Arêndron Syntax
7: A miscellany

Passive

Arêndron has no true passive voice. Instead, there are three different constructions that between them cover the same range of meanings as the passive in languages that have one. Firstly, as was discussed on the word order page, the object can be fronted before the verb, with a dummy pronoun left in its place, to bring the object rather than the subject into focus.

Kleissa glœsa Tarûn hagh
Milk is loved by Tarûn
(literally, “milk, Tarûn loves it”)

Where the subject is unknown or unstated, there are two constructions that can be used. One is to replace the subject with the fourth person in its impersonal sense:

Glœsagh kleissa
Milk is loved (by someone or some people)

The other is a construction like the English passive, with the copula bar- and a passive participle. Be careful when using this construction, as it cannot be used as freely as it is in English. It is only used to express a state rather than a specific occurrence of an action: either, with the past passive participle, that an object is in the state of having been acted upon, or with the non-past, that it is in the state of generally being acted upon.

Au guilalêk Arêndron vâdeut klêchen
Arêndron is spoken here

Au grœn culta slirunt
That door is opened

This construction can be used with the subject present, although the same caveat about only using it for states and not actions applies. The subject takes the instrumental:

Au guilalêk Arêndron vâdeut glêmnos
Arêndron is spoken by men

Prepositions

Most of Arêndron's prepositions are locational, modifying a noun to refer to a position in space described in relation to that noun. The noun must be placed in one of the three spatiotemporal cases: allative to refer to motion towards a position, ablative to refer to motion away from a position, and locative to refer to static location or motion contained within a position.

Prêthnê ven avôlu
I jumped into the water

Prêthnê ven avôli
I jumped out of the water

Prêthnê ven avôlyen
I jumped (while standing) in the water

The following chart lists all the most common locational prepositions in Arêndron: