 | This article cites its sourcesbut does not providepage references. Please helpimprove it by providing page numbers for existing citations.(September 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
This article is an informal outline of thegrammar ofInterlingua, aninternational auxiliary language first publicized byIALA. It follows the usage of the original grammar text (Gode & Blair, 1951), which is accepted today but regarded as conservative.
The grammar of Interlingua is based largely on that of theRomance languages, but simplified, primarily under the influence ofEnglish. However, all of the control languages, includingGerman andRussian, were consulted in developing the grammar. Grammatical features absent from any of the primary control languages (English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese) were dropped. For example, there is neither adjectivalagreement (Spanish/Portuguesegatos negros 'black cats'), since this feature is absent in English, norcontinuous verb tenses (EnglishI am reading), since they are absent inFrench. Conversely, Interlingua has articles, unlike Russian, as Russian is a secondary control language.
There is no systemic marking for parts of speech. For example, nouns do not have to end in any particular letter. Typically, however, adjectives end in-e or a consonant, adverbs end in-mente or-o, while nouns end in-a, -e, -o or a consonant.Finite verbs virtually always end in-a, -e, or-i, whileinfinitives add-r:scribe, 'write', 'writes';scriber, 'to write'.
 |
|---|
Comparison |
Thedefinite article isle, theindefinite article isun, and neither article shows any agreement in form with nouns. The prepositionsa ("to") andde ("of")fuse with a followingle intoal anddel respectively.
The definite article is, on the whole, used as in English, with the exception that it should not be omitted with titles preceding proper names nor with abstract nouns representing an entire class, species, etc.
Nouns inflect for number only.Plural nouns take-s after a vowel,-es after a consonant (but final-c, -g change in spelling to-ches, -ghes to preserve the hard[k]and[g] sound ofc andg).
Interlingua has nogrammatical gender. Animate nouns are sex-neutral, unless they refer specifically to a male or a female. Thus,jornalista 'journalist' andscientista 'scientist' are sex-neutral, whilerege 'king' andregina 'queen' are sex-specific. Explicit feminine forms can be created by substituting final-a for a final-o or-e or by adding the suffix-essa.
These colour the regular forms as masculine when they appear in the same context.
Unlike in English, nouns cannot take adjectival forms, such as 'winter weather', 'research laboratory', 'fall coat', etc. Such constructions instead require the use of a preposition or a corresponding adjective, respectivelytempore hibernal,laboratoria de recerca, andmantello pro autumno. This is however excepted by proper nouns which can be used adjectivally as in English:contator Geiger 'Geiger counter',motor Diesel 'Diesel engine',radios Röntgen 'Roentgen rays', etc.
Despite the above restrictions, Interlingua permits use of apposition, where the two nouns refer to the same thing.
Male and female forms should match.
Adjectives may precede or follow the noun they modify. As a matter of style, short adjectives tend to precede, long adjectives tend to follow. Numerals always precede the noun.
An adjective never has to agree with the noun it modifies, but adjectives may be pluralized when there is no explicit noun to modify.
Comparative degree is expressed byplus orminus preceding the adjective and superlative degree byle plus orle minus.
The suffix-issime may be used to express the absolute superlative degree.
The adjectivesbon 'good',mal 'bad',magne 'great', andparve 'small' have optional irregular forms for the comparative and superlative.
| bon → plus bon → le plus bon | or | bon → melior → optime | ||
| mal → plus mal → le plus mal | or | mal → pejor → pessime | ||
| magne → plus magne → le plus magne | or | magne → major → maxime | ||
| parve → plus parve → le plus parve | or | parve → minor → minime |
Theoretically, every adjective may serve as a pronoun referring to something expressed in a previous passage.[example needed]
The Interlingua-English Dictionary (IED) lacks a lot of adjectives associated with nouns such ascommunista,populista,optimista etc. Then nouns ending with -a and -o are used as adjectives for instance
Admittedly the Interlingua Grammar (IG) forbids to use nouns as adjectives, but both IED and IG seem to allow such case, because contain phrases such aspapiro moneta[1] (=paper money) andarbore nano[2] (=dwarf tree).
