Nodaimese language

The Nodaimese language (Nodaimese: nodaimanena) is a Continental Nodaimic language spoken in the northern region of the continent of Nodaima. It is one of the four official languages of the Kingdom of Cedysna.

Nodaimese is an agglutinative language and is almost exclusively left-branching. Inflections form a major part of Nodaimese grammar.

History
Nodaimese was originally spoken in the area around Nodaima City. It is estimated that it split off from the rest of the Continental Nodaimic languages around 400 BC.

The earliest attested stage of Nodaimese is Old Nodaimese, spoken between AD 100-750. This stage of the language had a number of archaic features that are no longer part of the language, such as grammatical gender and phonemic stress.

Consonants
* /w/ is labiovelar in articulation.

The following list is the representation of these phonemes in the official Latin orthography:
 * /ɲ/ is represented as 
 * /ŋ/ is represented as  ( represents /ŋg/, while  represents /ŋk/ due to assimilation)
 * /θ/ is represented as <ť>
 * /ð/ is represented as <ď>
 * /ɕ/ is represented as <š>
 * /ʑ/ is represented as <ž>
 * /ɣ/ is represented as <ġ>
 * /t͡s/ is represented as 
 * /d͡z/ is represented as 
 * /t͡ɕ/ is represented as <č>
 * /d͡ʑ/ is represented as <ǧ>
 * /ɾ/ is represented as 
 * All other phonemes are represented using their IPA glyphs.

All consonants can be geminated (lengthened), except /h/, /j/ and /w/. A geminated /ɾ/ is realised as [r] (a trill).

Vowels
* The open-mid vowels are rare in native Nodaimese words; they are typically found in loanwords.

Nodaimese distinguishes between short and long vowels. In the orthography, /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/ and /y/ are lengthened by adding a macron; for all other vowels it is simply doubled.

Stress
In Nodaimese, stress always falls on a particular syllable. For nouns, it always occurs on the final syllable of the noun in its nominative form, and for verbs, it falls on the penultimate syllable of the infinitive form. The location of this stress with respect to the beginning of the word does not change when the word is inflected.

Grammar
The Nodaimese language relies heavily on inflections in its grammar. Consequently, it has free word order, although the preferred order is subject-object-verb (SOV).

Nouns
Nouns in Nodaimese decline for number and case. These declensions vary depending on the noun's nominative form.

Noun Declensions
The dual suffix is -su. The plural suffix is -ge. However, these suffixes are not used if a number is explicitly given (e.g. deige means an unspecified number of persons, while leudei means eight persons).

Pronouns
The following is a table of personal pronouns in Nodaimese. Note that the pronouns decline irregularly.

Verbs
Verbs in Nodaimese are conjugated for tense, aspect, mood and voice and also display agreement with the person and number of the subject. Verbs possess a special attributive form which can be used to modify noun phrases (in fact, all "adjectives" in Nodaimese are actually stative verbs).

Verb Conjugations
The example verb used is adapa (to see).

The second-person imperative suffixes can be omitted, but it is considered impolite to do so.

Each combination of the tense and aspect markers have different meanings:

Currently being revised

The order of suffixes is voice-mood-aspect-tense-agreement markers, with the exception of the imperatives. Additionally, auxillary verbs can be attached to the verb stem. The following sentence shows the level of agglutination a verb can undergo:
 * letaf ykēp jurawakata adaligamuhatøkagatine.
 * let-af yk-ēp jurawak-ata ada-liga-mu-hatø-ka-ga-ti-ne
 * 3S-DAT 1S-GEN daughter-ACC see-go-CAUS-DES-PAST-PL-1P-NEG
 * (We did not want to make him go see my daughter.)

Syntax will be explained in a later section. The verb adapa first has ligapa (to go) attached, forming adaligapa. The resulting verb is conjugated in the causative voice (adaligamupa), desiderative mood (adaligamuhatøpa), past tense (adaligamuhatøkapa) and first person plural and is then negated.

Attributive Form
The attributive form of a verb is the form used when a verb or clause is to modify the noun as an adjective. Verbs in the attributive form can take all verbal suffixes except person suffixes, meaning that the attributive agrees with the noun being modified in number. Additionally, the attributive can itself decline for case, meaning it also displays agreement in case with the noun being modified.

The following are examples of attributives in Nodaimese:
 * ligaløta delata ("the person who is going" in the accusative case)
 * ligatkagalō delgē ("with the people who went", displaying the comitative case)

Irregular Verbs
Nodaimese only has two irregular verbs, the verb erapa (to be, copula), which is highly irregular (it is the only athematic verb in Nodaimese, and also possesses suppletive forms), and the verb igipa (to be, existential), which has a suppletive negative (nāpa, which is always conjugated in the negative, e.g. nāline).

The conjugation of erapa is shown below:

Numbers
The numbers in Nodaimese can either stand alone as a noun or be prefixed to a noun to be modified. The cardinal numbers yta (1) and belo (2) are never found attached to a noun, since a noun unmarked for number is assumed to be in the singular for the former, and the dual suffix is used to indicate a pair. Numbers which stand alone as a noun never use dual and plural markers, however, they must agree with the number markers on the verb if used as a subject.