugates irregularly. All forms of nān are conjugated as if it was negated (e.g. present nān, aorist naeyan, perfect nānda) and it possesses an irregular participle (naide, rather than the expected naute).

Conjugation of oku (to rise), a thematic (upper bigrade) verb:

Conjugation of nagu (to throw), a thematic (lower bigrade) verb:

Conjugation of mī (to see), a thematic (monograde) verb:

Conjugation of su (to do), an irregular verb: The potential form of su is suppletive. Both the passive and causative forms are irregular.

Conjugation of ku (to come), an irregular verb:

Conjugation of takakai (to be tall), a verbal adjective:


 * All verbal adjectives have two additional forms to denote degree. These are marked by the -sa marker to denote measurable degree, and the -mi marker to denote immesurable degree. Both markers attach to the stem of the verbal adjective.
 * Verbal adjectives with stems ending with -shi may have irregular conclusive forms (e.g. ueshi, to be happy, imperfective ueshike). Such verbs also have irregular -sa forms, replacing the -shi with -sha (e.g. uesha).
 * Verbal adjectives do not possess separate comparative forms. Comparison is either implied, or a reference point is given in the comparative case (e.g. Wae Kaedeyoi takakai means "I am taller than Kaede"). Superlatives are formed by prefixing the adjective with sugi- (e.g. Yōko sugitakakai means "Yoko is the tallest").

Adjectives
In Namari, there are three classes of adjectives: verbal adjectives, nominal adjectives and attributives or true adjectives. These three classes differ in their behaviour. Verbal adjectives can be conjugated like verbs, while nominal adjectives behave exactly like nouns and must be placed in the genitive case in order to modify noun phrases. Attributives are a closed class of words which can only act attributively (that is, they can neither act as a predicate nor be conjugated or declined). Attributives are effectively determiners and thus will not be mentioned in this section.

What distinguishes adjectives from other word classes is that they have special forms to denote degree, as well as a superlative form. They can also form adverbs using the appropriate form. For all verbal and nominal adjectives, measurable degree is marked with -sa (e.g. takasa means "height") and immeasurable degree is marked with -mi (e.g. kanashimi means "sadness"), with both markers forming nouns. The adverbial form is formed differently between verbal and nominal adjectives. For verbal adjectives, it is the infinitive, while for nominal adjectives, it is the dative case. Both classes form superlatives with the sugi- prefix.

Adjectives do not possess comparative forms (i.e. they do not have the equivalent of the Englsh "-er" suffix). All comparisons in Namari are implied if a point of comparison (a noun in the comparative case, or a noun phrase with the head in the comparative case) is not provided. However, the adverb motto can be added to the sentence to form an explicit comparative, provided that it has been established that the point of comparison possesses the property in question.

Irregular adjectives
Namari possesses one major irregular adjective, ei (to be good, imperfective yoke). Its conjugation is shown in the table below: In addition, ei possesses an irregular superlative (mottokai) and no immeasurable degree form (i.e. yosa is a valid form, but not *yomi).

Some other adjectives possess minor irregularities. For example, wayukai ("bad", imperfective wayuke) has an irregular superlative (ōinawakai)

Example texts
An excerpt from Magical Kurumi-chan:

くるみ「さなちゃ〜ん！」

さな「あ、くるみちゃん. きた. 」

くるみ「さなちゃん、なん　なにかお　おしえたかい. 」

さな「きのうお？」

くるみ「えー. くるわな　おしうえよか？」

さな「えー. 」

くるみ「さー、まほうせうにょやと　しっとい、ね. 」

さな「えー. やっても、たたかいがた　わかやん. 」

くるみ「さなちゃん、おしえう. はじまいに　こあかいと　しっといけーど、なお　てつだあみい. 」

さな「うん、あいがたくあい、くるみちゃん. 」

Romanisation:

-Kurumi: Sana-cha~n!

-Sana: A, Kurumi-chan. Kita.

-Kurumi: Sana-chan, nan nanikao oshietakai.

-Sana: Kinouo?

-Kurumi: Ē. Kuruwana oshiueyoka?

-Sana: Ē.

-Kurumi: Sā, mapouseunyo-ya-to shittoi, ne.

-Sana: Ē. Yattemo, tatakaigata wakayan.

-Kurumi: Sana-chan, oshieu. Pajimaini koakai-to shittoi-kēdo, nao tetudāmī.

-Sana: Un, aigataku-ai, Kurumi-chan.

Translation:

-Kurumi: Sana!

-Sana: Ah, Kurumi. You've come.

-Kurumi: Sana, I want to tell you something.

-Sana: Is it about yesterday?

-Kurumi: Yes. Did Kuruwana tell you?

-Sana: Yes.

-Kurumi: Then, you know you're a magical girl, right.

-Sana: Yes. However, I don't know how to fight.

-Kurumi: Sana, I can teach you. I know it's scary at first, but I'll help you.

-Sana: Ah, thanks, Kurumi.

Additional information

 * Sino-Namari vocabulary — Information on Sinitic loanwords in Namari, as well as the Han characters which were used to write the language in the past.