There are two types of adverbs, primary and secondary. Primary adverbs are aclosed class of grammatical operators, such asquasi, 'almost';jam, 'already'; andtotevia, 'anyway'. Secondary adverbs are anopen class derived from corresponding adjectives by adding the suffix-mente (-amente after final-c).
A few common adverbs have optional short forms in-o.
Like adjectives, adverbs useplus andminus to express the comparative andle plus andle minus to express the superlative.
The adverbs equivalent tobon, 'good' andmal, 'bad' have optional irregular forms.
| bonmente → plus bonmente → le plus bonmente | or | ben → plus ben → le plus ben | or | ben → melio → optimo | ||||
| malmente → plus malmente→ le plus malmente | or | mal → plus mal → le plus mal | or | mal → pejo → pessimo |
| Personal pronouns – singular | ||||||
| Person | Gender | Nom. | Pre. | Obl. | Refl. | Genitive |
| First | – | io,yo[3]*,ego* | me | mi, mie | ||
| Second | – | tu | te | tu, tue | ||
| Third | masc. | ille | le | se | su, sue | |
| fem. | illa | la | ||||
| neut. | illo | lo | ||||
| *Yo andego are rarely used.Ego comes from words likeegoismo,egoista,yo is likely a borrowing fromOccidental. | ||||||
| Personal pronouns – plural | ||||||
| Person | Gender | Nom. | Pre. | Obl. | Refl. | Genitive |
| First | – | nos | nostre | |||
| Second | – | vos | vostre | |||
| Third | masc. | illes | les | se | lor, lore | |
| fem. | illas | las | ||||
| neut. | illos | los | ||||
Personal pronouns inflect fornumber,case, and (in the third person) gender.
One could also assert the existence of a separateprepositional case, since third-person pronouns use the longer formsille, illes etc. after a preposition in place of the expectedle, les etc.
Many users follow the European custom of using the plural formsvos etc. rather thantu etc. in formal situations.
Illes can be used as a sex-neutral pronoun, like English 'they'.Illas may be used for entirely female groups.
Il is an impersonal nominative pronoun used in constructions likeil pluve, 'it's raining'. It can also serve as a placeholder when the true subject is a clause occurring later in the sentence. It may be omitted where the sense is clear.
On is a nominative pronoun used when the identity of the subject is vague. The English translation is often 'one', 'you', or 'they'. It is sometimes equivalent to an Englishpassive voice construction. The oblique form isuno.
| Demonstratives | ||||
| Role | Number | Gender | Proximate | Remote |
| Adjective | – | – | iste | ille |
| Pronoun | Sing. | masc. | iste | (ille) |
| fem. | ista | (illa) | ||
| neut. | isto | (illo) | ||
| Plur. | masc. | istes | (illes) | |
| fem. | istas | (illas) | ||
| neut. | istos | (illos) | ||
The main demonstratives are the adjectiveiste, 'this' and the corresponding pronounsiste (masculine),ista (feminine), andisto (neuter), which may be pluralized. They are used more widely than English 'this/these', often encroaching on the territory of English 'that/those'. Where the subject of a sentence has two plausible antecedents,iste (or one of its derivatives) refers to the second one.
The demonstrative of remoteness isille 'that'. The corresponding pronounsille, illa, illo and their plurals are identical with the third-person personal pronouns, though they are normally accentuated in speech.
The relative pronouns for animates arequi (nominative case and after prepositions) andque (oblique case).
For inanimates,que covers both the nominative and oblique cases.
Cuje 'whose' is the genitive case for both animates and inanimates.
All the above may be replaced by the relative adjective formsle qual (singular) andle quales (plural).
