Dictionary

Core Aru-dem vocabulary with part of speech, definitions, and example sentences.

Example sentences

Grammar guide

A practical overview of Aru-dem structure, from basic sentences to complex verb morphology.

Intransitive Word Order

Aru-dem is a Topic-Comment language. The Topic — is the first word in the sentence, followed by a comment or predicate. The topic or the comment can be topcialised. Comments are introduced with the copula sa, or -s when the comment is a single root ending in a vowel.

Lu dauwas. "I eat."

Dauwa lus. "I eat."

Juweya-dei semras. "Juweya writes."

Semra sa juweya-dei. "Juweya writes."

Transitive Word Orders

Aru-dem uses three possible word orders. Switching around the order of words promotes or demotes elements in a sentence.

        Word Order
        Subject + Verb + Object 

        Object + SA + Subject + Verb 

        ER-Verb + Object + SA + Subject

Lu puwauwr juwa. "I read a book."

Juwa sa lu puwauwr. "I read the book."

Erpuwauwa-juwa lus. "I read the book."

Voice

There are two voices in Aru-dem, Actor voice and Patient voice. Actor voice uses the verbaliser -r for transitive verbs and -ra/-a for intransitive verbs. Patient voice uses -se for transitive and -rei/-ei for intransitive.

Vom-pei sa lu auwr. "I see people."

Juwa semreis "The book is written."

Personal Pronouns

Aru-dem distinguishes inclusive (speaker + listener) and exclusive (speaker but not listener) first-person plural pronouns. There is also an imperative pronoun (giving commands) in the second-person.

        Basic Pronouns

        lu - I/me/my 

        tei - you/your (sg.)

        su - he/she/it/him/her (topic)

        so - he/she/it/him/her (non-topic)

        marei - you (imp.)

        Complex Pronouns

        lu-pei - we/our/us (excl.) 

        Tei-lu - we/our/us (incl.)

        Tei-pei - you/your (pl.) 

        su-pei - they/their (topic)

        so-pei - they/their (non-topic)

        marei-lu - let's / let us

        marei-pei - you (imp.) (pl.)

        Tei-lu-pei - all of us

Plurality of nouns

Nouns do not inflect for number. Plurality is conveyed contextually or by number words. The suffix -pei indicates a plural.

Luk-pei "children" (lit. child-PLURAL)

Possession and Association

Possession is conveyed by commenting a pronoun, or person to the noun being possessed, or possession is convey by using the root ouwek

Mez lus "the house is mine."

Mez grus "The house is the teachers."

Mez ouwekse gru "the house is owned by the teacher."

Symmetric Voice

Aru-dem uses a symmetric voice system. The verb is morphologically marked to show which argument is the actor or patient in a sentence.

        Actor voice (AV) — Subject is the doer; transitive suffix -r, intransitive suffix -ra/-a

        Patient voice (PV) — Subject is the thing acted on; transitive suffix -se, intransitive suffix -rei/ei

Actor voice

When the subject is the actor, the verb uses -r for transitive verbs (verbs with an object) or -ra/-a for intransitive verbs (verbs with no object).

Luk dauwr nut. "The child eats food." (AV — Child is the subject)

Vom semras. "People write." (AV — people is the subject)

Semra sa vom. "People write." (AV — people is the subject)

Nut sa luk-pei dauwr. "The children eat the food." (AV — children is the subject)

Patient voice

When the subject is the patient, the verb uses -se for transitive verbs (verbs with an object) or -rei/-ei for intransitive verbs (verbs with no object).

Semrei juwas. "A book is written." (PV — book is the subject)

Su-tekra sa juwa semse. "The student writes the book." (PV — book is the subject)

Luk sa nut dause. "The child eats the food." (PV — child is the subject)

Nut dauweis. "The food is eaten." (PV — food is the subject)

Tense

Aru-dem is different in its approach to expressing time. It is a tense-less language; in other words, there is no grammatical category of time. Instead, time is expressed used clausal and phrase linked to a main sentence

        Within the same day
        Present: wel pus 

        Past: wel mregras

        future: wel tregras

        In general
        Present: seg pus 

        Past: seg mregras

        future: seg tregras

        Within moments
        Present: tuwek pus 

        Past: tuwek mregras

        future: tuwek tregras

Lu kouwas u sa wel pus "I do it now"

Buk sa lu tr u sa seg mregras "I went to the store"

Pai-tek sa lu mr u sa wel tregras u sa wel pus "I will leave school (in a few hours)"

Lu kouwas u sa tuwek pus "I do it right now"

Aspect

The completedness of verbs are conveyed using verbs phrases or adverbs.

        Within the same day
        completed: ga 

        in progress: pa 

        comptemplated: tla

Lu kouwas sasa pa. "I am still doing it"

Tei par tei kouwas. "I am still doing it"

Lu tlar lu nutras "I haven't cooked yet"

Lu kouwas sasa tla. "I haven't done it yet"

Lu gar lu kouwas. "I finished doing it"

Yes / no questions

A statement becomes a yes/no question by adding the particle nepa- suffixed to the topic of the sentence.

Nepa-tei dauwas? "Did/Do you eat?"

Nepa-su tekras? "Is he/she a student?/ Does he/she study"

Wh-questions

A statement becomes a Wh-question by adding the particle puwei- suffixed to the topic of the sentence. Some common Wh words can be formed using the particle puwei-.

        puwei-su — what/who  |  puwei-vom — who  |  puwei-pai — where

        puwei-seg/wel — when  |  puwei-kei — why  |  Puwei-kot — how many

        puwei-lei — how  |  Puwei-la — which |  Puwei-srel — who

Puwei-dei teis? "What is your name?"

Puwei-pai sa tei tr? "Where did you go?"

Puwei-su? "What is it? / What?"

Basic negation

The primary negator is vej (not/void), placed at the begining of the sentence and is the topic. Uwaai is used as a negator.

Vej sa lu dauwas. "I did not eat."

Vej sa so tekras. "He/she is not a student."

Uwaai-vom pus. " Nobody is here."

Uwaai sa vom fos. " Nobody is there."

Prohibitive (don't!)

Commands are negated with Vej sa marei + the rest of the sentence.

Vej sa marei dauwas. "Don't eat!"

Vej sa marei dauwas wei fos. "Don't eat there."

Linker sa and -s

The particles, sa and -s introduces a predicate, which adds information about the subject, and, in this situation, the closest equivalent to English would be 'to be'. You will attach -s to the root if it is a native word ending in a vowel. Otherwise, you use sa before the noun, especially if it ends in a consonant, is a foreign word or a proper name. The sentence formula is "X Ys" or "X sa Y".

Lru sa tim "The dog is dark" (dog LINK darkness)

Su umus. "he/she/it is big (3.TOP LINK bigness)"

Conjunctions

osa — and/but | usu — or | ora — and

Lu dauwas u osa lu puwetras. "I eat and I sit."

Nepa-cai usa kafei u sa tei ouwr? "Do you want tea or coffee?"

Verb paradigms

In Aru-dem, verbs are made by taking a noun root and suffixing a verbaliser onto it. Verbs do not inflect for person, or tense. What changes is transitivity (does a verb have an object) combined with voice (which argument is the subject).

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