SL.O Grammar Guide
This is a short guide to SL.O grammar. All examples are in Roman SL.O. Hyphens show where an ending is added; you can leave them out when typing.
Word order
The basic order is subject, object, verb (SOV): Mi naru pit. “I water drink” = I drink water. Adjectives come before nouns and SL.O uses postpositions (small words after the noun) instead of prepositions.
Pronouns
| English | SL.O |
|---|---|
| I / me | mi |
| you | tu |
| he | ho |
| she | sha |
| it | ke |
| we | mina |
| they | hona |
| this / that | zi / zo |
SL.O has no separate subject and object forms and no grammatical gender. Add -ti to a pronoun for “my, your, his…”: mi-ti = my. Add -gu for “myself, yourself…”: mi-gu.
Nouns, plurals and “the”
- Plural: add
-naafter a vowel or-anaafter a consonant. After a number the noun stays singular. - “The”: add
-rito the noun: tovek-ri = the house. “A house” is just tovek. - No copula: “is, am, are” are not written: Zi tovek. = This is a house.
Verbs
| Meaning | Ending | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Present | none | Mi naru pit. |
| Past | -ta | Mi naru pit-ta. |
| Future | -va | Mi naru pit-va. |
| Continuous | -ngo | Mi naru pit-ngo. |
| Perfect | -ki | Mi naru pit-ki. |
| Command | -ku | Naru pit-ku! |
Negation and questions
Put ba before the verb for “not”: Mi naru ba pit. Add ka at the end for a yes/no question: Tu naru pit ka? Question words (what, who, where, why, how) stay in the place of the missing information.
Joining sentences
SL.O has words for “and”, “but”, “because” and “if”. The condition clause is followed by klu (if): Tu ven klu, mi glis-va. = If you come, I will go.
Words that are not in the dictionary
An unknown word is spelled letter by letter after a marker (lon for common words, lom for names). This keeps every word writable and fully reversible until a real SL.O word is added.
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