The relative pronouns also serve as interrogative pronouns (seeQuestions).
| Main verb forms | |||||
| Tense | Ending | -ar verbs | -er verbs | -ir verbs | |
| Infinitive | -r | parlar | vider | audir | |
| Present | – | parla | vide | audi | |
| Past* | -va | parlava | videva | audiva | |
| Future* | -ra | parlara | videra | audira | |
| Conditional* | -rea | parlarea | viderea | audirea | |
| Present participle | -(e)nte | parlante | vidente | audiente | |
| Past participle | -te | parlate | vidite | audite | |
| *For alternative, compound forms, seeCompound tenses. | |||||
The verb system is a simplified version of the systems found in English and the Romance languages. There is noimperfective aspect, as in Romance, noperfect as in English, and nocontinuous aspect, as in English and some Romance languages. Except (optionally) foresser 'to be', there are no personal inflections, and theindicative also covers thesubjunctive andimperative moods. Three common verbs (esse,habe andvade) usually take short forms in thepresent tense (es,ha andva respectively), and a few optionalirregular verbs are available.
For convenience' sake, this section often uses the termtense to also covermood andaspect, though this is not strict grammatical terminology.
The table at the right shows the main verb forms, with examples for-ar, -er and-ir verbs (based onparlar 'to speak',vider 'to see', andaudir 'to hear').
The simple past, future, and conditional tenses correspond to semantically identical compound tenses (composed of auxiliary verbs plus infinitives or past participles). These in turn furnish patterns for building more-complex tenses such as thefuture perfect.
Infinitive verbs always end in-ar, -er, or-ir. They cover the functions of both the infinitive and thegerund in English and can be pluralized where it makes sense.
Infinitives are also used in some compound tenses (see below).
There are four simpletenses: thepresent,past,future, andconditional.
The presentparticiple is effectively the present tense form plus-nte. Verbs in-ir take-iente rather than *-inte (nutrir 'to feed' →nutriente 'feeding'). It functions as an adjective or as the verb in a participial phrase.
The past participle can be constructed by adding-te to the present tense form, except that-er verbs go to-ite rather than *-ete (eder 'to edit' →edite 'edited'). It is used as an adjective and to form various compound tenses.
Three compound tenses – the compound past, future, and conditional – are semantically identical with the corresponding simple tenses.
Other than that the verbva along with present participle creates present quasi-tense, for instance:
The Interlingua Grammar doesn't elaborate on its use. It's illustrated only by one example.
The fourth basic compound tense is the passive, formed fromes (the present tense ofesser 'to be') plus the past participle.
A wide variety of complex tenses can be created following the above patterns, by replacingha, va, andes with other forms ofhaber, vader, andesser. Examples:
There are no distinct forms for the imperative and subjunctive moods, except in the case ofesser 'to be'. Present-tense forms normally serve both functions. For clarity's sake, a nominative pronoun may be added after the verb.
The infinitive can serve as another, stylistically more impersonal, imperative form.
A less urgent version of imperative, thecohortative, employs a present-tense verb within a "that" ("que") clause and may be used with the first and third person as well as the second. The alternativevamos 'let's' (or 'let's go') is available for the second-person plural, but deprecated by some authorities.
Sia is the imperative and subjunctive form ofesser 'to be'. The regular formesse may also be used.
| Irregular forms ofvader (ir) | ||||||
| Singular | Plural | |||||
| 1. pers. | 2–3. pers. | |||||
| Present | va | vamos | van | |||
| Past | iva | |||||
| Future | ira | |||||
| Conditional | irea | |||||
| Imperative | i | |||||
| Irregular forms ofesser | ||||||
| Singular | Plural | |||||
| 1. pers. | 2–3. pers. | 1. pers. | 2–3. pers. | |||
| Present | so | es | somos | son | ||
| Past | era | |||||
| Future | sera | |||||
| Conditional | serea | |||||
| Imperative | sia | |||||
The only irregular verb forms employed by most users arees, ha, andva – the shortened present-tense forms ofesser 'to be',haber 'to have' andvader 'to go' – plussia, the imperative/subjunctive ofesser.
Other irregular forms are available, but official Interlingua publications (and the majority of users) have always favoured the regular forms. These optional irregular forms are known ascollaterals.
A significant minority of users employ certain collateral forms ofesser 'to be':son (present plural),era (past),sera (future), andserea (conditional), instead ofes,esseva,essera, andesserea.
