Parts of Speech
Nereidic can be analyzed as having only two types of words: function words and content words. Function words perform specific grammatical or discourse functions and are generally bleached of meaning, while content words carry most of the meaning. Content words can further be subdivided into two types: nouns and verbs. The equivalents of adjectives, adpositions, etc. are all classified as verbs in Nereidic.
Content Classes and Hierarchies
Human languages often show some sort of coding asymmetry that arises from typicality, represented through the referential scales below. Values for properties toward the left part of the scale are characteristic of referents that typically appear as subjects (such as animate entities), whereas properties on the right side of the scale are characteristic of referents that typically appear as objects (such as inanimate entities). Many languages employ different marking strategies when this typicality is broken, such as differential object marking or differential subject marking. In other words, in languages with the former, direct objects are more likely to be marked when they have properties that typical of sentential subjects, while languages with the latter are more likely to mark subjects when they have properties typical of sentential objects.
Somewhat related is the concept of transitivity, a property of clauses, which can be broken down into several parameters addressing features of the subject, verb, and object of the clause. The table below summarizes the different parameters that affect transitivity, properties of high transitivity on the left and properties of low transitivity on the right. Differences in the transitivity of a clause can cause a wide variety of patterns and grammatical manifestations in human languages, varying from the types of marking core arguments receive to the presence of special verbal morphology.
Nereidic culture, social behaviors, and biology are characterized by a strict caste system, a reverence for appendages and radial symmetry, and a highly distributed nervous system. Crucially, the number of appendages and, consequentially, the number of lines of symmetry a nereid has, the more they are typically revered as intelligent or wise and the higher their status in society. Because of this, notions of typicality and transitivity are conflated in most Nereidic languages with notions of appendages, symmetry, and hierarchies. In Standard Nereidic specifically, this has resulted into four noun classes and four verb classes. The noun classes are roughly determined by the number of appendages, appendage-like structures, or lines of symmetry the referent has; the more limbs and lines of symmetry, the more animate the class the behaves, while the less limbs and less lines of symmetry, the less animate the class behaves. Verb classes, on the other hand, are tied directly to the level of transitivity of the verb. The respective classes of nouns and verbs heavily determine how words interact and type of grammar that is used to mark dependencies between them (i.e. a sedecimal class noun as the subject of a sedecimal class verb will manifest as a strong dependency, while a binary class noun as the subject of a sedecimal class verb will manifest as a very weak dependency). The various noun and verb classes and their properties are outlined below:
Noun Classes:
- Sedecimal Class: personal pronouns, multilimbed organisms and objects, circular objects, etc.
- Octal Class: organisms and objects with eight or more limb-like structures, octagonal objects, etc.
- Quaternal Class: insects, tetrapods, objects with four~six limb-like structures, rectangular objects
- Binary Class: fish, worms, snakes, thin or line-like objects, etc.
Verb Classes:
- Sedecimal Class: highly transitive verbs, the direct object is heavily affected or destroyed
- Octal Class: low transitive verbs, the direct object is partially affected or not affected at all
- Quaternal Class: intransitive action verbs, unergative verbs (some degree of volitionality involved)
- Binary Class: unaccusative verbs, stative verbs, etc.
Head-Foot Dependencies
The primary driving force of Nereidic grammar is what is known as “head-foot dependencies.” Essentially, every phrase in Nereidic is a combination of at least two words that form a dependency with each other, one being the head and the other the foot. The exact nature of this dependency and how it is formed in the grammar depends on the class of the words used. Typically, the higher the rank of the word in the hierarchy, the more it acts as a head and will attract or “control” words lower in the hierarchy; and likewise, words lower in the hierarchy will act more a foot and be attracted to or “controlled” by word higher in the hierarchy.
For example, if we take the four nouns, hnnarq (nereid / ‘person’; class: sedecimal), zur (spider; class: octal), yirx (chair; class: quaternal), and siex (string; class: binary), and combine them with the octal class verb nir (to touch), the following combinations are produced if the noun is the subject:
- narqhnnir (the nereid touches)
- nurzir (the spider touches)
- yirxnir (the chair touches)
- nir siex (the string touches)
And if the noun is the direct object, the following combinations are produced:
- nir a-hnnarq (touches the nereid)
- nir a-zur (touches the spider)
- nir yirx (touches the chair)
- siexnir (touches the string)
There are four types of morphological manifestations of the dependencies depending on the hierarchies of the content words and their relationship and how unexpected the relationship is. The more expected or natural the relationship, the stronger the dependency and the more the two words are incorporated into one another; the less natural the relationship, the more distant the words and less incorporated. The following outlines the four different morphological dependencies:
- Full Incorporation: the words are compounded and swap onset consonants/clusters
(i.e. subj(hnnarq) + nir > narqhnnir) - Partial Incorporation: the words are simply compounded and cannot appear separated
(i.e. subj(yirx) + nir > yirxnir) - Unmarked Separation: the words are separate with no marking present, some dislocation is possible
(i.e. obj(yirx) + nir > nir yirx) - Marked Separation: the words are not only separate, but the foot is marked by the prefix <a->, dislocation is both possible and often preferred
(i.e. obj(hnnarq) + nir > nir a-hnnarq)
If a word is already incorporated, then it cannot take on other dependencies, and the word must be repeated or duplicated in order for a new dependency to be made. If, however, the word is separated (has a weak connection to its head or foot), then it can form other dependencies. For example, if we use the word from before, we can make two complete transitive sentences to demonstrate this:
- narqhnnir a-zur (the nereid touches the spider)
- narqhnnir siexnir (the nereid touches the string)
In the first sentence, while the subject hnnarq and the verb nir are full incorporated into each other, zur as a direct object of this class of verb is markedly separate, so it can form a dependency with the incorporated pair without reduplication. In the second sentence, however, since both the hnnarq-nir pair as a subject-verb dependency and the siex-nir pair as an object-verb dependency require incorporation, then reduplication is necessary.
