Xiri grammar

Xiri is primarily an SVO language, though changing word order has grammatical function and any word order can be used to express different meanings. Dependent clauses are always verb-initial, either VOS or VSO, while passive constructions always place the verb at the end of the phrase, either SOV or OSV.

The morphology of Xiri is agglutinative, meaning words are formed by sequences of distinct morphemes which each serve a single grammatical function. Most words typically consist of 1-4 morphemes.

Case
Nouns are marked with suffixes for three primary cases: nominative, accusative and dative: The genitive form of a noun acts as a base for five sub-cases:

Number
Xiri features two plural markers:


 * u- / ū- / w- — Generic plural
 * ugu- / ugū- / ugw- — Intense plural

The Xiri plural is not regularly used to refer to plural entities, some nouns never occur in a plural form. It is not a grammatical number in the strict sense, but closer to a lexical derivation, often used to refer to closed sets or groups of things, in which usage it can carry a definite sense. For example, Udovuʼo is the generic plural form of tovuʼo "home-island", referring to the five islands which make up the archipelago, while the name of Xiri's writing system Ugugo is an intensified plural of ko "cut", yielding the meaning "very many cuts".