The formsio so 'I am',nos somos 'we are',nos vamos 'we go' andvos/illes van 'you/they go' also exist but are rarely used.
TheNeo-Latin vocabulary that underlies Interlingua includes a group of verbs whosestems mutate when attached to certain suffixes. For example,agente, agentia, actrice, activista, reagente, reaction are all derivatives ofager 'to act', but some use the primary stemag-, while others use the secondary stemact-. There are hundreds of such verbs, especially ininternational scientific vocabulary.
This raises a logical issue. Adding-e to one of these secondary stems produces an adjective that is structurally and semantically equivalent to the past participle of the same verb.Experte, for example, is related toexperir 'to experience', which has the past participleexperite. Yet, semantically, there is little difference betweenun experte carpentero 'an expert carpenter' andun experite carpentero 'an experienced carpenter'. Effectively,experte =experite. Furthermore, one can form a word likele experito 'the experienced one' as a quasi-synonym ofle experto 'the expert'.
This process can be reversed. That is, can one substituteexperte forexperite in compound tenses (and other second-stem adjectives for other past participles).
The original Interlingua grammar (Gode & Blair, 1951) permitted this usage, and illustrated it in one experimental text. A minority of Interlinguists employ the irregular roots, at least occasionally, more often with recognizable forms likescripte (forscribite 'written') than opaque ones likefisse (forfindite 'split'). The practice is controversial. Deprecators suggest that they complicate the active use of Interlingua and may confuse beginners. Proponents argue that by using the irregular participles, students of Interlingua become more aware of the connections between words likeagente andactor,consequentia andconsecutive, and so on. A compromise position holds that the irregular forms may be useful in some educational contexts (e.g., when using Interlingua to teach international scientific vocabulary or as an intermediate step in the study of Romance languages), but not in general communication.
A similar issue concerns the present participles ofcaper 'to grasp, seize',facer 'to do, make',saper 'to know', and all verbs ending in-ciper,-ficer, and-jicer. The regular forms arefacente,sapente, etc., but the "preferred forms", according to the original grammar, arefaciente,sapiente, etc.
Today, most users employ the regular forms in spontaneous usage. Forms likesufficiente are often used as adjectives, under the influence of similar forms in the source languages.
Cardinal numbers are formed by addition and multiplication of predetermined root numerals. Smaller values before larger ones corresponds to multiplication, while larger values before smaller ones corresponds to addition. Numerals below one hundred consist of a root numeral for the tens and a root numeral for the ones, concatenated with a hyphen, i.e. 42quaranta-duo 'forty-two'.
For example, the number 2345 would beduo milles tres centos quaranta-cinque 'two thousand three hundred (and) forty-five', which corresponds to the expression 2 × 1000 + 3 × 100 + 40 + 5. The number 9 876 000 would benove milliones octo centos septanta-sex milles 'nine million eight hundred (and) seventy-six thousand', which corresponds to the expression 9 × 1 000 000 + (8 × 100 + 70 + 6) × 1000. The conjunctione 'and' can always be inserted arbitrarily between any two roots in a number, even replacing the hyphen between tens and ones.
The cardinal numbers below 100 are all constructed regularly from nineteen roots. (Note that among the tens, fifty and onwards are constructed regularly from the corresponding ones and the ending-anta.)
| 0 | zero | ||
| 1 | un | 10 | dece |
| 2 | duo | 20 | vinti |
| 3 | tres | 30 | trenta |
| 4 | quatro | 40 | quaranta |
| 5 | cinque | 50 | cinquanta |
| 6 | sex | 60 | sexanta |
| 7 | septe | 70 | septanta |
| 8 | octo | 80 | octanta |
| 9 | nove | 90 | novanta |
The number 100 iscento 'hundred' and the number 1000 ismille 'thousand'. All further larger numbers follow thelong scale.
