This language isn't meant to be set in any fictional universe, and has some loglang-like tendencies. It's primarily just a personal language for my own aesthetic and artistic enjoyment.
Overview
Firstly, it's totally isolating, or will probably be as isolating as I can make it. Zero marking will feature prominently. It is strictly VSO. And yeah, as far as I can figure it's just gonna be nominative-accusative.
Subject and object are indicated simply by word order. Other grammatical roles are indicated by prepositional particles:
There will be a "zero person" pronoun/placeholder that can fill in for the subject, and I suppose any other grammatical role. (I'm going to use "0" for it, unless someone can suggest a better gloss.)see 3.s man LOC store
"He sees [the] man in [the] store."
Relative clausessee 0 3.s LOC store
"He was/is seen at the store."
give 3.s 0 DAT 1.s
"He gives [something] to me."
I keep encountering difficulties with the details of relative clauses, so I won't go into a large discussion yet. But I can say a few things.
Relative clauses are zero-marked. They occur when a verb directly follows a noun, which never happens in any other circumstance. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be doing something with a resumptive particle, or a resumptive pronoun, like this:
Verbs and adjectiveswoman see 1.s 3.s.RES
"The woman who I saw [her]"
Verbs are, of course, not marked for anything. The role of adjectives will be taken by stative verbs and a small, closed class of adjectives consisting of numbers and other determiner-ish words, as well as perhaps a few basic descriptive concepts. These "true adjectives" will be placed before the noun, as with the prepositional particles. (They will also come after the prepositional particles.)
And we thus have this distinction:give 1.s food DAT two bird blue
"I give/gave [the] food to the two birds which are blue."
"I gave the two blue birds food."
Nominal and dependent clausesblue bird
"The bird is blue."
bird blue
"The bird that is blue"
A clause can be made into a nominal/dependent clause with a subordinative particle. The clause as a whole is positioned in the sentence as if it were a noun and can be modified by prepositional particles.
This construction can be used to fulfill the role of infinitives in English and other languages:please SUBR see 1.s woman tall 1.s
"That I saw the woman who is tall pleases me."
"It pleases me to see the tall woman."
A different particle, a deverbalizer, can be used to convert the clause into what is essentially a deverbal gerund in English.want 1.s SUBR go 1.s LOC store
"I want that I go to the store."
"I want to go to the store."
As opposed to:like 1.s DEV sing 1.s
"I like my singing."
Or, this example:like 1.s SUBR sing 1.s
"I like that I sing."
"I like to sing."
As opposed to:like 1.s DEV sing
"I like [the act of] singing [in general]."
Deverbal clauses not only take the position of a noun in a sentence, but can also be modified by adjectives and relative clauses, unlike regular subordinate clauses.like 1.s SUBR sing
"I like that someone is singing."
"I like that there is singing."
(I still need to figure out how exactly relative clauses modifying deverbal phrases will work without creating syntactical ambiguity.)award 3.p 3.s.f CAUS two DEV capture 3.s.f bear
"They awarded her because of her two capturings/captures of the bear."