Blylandic language/Feature summary

This page details the features of Blylandic, based on the categories used by The World Atlas of Language Structures.

Phonology
The following features concern phonology.

Consonant inventory


 * Blylandic: Average (25)

Notes: The phonemic consonant inventory is: /m n ɲ ŋ p b t d k kʷ g f θ s z ɕ ʑ h t͡ɕ d͡ʑ w l j r/

Vowel inventory


 * Blylandic: Large (10)

Notes: The phonemic vowel inventory is: /a ɛ e i ø y ɔ o u ə/

Consonant-vowel ratio


 * Blylandic: Moderately low (2.50)

Voicing contrast


 * Blylandic: Both plosives and fricatives

Notes: The voiceless-voiced stop pairs are /p b/, /t d/ and /k g/. The voiceless-voiced fricative pairs are /s z/ and /ɕ ʑ/.

Stop system gaps


 * Blylandic: None (/p t k b d g/)

Uvular consonants


 * Blylandic: None

Glottalised consonants


 * Blylandic: None

Lateral consonants


 * Blylandic: /l/, no obstruents

Notes: Old Blylandic had an obstruent lateral /ɬ/.

Velar nasal


 * Blylandic: Not word-initial

Notes: Only in loanwords is the velar nasal found initially. Typically, it is an allophone of /m/ and /n/, but word-finally it can be found alone.

Nasal vowels


 * Blylandic: Present

Notes: Nasal vowels only occur in specific phonological environments (namely, when a nasal is followed by a fricative or liquid), but certain nasal vowels do form minimal pairs with their oral counterparts.

Front rounded vowels


 * Blylandic: Both high and mid

Notes: Blylandic front rounded vowels largely arise from umlaut or assimilation.

Syllable structure


 * Blylandic: Complex

Notes: The maximal syllable is of the form (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C)(s)(p,t,k)(s)(p,t,k).

Tone


 * Blylandic: Simple

Notes: The question of whether Blylandic has tones has an ambiguous answer. Tone does exist as a phonemic device, but it typically marks stress, with both primary and secondary stress taking high tone. Notably, syllables with secondary stress and unstressed syllables may be distinguished only by tone.

Fixed stress locations


 * Blylandic: Initial

Notes: Stress in Blylandic consistently falls on the first syllable of the root, not the entire word. Only the first root has primary stress; other roots within a word have secondary stress instead. Prefixes are unstressed.

Weight-sensitive stress


 * Blylandic: N/A (fixed stress)

Notes: Syllable weight plays no role in the position of stress in Blylandic.

Weight factors for weight-sensitive stress


 * Blylandic: No weight

Notes: See above

Rhythm type


 * Blylandic: Undetermined

Notes: The placement of secondary stress is determined solely by any additional root morphemes after the first. Words with only one root morpheme only have primary stress, regardless of the number of syllables after the stressed syllable.

Absence of common consonants


 * Blylandic: All present

Notes: Bilabials: /p b m/. Fricatives: /f θ s z ɕ ʑ h/. Nasals: /m n ɳ ŋ/

Presence of uncommon consonants


 * Blylandic: 'Th'-sounds

Notes: Blylandic does possess a dental non-sibilant fricative /θ/, but lacks clicks, labial-velars and pharyngeals.

Morphology
Fusion of selected inflectional formatives


 * Blylandic: Exclusively concatenating

Notes: While strong verbs still retain ablaut, all new words exclusively rely on concatenation to indicate case or tense and mood. Umlaut is technically a fossilised phonological process.

Case exponence


 * Blylandic: Case + number

Notes: For both nouns and adjectives, there are no single morphemes representing a case or a number. An example is the genitive case; the singular is -s, while the plural is -a.

TAM exponence


 * Blylandic: Monoexponential TAM

Notes: While the agreement suffixes may be different between different TAM combinations, TAM itself can usually be determined without regard to the agreement suffixes.

Inflectional synthesis of the verb


 * Blylandic: 2-3 categories per word

Notes: A single Blylandic verb conjugates for tense (past and non-past) and mood (indicative, subjunctive/optative and imperative). In addition, there is also the mediopassive suffix -sk which, while considered a "composed" inflection, cannot be separated from the verb itself. This gives a total of three categories: tense, mood and voice.

