Suilian

Nouns

Suilian nouns inflect in number and case, and to them can be added definiteness-marking clitics and possessive suffixes. There is a singular-dual-plural distinction, with distinct forms for the nominative, genitive, ergative, and partitive, and, for each grammatical number, an oblique stem to which other endings of adpositional value can be attached, forming the instructive/instrumental (by means of X), instructive-privative (without using X), comitative (along with X), comitative-privative (without X) benefactive (in favour of X), malefactive (in detriment of X), inessive (in/within/inside X), elative (outwards from X), illative (into X), ectessive (outside of X), adessive (at/on/by X), ablative (from X), allative (to/towards X), immotive (standing in a position unrelated to X), essive (as/in the state of X), delative (out from the state of X), translative (becoming X), and abessive (not in the state of X), noting that some of these cases indeed have meanings completely different from the ones they might have in natlangs that include them. Possessive suffixes are usually added after the case ending, though adding them before this ending is not grammatically incorrect. Definite clitics are highly variable depending on the word's phonology, working similar to those of languages such as Arabic and Maltese: in a general rule, assimilating to the word's initial consonant when it is coronal.

Verbs

Verbs are conjugated by person/number, tense, and mood. There are nine grammatical person-number combinations, each with its ending. There are six tenses, all of which can be conjugated in the nonpast and the past, though the indicative splits the nonpast into present and future, alongside being the only mood compatible with perfect tenses, using the copula "ūnva" as an auxiliary. The imperative is not on the list of primary verbal moods, instead existing as a sole form, with "i-" or "j-" prefixed to the infinitive, and often being grouped alongside nominal forms. Each mood has specific usages:

- The indicative, the only mood with six tenses rather than two, is the most common mood, and the main realis one, used for statements of fact, real-world events, and assertions that the speaker presents as true;

- The terminative signals the absolute endpoint limit, or final completion of an action, focusing the listener's attention strictly on the end of an action. Though this is often conveyed by aspects in most languages with this distinction, Suilian, lacking a system of aspects, grammatically treats it as a mood;

- The subjunctive is the main irrealis mood, used for hypothetical scenarios;

- The consecutive can be either realis or irrealis, and is only used in dependent clauses. When the head clause uses a realis mood, the consecutive presents the factual outcome of the action described. If, on the other hand, the head clause uses an irrealis mood, usually the subjunctive, the consecutive acts as a conditional, "would" mood;

- The obligative expresses strict necessity, duty, or a moral and/or legal obligation. It is distinct from the imperative, since the obligative is much closer to conveying the same as "must" or "have to" convey in English, while the imperative is a bare command, though their semantic roles can often overlap, the obligative being generally considered more polite than the direct nature of the imperative;

- The potential mood presents possible scenarios, equivalent to phrases in English with "can", "may", or "might". Both of its tenses can also replace the role of the indicative in highly polite speech, while the past might replace the role of the obligative and imperative in the same contexts.

Split ergativity

Suilian presents a highly complex alignment based primarily on distinctions in volitionality. In the past, it has been more straightforward, when quirky subjects were applied to the native Nominative-Accusative alignment, turning this into a fluid-S agentive-patientive alignment. This alignment, however, eventually got split up into an unstable four-case system, with the agentive becoming the nominative in volitional clauses and the ergative in non-volitional ones, and the patientive becoming the accusative in volitional clauses and the absolutive in non-volitional ones. Due to this four-way system's imminent instability, the absolutive ended up quickly merging into the nominative, and a case shift associated with quirky subjects bringing the accusative to intransitive non-volitional clauses obfuscated the original paradigm even more. A later merger of the accusative into the genitive lead to what would become the partitive taking the original accusative position in atelic contexts. The modern Suilian alignment system uses:

- The nominative for the sole argument of volitional intransitive clauses, the agent of volitional transitive clauses, and the patient of non-volitional transitive clauses;

- The genitive for the telic patient of volitional transitive clauses, and the telic sole argument of non-volitional intransitive clauses;

- The partitive for the atelic patient of volitional transitive clauses, and the atelic sole argument of non-volitional intransitive clauses;

- The ergative for the agent of non-volitional transitive clauses.

Other features

Non-concatenative morphology is present in old non-concatenative morphology. For example, the Egyptian root √snb (related to health) originated Suilian words such as ”sanavma” (verb, ”to be healthy”) and ”sinø̄” (”health”). This non-concatenative morphology is also present in causative derivations, though unproductive, it nowadays being formed solely by the prefix ”s(V)-”. Most of these examples are of verbs very commonly used throughout the language’s evolution, such as ”mampa” (to be firm) to ”semīmpa” (to establish), and ”mōva” (to die) to ”samaiva” (to kill). Furthermore, the concept of adjectives is mostly absent, the closest equivalent being non-finite forms of verbs, which can be used attributively. Statively, they are treated entirely as verbs. An example of such stative verbs is "krøima" (to be hollow), which is used attributively in the translation of section 05 in its agentive participle form "krøjiri" (as one who is hollow / hollow-being).