The following table outlines the incorporation/separation dependency patterns for each verb-noun class combination:
| V16 | V8 | V4 | V2 | ||
| N16 | S | [NV](ω⇄ω) | [NV](ω⇄ω) | [NV](ω⇄ω) | [NV](ω⇄ω) |
| O | [V][N'] | [V][N'] | - | - | |
| N8 | S | [NV] | [NV](ω⇄ω) | [NV](ω⇄ω) | [NV](ω⇄ω) |
| O | [V][N] | [V][N'] | - | - | |
| N4 | S | [N][V] | [NV] | [NV](ω⇄ω) | [NV](ω⇄ω) |
| O | [NV] | [V][N] | - | - | |
| N2 | S | [N][V'] | [N][V] | [NV] | [NV](ω⇄ω) |
| O | [NV](ω⇄ω) | [NV] | - | - | |
- [ ] signifies a distinct word or lexical unit ([NV] = incorporated, [N][V] = separated)
- (ω⇄ω) signifies the onsets are swapped
- [X’] signifies that the word is marked
When a dependency is formed between noun pairs, it can have two interpretations depending on the classes of the nouns and the marking involved: source or goal. The source relationship marks motion away from something, ownership or composition, and instrumentality, while the goal relationship marks motion to something, transfer of ownership, and benefactivity. For example, the following phrases demonstrate the source dependency and goal dependency between two nouns (hnnarq of class N16 and siex of class N2) and how they might be interpreted:
- sarqhnniex (head: hnnarq; relation: source) – “the nereid of (the) string”
possible interpretations:- “the nereid made of string”
- “the nereid from a place called String“
- “the nereid who is notable for having or using (the) string” (most typical for N16-2 relation)
- hnnarq a-siex (head: hnnarq; relation: goal) – “the nereid for (the) string”
possible interpretations:- “the nereid to be exchanged for string”
- “the nereid who supports the notion of strings”
- “the nereid who desires string” (most typical for N16-2 relation)
- hnniexsarq (head: siex; relation: source) – “the string of (the) nereid”
possible interpretations:- “the string that belongs to the nereid” (most typical for N2-16 relation)
- “the string made out of nereids”
- “the string originating from a place called Nereid“
- siex a-hnnarq (head: siex; relation: goal) – “the string for (the) nereid”
possible interpretations:- “the string to be given or sent to a nereid” (most typical for N2-16 relation)
- “the string made for the benefit of a nereid”
The following table outlines the incorporation/separation dependency patterns for each noun pair class combination. It should be noted that, just like the verb-noun combinations, the head always precedes the foot:
| Foot→ Head↓ | N16 | N8 | N4 | N2 | |
| N16 | S | [N][N'] | [N][N] | [NN] | [NN](ω⇄ω) |
| G | [NN](ω⇄ω) | [NN] | [N][N] | [N][N'] | |
| N8 | S | [N][N] | [NN] | [NN](ω⇄ω) | [NN](ω⇄ω) |
| G | [NN] | [N][N] | [N][N'] | [N][N'] | |
| N4 | S | [NN] | [NN](ω⇄ω) | [NN](ω⇄ω) | [NN](ω⇄ω) |
| G | [N][N] | [N][N'] | [N][N'] | [N][N'] | |
| N2 | S | [NN](ω⇄ω) | [NN](ω⇄ω) | [NN](ω⇄ω) | [NN](ω⇄ω) |
| G | [N][N'] | [N][N'] | [N][N'] | [N][N'] | |
Apart from the use of function particles (which will be discussed in a later section), this head-foot dependency is the syntax that drives Nereidic sentences. In other words, sentences and phrases are formed through verb-noun and noun-noun combinations forming head-foot dependencies. Crucially, Nereidic does not distinguish between finite and non-finite clauses. Instead, every instance of a dependency pair can be understood as either a finite sentence on its own or as an embedded non-finite clause. For example, the example sentence from earlier narqhnnir siexnir (the nereid touches the string) can alternatively be understood as two separate finite sentences: “The nereid touches (something). The string is being touched (something).” The number of dependencies a head forms is dependent on how strong its connection is to its first dependency: the stronger and more incorporated the dependency, the less feet and the more redundancy required (the head is repeated to support the other feet); the weaker and more separated the dependency, the more feet and less redundancy.