Syntax

Lesson Vocab

English Part of Speech IPA Lugso Comments
ACC N suffix iɻ ir accusative case - to N, towards location
consume VB χuf huf  
i 1SG nʌ no  
you 2SG ðʌ do  
beast N θɮu tlu  
fly VB sʌʒ so3 travel through gas
swim VB vux vux travel through liqud

Word Order (Part I)

In English, we say, “I fly”. In Lugso, the cultist says, “fly I”. Verb comes before subject.

so3 no

fly 1SG

vux tlu

swim beast

The/A beast swims.

Word Order (Part II)

In English, we say, for example, but hopefully not too often, “You consume me.” We know based on the fact that “You” comes before “consume” that it is you who are doing the consuming, and from the fact “me” comes after “consume” that it is I who am being consumed. In linguistic terms, you are the subject, consume is the verb, and I am the object. Order: S-V-O.

Lugso has word order V-O-S: a cultist says, “consume me you”.

Verb-Object-Subject

But how does he know what’s the subject and what’s the object? In English, we change “I” to “me”, or “he” to “him” when the speaker is an object - I hit him, but he hits me - in Lugso, the cultist appends -ir, which performs the same transformation of any given noun. This is known as the accusative case.

Accusative case

A noun obtains the accusative case if the verb is being done to it.

huf no’ir do

consume 1SG-ACC 2SG

You consume me.

A noun also obtains accusative if it is the destination of a movement.

so3 do’ir tlu

fly 2SG-ACC beast

The/A beast glides to you.

We will cover more noun cases in a future lesson.

Suffix Order

Lugso leverages a great number of suffixes. The grammatical order is as follows:

Noun suffixes

  1. Root noun
  2. Plural suffix
  3. Case marker
  4. Negation
  5. Question suffix

Verb suffixes

  1. Root verb
  2. Tense
  3. Mood
  4. Negation
  5. Subordinating suffix
  6. Question suffix
  7. Relative or Conjunction