| 100 | cento |
| 1 000 | mille |
| 1 000 0001 | million |
| 1 000 × 1 000 0001 | milliardo |
| 1 000 0002 | billion |
| 1 000 × 1 000 0002 | billiardo |
| 1 000 0003 | trillion |
| 1 000 × 1 000 0003 | trilliardo |
| 1 000 0004 | quatrillion |
| 1 000 × 1 000 0004 | quatrilliardo |
| 1 000 0005 | quintillion |
| 1 000 × 1 000 0005 | quintilliardo |
| … | … |
The ordinal numbers have their own root numerals for the ones (and ten).
| 1st | prime |
| 2nd | secunde |
| 3rd | tertie |
| 4th | quarte |
| 5th | quinte |
| 6th | sexte |
| 7th | septime |
| 8th | octave |
| 9th | none |
| 10th | decime |
| last | ultime |
All other ordinal numbers are formed by the cardinal number followed by the suffix-esime. In compound ordinals, only the last root numeral is modified.
| 11th | dece-prime 'eleventh' | |
| 102nd | cento secunde 'hundred (and) second' | |
| 99th | novanta-none 'ninety-ninth' | |
| 300th | tres centesime 'three hundredth' |
With the exception ofmedie 'half', all fractional numerals are formed by a cardinal number representing the numerator followed by an ordinal number representing the denominator.
| 1/2 | medie 'half' | |
| 1/4 | un quarte 'one quarter' | |
| 22/7 | vinti-duo septime 'twenty-two seventh(s)' |
Multiplicative numerals consist of either 14 basic multiplicative numeral roots or 14 basic prefixes which can in principle be compounded to any word.
| Multiplicative numeral | Multiplicative prefix | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | simple orsimplice 'simple' | uni- ormono- |
| 2 | duple orduplice 'double' | bi- ordi- |
| 3 | triple ortriplice 'triple' | tri- |
| 4 | quadruple 'quadruple' | quadri- ortetra- |
| 5 | quintuple 'quintuple' | penta- |
| 6 | sextuple 'sixfold' | hexa- |
| 7 | septuple 'sevenfold' | hepta- |
| 8 | octuple 'eightfold' | octa- |
| 9 | nonuple 'ninefold' | ennea- |
| 10 | decuple 'tenfold' | deca- |
| 100 | centuple 'hundredfold' | hecto- |
Continuing the series, all of themetric prefixes are valid productive prefixes in Interlingua. Beside these, there are also the irregular prefixessesqui- 'one-and-a-half-',semi- 'half-',hemi- 'half-' andmyria- 'ten-thousand-'.
All of the collective numerals are modelled afterdozena 'dozen', and are formed by suffixing-ena to any cardinal numeral.
Decimals should always be written with commas by default, as perISO recommendations. I.e.3,1415 and not '3.1415' as in English. Since this would clash with the familiar usage of the comma as thethousands separator in English, this function is switched with the period in Interlingua, or alternatively empty spaces.
Ordinals and adverbials expressed in Arabic numerals are written as follows:
with the adverbials being identical except for ending in-o instead of-e. Alternatively, it is extremely common to simply use the suffixes-e or-o on their own for simplicity.
The normalword order in Interlingua issubject–verb–object, though this may be relaxed where the sense is clear.
Pronouns, however, tend to follow the Romance patternsubject–object–verb, except for infinitives and imperatives, where the object follows the verb.
When two pronouns, one a direct and one an indirect object, occur with the same verb, the indirect object comes first.
The position of adverbs and adverbial phrases is similar to English.
Questions can be created in several ways, familiar to French speakers.
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)The present participle is an adjective and as such shares all the characteristics of other adjectives. (...) Note: The present participle has no function in the verbal paradigm, for there is no crystallized progressive corresponding to English 'I am buying, hoping, etc.' But phrases like 'A dead dog cannot be living' may of course be translated literally in so far as they make sense. (...) Le climate de Alaska va deveniente plus benigne 'The climate of Alaska keeps (or goes on or is) getting milder'
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)| Classification | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Specific languages by group |
| ||||||||||
| Neography | |||||||||||
| Study | |||||||||||
| Comparisons | |||||||||||
