Creating a fantasy language: basic sentences

Lesson 2
With a little vocabulary under your belt, it’s time to begin constructing grammar. Start simple: How to construct a basic sentence.

(Creating a fantasy language: (Lesson 1, Rationale, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Lesson 4, Choosing words, Creating an Alphabet)

Chances are, as you created vocabulary, you created patterns in your words. For me, most nouns end with –an, -in, or –on. Adjectives had no endings, and verbs in infinitive form had no endings because they took endings when conjugated.

Let’s start with verbs.

Your first rule is to decide how to conjugate your verbs. When I was learning German, we looked at 6 present-tense ways to conjugate a verb:

to walk:

I walk

you walk

he/she/it walks

they walk

you all walk

(formal) you walk

In this language, I’ve decided gender is important. So I’m going to be more specific:

san (to drop):

I male: sana

I female: sani

you m: sanla

you f: sanli

he: sanda

she: sandi

it: sando

they: sandia

you all: sanlia

you formal: sanla si/sanli si

Now let’s make a sentence. I want to say, “I drop a ball.” The speaker is feminine.

Relevant vocabulary:

iko (I, female)

san (to drop)

a (ne)

cortan (ball)

My sentence is:

iko sani ne Cortan.

Note that I’m not capitalizing the sentence at this point. If you plan on using capital letters (say, capitalizing all direct objects and objects of prepositions), then that is a grammar rule to begin working on here. Therefore, I am not capitalizing the beginning of my sentence to avoid confusion.

Let’s try another sentence.

She makes him angry.

Or, literally, “she causes anger in him.”

it (she)

der (to cause)

ata (him)

el (in)

fodratan (anger)

it el Ata deri Fodratan.

she in him causes anger.

Because I once decided that prepositions go before the verb in complex verbs, I’m following that up by placing the prepositional phrase before the verb in the sentence. This means the adjective gets pushed back to the end of the sentence.

This basic structure can become a rule:

(Who) (where) (what happens) (what)

He falls into a lake.

at (he)

sanko (to fall)

elti (into)

pana (lake)

ne (a)

at elti ne Pana sankoa.

he into a lake falls

You all lie down under a table.

utia (you all)

nansanko (lie down)

uz (under)

ne (a)

hoskon (table)

utia uz ne Hoskon nansankolia.

y’all under a table lie down

What's the basic sentence structure of your language? What rules (or patterns if they're not strict) do you have so far?

Vocabulary so far:

san: to drop	nansan: to put down	nansanko: to lie down	ko: self	koma: self-aware
uzko: to be sick	kopalli: to self-reprimand	palli: to reprimand	uz: under	syl: to cast magic
sylpana: the magic source	pana: lake	ako: I (male)	iko: I (female)	utu: you (object)
ata: him	iti: her	oto: it (obj)	at: he	it: she
ut: you	ot: it (subject)	der: to cause	ne: the	kes: one
des: two	tres: three	fes: four	res: five	ses: six
pes: seven	les: eight	nes: nine	doc: ten	cortan: ball
hoskon: table	elti: into	el: in	fodratan: anger	fodrishin: hostility
fodrish: hostile	del: to create

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