Locus of marking in the clause


 * Blylandic: P is dependent-marked

Notes: Blylandic is a nominative-accusative language. This means that subjects and direct objects are marked with the nominative and accusative cases respectively. Only the subject is marked on the verb, and only its person and number, not its gender.

Locus of marking in possessive noun phrases


 * Blylandic: Possessor is dependent-marked

Notes: The possessor is marked with the genitive case, while the possessed is not marked at all.

Locus of marking: whole language typology


 * Blylandic: Consistently dependent-marking

Zero marking of A and P arguments


 * Blylandic: Non-zero marking

Prefixing vs. suffixing in inflectional morphology


 * Blylandic: Predominatly suffixing

Notes: All prefixes in Blylandic are derivational prefixes. All inflections involve suffixing, ablaut, umlaut or suppletion.

Reduplication


 * Blylandic: No productive reduplication

Notes: Reduplication in Blylandic is limited to only five irregular strong verbs and the highly irregular duun ("to do").

Case syncretism


 * Blylandic: Core cases only

Notes: In Blylandic nominal paradigms, only the nominative and accusative are syncretic, and only in some declensions. Morphological levelling has eliminated syncretism in the genitive and dative.

Syncretism in verbal person/number marking


 * Blylandic: Syncretic

Notes: In all but a handful of verbs, the second person dual is identical to the corresponding plural form. The present indicative merges the second person singular and first person dual, while the subjunctive merges the first person singular, third person singular and first person dual. Strong past indicatives have identical first and third person singular forms, while weak past indicatives merge the third person singular with the first person dual.

Nominal categories
Number of genders


 * Blylandic: Three

Notes: The three genders are masculine, feminine and neuter.

Sex-based and non-sex-based gender systems


 * Blylandic: Sex-based

Notes: The masculine gender encompasses nouns that describe males, such as fader ("father"), while the feminine gender encompasses nouns that describe females, such as muuder ("mother").

Systems of gender assignment


 * Blylandic: Semantic and formal assignment

Notes: Generally, words that describe males are masculine, while words that describe females are feminine. However, assignment to any of the genders is largely arbitrary.

Coding of nominal plurality


 * Blylandic: Plural suffix

Notes: While case and number are fused in nominal morphology, all such markers are suffixes.

Occurrence of nominal plurality


 * Blylandic: All nouns, always obligatory

Plurality in independent personal pronouns


 * Blylandic: Person-number stem

Notes: The plural forms of the first and second person pronouns are suppletive.

The associative plural


 * Blylandic: Unique periphrastic associative marker

Notes: The associative plural in Blylandic is formed by placing a plural form of the medial demonstrative sa before the noun. This demonstrative agrees in case, but not necessarily in gender.

Definite article


 * Blylandic: Demonstrative used as definite article

Notes: The definite article is the medial demonstrative sa.

Indefinite article


 * Blylandic: No indefinite article, but definite article

Notes: Blylandic possesses no way to indicate indefiniteness. While iin ("one") is often described as an indefinite article, and has the same effect on adjectives as a demonstrative, it is only used when emphasis is needed to be placed on an object's singularity.

Inclusive/exclusive distinction in independent pronouns


 * Blylandic: No inclusive/exclusive distinction

Notes: Blylandic makes no distinction between inclusive and exclusive first person.

Inclusive/exclusive distinction in verbal inflection


 * Blylandic: No inclusive/exclusive

Distance contrasts in demonstratives


 * Blylandic: Three-way distinction

Notes: Proximal hir, medial sa, distal jein.

Pronominal and adnominal demonstratives


 * Blylandic: Identical

Notes: The demonstratives can be used in either role, without any change in form.

Third person pronouns and demonstratives


 * Blylandic: Third person pronouns are related to non-remote demonstratives

Notes: Blylandic generally has no dedicated third person pronouns. Typically the proximal and medial demonstratives are used in their place. Note that the dummy pronouns si (masculine/feminine singular), it (neuter singular) and ju (plural) are related to the demonstratives.

Gender distinctions in independent personal pronouns


 * Blylandic: Third person only, but also non-singular

Notes: The Blylandic demonstratives have different forms for each gender in both the singular and plural.

Politeness distinctions in pronouns


 * Blylandic: No politeness distinction

Notes: Blylandic generally does not make any distinctions based on politeness. In fact, the use of jaur where þau is meant is often seen as a sign of someone with a poor grasp of the language.

