Azkali grammar

Azkali grammar is the structural rules which the Azkali language follows, including the rules for words, phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Parts of speech

There are seven different parts of speech that are commonly identified by linguists in Azkali: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adpositions, conjunctions, and interjections. It is generally not possible to identify which part of speech an Azkali word belongs to by itself. However, a large amount of words belong to multiple parts of speech.

Nouns

Azkali nouns are overtly declined for six grammatical cases (the ergative, absolutive, possessive, privative, dative, and instrumental) and three numbers (the singular, paucal, and plural), with any type of grammatical gender being completely absent in all attested dialects. Azkali nouns are constructed agglunatively, contrasting extremely with verbs.

Case

A diagram highlighting ergative alignment. A is the subject of a transitive verb, O is the object of a transitive verb, and S is the subject of an intransitive verb. S and O are marked in the absolutive case, and A is marked in the ergative case.

Case inflection in Azkali is fairly straightforward; the affixes only change depending on the lack of presence of a root final vowel. There are six grammatical cases in Azkali. The ergative case is used for subjects of transitive verbs. The absolutive case is used for subjects of intransitive verbs and objects of transitive verbs. The possessive case is used for direct ownership. The privative case is used to mark the lack of direct ownership. The dative case is used to mark the indirect object of an action, as well as the purpose of an action. In addition, in extremely formal varieties of Azkali, the dative case is also used to denote a noun that is owned by the noun in the phrase with the possessive case. Finally, the instrumental case is used to mark that the noun is the instrument in which the action is achieved, or occurs; the instrumental case can be used for both physical objects, or ideas and concepts.

The following chart shows each case suffix.

Case	Vowel ending	Consonant ending
Ergative	-n	-en
Absolutive	∅
Possessive	-k	-ek
Privative	-z	-az
Dative	-ti	-eti
Instrument	-gez	-ez

For the most part,

Pronouns

Personal and reflexive pronouns

The following table shows each personal pronoun in Azkali, declining for case and number. In addition, there is also reflexive pronouns included; while not a case in itself, in most Azkali grammars, the reflexive pronouns are included with the personal ones.

	Singular					Paucal			Plural
	1st	2nd	3rd			1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
			Masculine	Feminine	Neutral
Ergative	go	tu	mai	kut	hakel	tzo	tzu	tzare	ko	ku	kei
Absolutive	en			kurez		tzen		rutzez	komo	kumu	keime
Possessive		tuek	maik	kutek	harek		tzuk	tzak		zku	ezkei
Privative	goz	tukoz	maiz	keiz	heiz	tzeiz	tzuiz	tzaiz	tzaoz	tzauz	eztzeu
Dative	get	tet	het			tzego	tzeutu	tzere	geo	teo	keo
Instrumental	gokoz	tukoz	hekoz
(Reflexive)	go ten	tu ten	ha te			tzo te	tzu te	tzare te	ko te	ku te	kei te

Case

Grammatical case, or the direct inflection of nouns based on their grammatical roles or functions, is used prevalently in Azkali. In Azkali, there are six canonical grammatical cases;