Basic Grammar

The essential details to get a grasp on Kokanu grammar and start exploring how to express yourself and communicate. The coverage is very fast paced and minimally detailed, more detailed articles are linked if you want to expand your knowledge of a given area.

This guide assumes you have some familiarity with the Kokanu vocabulary. Words that directly affect the grammar are explained here in the guide, but other words used in the example sentences will not. You can click on any described Kokanu word to see a definition of that word, and you can look up other words using the dictionary.

Base Forms

Every word has one base form, either base noun, base verb, or base modifier. Any word can act in any form, but its base determines how it acts in other forms. You can always distinguish when a word is being used as a noun, verb or modifier.

Verbs are marked by the particles le and o.

Nouns are marked by the prepositions, like men, in, ki, and wija.

And as you can probably see from the above example, there are no articles in Kokanu.

Modifiers are activated when placed after a noun or verb.

Check out the Word Derivations guide for more info.

Noun Phrases and Action Phrases

The structure of a Kokanu sentence is formed from an action phrase, marked by le or o, surrounded by noun phrases which relate to the action in some way. men marks a noun phrase which is the agent of the action. in marks a noun phrase which is the object of the action. ki marks a noun phrase which is the recipient of the action. wija marks a noun phrase which is the instrument of the action. The action phrases and noun phrases can be placed in any order as long as they are marked properly.

When the subject is at the start of a sentence, however, men can be dropped.

Negation

Prepositions, certain particles, le, and o can be negated by placing no after them. no does not negate content words, only certain grammatical particles. However, no can also be used to negate specific attributes of a phrase by negating said particles, which will be explained later.

These three sentences mean the same thing but have different emphasis:

In order to negate the entire phrase, with no emphasis on any specific part being negated, no is placed after the verb-marking particle (either le or o). This is how you normally negate phrases (i.e. "I didn't see the dog"). However, putting no after the verb-marking particle is also the way to put emphasis on the fact that the verb alone is being negated.

Depending on context, and the tone of the speaker, the negation of the of the verb-marking particle may imply that specifically and only the verb is being negated, or that the entire phrase is being negated. The default assumption is usually that there is no specific emphasis on the verb, and the sentence is being normally negated, as the negation of specifically the verb can be communicated in other ways (most chiefly, italics when in text, or tone when spoken).

Conjunctions

Conjunctions in Kokanu can be placed between nouns in a phrase, or between sentences.

However, un, meaning "and", is not required like it is in English. In phrases where two nouns of the same function are next to each other (e.g. me and you go to the park), "un" may be used on its own, the preposition may be repeated, or both strategies may be combined. un may still be used to connect sentences together like in English.

Suggestions and Imperatives

An imperative statement is created by replacing le with o. When there is a subject in the phrase, the phrase is usually interpreted as a suggestion, however if the subject is dropped, the phrase is usually interpreted as a command.

For more information, see Using the Parts of Speech.

Modifiers

Remember that depending on the context, all words can act as a noun, modifier, or verb. Which one a word acts as depends upon where it is placed in a sentence.

Modifiers come after a noun to indicate an adjective, or after a verb to indicate an adverb. This means that any time a content word comes after another content word in succession, the latter content word acts as a modifier. This means that all adjectives and adverbs come after the words that they modify, the opposite of English.

Unlike in English, where certain adjective order can feel weird, or even alter meaning, there is no specific modifier order in Kokanu.

• pawo hunsi cenpo / ʜɕʃ ɵ̄ſɤı ɛ̄ȷʜʃ

• pawo cenpo hunsi / ʜɕʃ ɛ̄ȷʜʃ ɵ̄ſɤı
  (Both sound fine!)

• Big red dog (sounds fine!)

• Red big dog (wha?)

The only place where this doesn't apply is in lexicalized phrases. Certain lexicalized phrases can sound a bit weird, or even not be recognized, if their noun and modifier components are split apart.

Quantities

Quantity words are words that serve special grammatical function, and that have multiple meanings depending on where they're placed. There are two types of quantity words: numbers and amounts.

Quantity words may be placed in two different places, and where they're placed affects meaning. Quantity words serve an ordinary purpose as modifiers, but serve an additional function when preceding nouns.

When quantity words which are numbers (e.g. one, seven, nine, a hundred, etc.) are used as modifiers (i.e. placed after the head word), they act as ordinals (1st place, the 100th dog, the 8th person). But when they are placed before the head word, they act as cardinals (one dog, a hundred cats, four cars).

When quantity words which are amounts (e.g. a lot, some, all, more) are used as modifiers (i.e. placed after the head word), they act to determine the intensity. But when they are placed before the head word, they act to determine the amount.

Demonstratives

Demonstratives are a word class that function similarily to quantity words. When placed before the head word, they act as determiners, and signify which noun is being talked about. When placed after the head word (i.e. when acting as modifiers), demonstratives stand in as a modifier, and signify which modifier is being talked about.

There are only three demonstratives: ne (this), na (that), and ci (what).

When placed before the head word, they act exactly as you would expect them to in English.

However, when placed after the head word, they instead act to stand in for a modifier. Using the example of na, this would mean that putting na after a head word would mean something along the lines of "like that" or "that kind of".

Note: the word soto can be used to communicate this more explicitly, and they have a decently similar meaning, but different nuance.

Genitives

The word je is a genitive, similar to the word “of” in English. The word following it is always derived as a noun. It can be used to regroup phrases.

The word wa collapses the entire phrase before it and marks the word after it as a a modifier.

For more information, refer to our Clarifying Descriptions guide.

Subordinate Clauses

ta starts a subordinate clause. It can be roughly translated as "the fact that" or "that" in English. Any clause made by ta is treated as a noun.

If ta comes before in (i.e. in ta), you can optionally drop the in.

te, similar to ta, starts a subordinate clause, however, different to ta, any word after te is marked as a verb. An easy way to think about te clauses as an English speaker is that whereas ta translates to "that", te translates to "to" or "-ing".

Just like ta, if te comes before in (i.e. in te), you can optionally drop the in.

Relative Clauses

ta and te can also modify nouns.

When te is placed after a noun, it starts a relative clause where the noun that it is modifying is the subject. Any word that comes after te is assumed to be a verb.

When ta is placed after a noun, it also starts a relative clause. However, the role of the word that it modifies can be specified in two ways: it can reference back to itself using "ja", or it can use a dangling preposition (which is what is primarily used in English). It can be thought of as similar to the word "that". Any word that comes after ta is assumed to be the subject of the relative clause.

Notice here how there's always a preposition that clarifies the role of the word that ta is modifying. nin ta mi le suki might seem like a direct translation from English "person that I like", but in Kokanu it's meaningless. The clause mi le suki sits next to the word nin with no relation between them. It would be like saying in English "place that I go". You have to establish the role of "place" in the clause "I go", i.e. "place that I go to" where "to" tells you that "place" is the direction/goal of the clause "I go". Kokanu does this in a very similar way.

Remember, just as how men is never required at the start of sentences, men is never required after ta. The word that comes after ta is always assumed to be the subject.

In any case, the clause must end with a comma if more follows.

Derivational Markers

wi and mu are markers that apply to an arbitrary amount of words (often one, but can be more). wi forces words into modifiers, and is often used in the construction wi no to negate adjectives, and to change the intensity of an adjective.

For more information, see the page on wi.

mu constructs a noun that is a "doer" of an action, or the agent of the action.

To make the agent cause the action rather than do the action, you can replace mu with pan.

For more information, see the page on mu and the page on pan.