Indefinite pronouns


 * Blylandic: Special indefinites

Notes: The assertive existential is sum, which bears no relation to the interrogative war.

Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns


 * Blylandic: Differentiated

Notes: The intensifier is selb, which declines as a strong adjective. The reflexive is sek, which declines identically to the first and second person singular pronouns and lacks a nominative form.

Person marking on adpositions


 * Blylandic: No person marking

Notes: The postpositional case markers are technically suffixes, and while they fuse with any personal pronouns, they are generally analysed as pronouns with markers attached to them. The other postpositions do not fuse with the pronouns.

Number of cases


 * Blylandic: 4 categories

Notes: The Blylandic cases are the nominative, accusative, genitive and dative. This does not include the six postpositional case markers, which while behaving like suffixes, do not possess the properties of the four main cases (such as noun-adjective agreement).

Asymmetrical case-marking


 * Blylandic: Syncretism in relevant NP-types

Notes: All neuter nominals have identical nominative and accusative forms. This extends to all neuter pronouns.

Position of case affixes


 * Blylandic: Case suffixes

Notes: Blylandic also possesses postpositional case markers.

Comitatives and instrumental


 * Blylandic: Differentiation

Notes: The instrumental case marker is -bi (with dative), while the comitative case marker is -mis (with dative).

Ordinal numerals


 * Blylandic: First, second, three-th

Notes: The first five ordinals are fyrst, anner, þrize, föderþe and fefte. The first five cardinals are iin (different), twii (different), þrair (similar), föder (similar) and fef (similar).

Distributive numerals


 * Blylandic: Marked by mixed or other strategies

Notes: The typical way to form distributives is to combine the combining prefix of the numeral with the suffix -fald, which declines as an adjective. However, this can only take place if the number itself can be represented with a single numeral. In the case where two or more numerals are needed to represent the number, said number is declined in the genitive and -fald is split into its own word, occurring after the cardinal.

Numeral classifiers


 * Blylandic: Absent

Conjunctions and universal qualifiers


 * Blylandic: Formally similar, not involving interrogative expression

Notes: Blylandic possesses the conjunction alswa ("also"), which is related to the universal indefinite pronoun all.

Position of pronominal possessive affixes


 * Blylandic: No possessive affixes

Nominal syntax
Obligatory possessive inflection


 * Blylandic: No obligatorily possessed nouns

Possessive nouns


 * Blylandic: None

Notes: These two categories do not apply to Blylandic, as the language lacks inflections to denote that a noun is possessed.

Possessive classification


 * Blylandic: No possessive classification

Notes: There is only one way of forming possessives in Blylandic.

Genitives, adjectives and relative clauses


 * Blylandic: Highly differentiated

Notes: All three types of modifiers are distinguished in the grammar. Genitives do not display any form of agreement with the head noun (the only exceptions being the possessive pronouns) and retain their form when placed into compounds, while adjectives do display agreement and when placed into compounds lose their endings. Relative clauses are marked with a relativising clitic -þe after the clause (the relative pronoun þiss occurs as the first component of the clause).

Adjectives without nouns


 * Blylandic: Adjective may occur without noun, and without marking

Notes: In Blylandic, any non-weak adjective can act as a substantive noun. Usually such adjectives are associated with determiners (numerals and demonstratives). Weak-only adjectives do require a determiner, but only in the genitive and dative.

Action nominal constructions


 * Blylandic: Ergative-possessive

Notes: For action nominals derived from intransitive verbs, the sole core argument is declined in the genitive case. For action nominals from transitive verbs, the direct object is in the genitive, while the subject is marked with -ap (with dative), which happens to also mark the agents of passive clauses.

Noun phrase conjunction


 * Blylandic: AND-languages: 'and' and 'with' are not identical

Notes: Blylandic uses ǫk to denote the conjunction, and this form does not resemble the comitative marker -mis.

Nominal and verbal conjunction


 * Blylandic: Nominal and verbal conjunction are identical.

Verbal categories
Perfective/imperfective aspect


 * Blylandic: Grammatical marking of perfective/imperfective distinction

Notes: The marking of these two aspects in Blylandic grammar is a bit of a mess, and is tied into the expression of the future tense. In general, like in Namari, verbs may either be inherently imperfective or inherently perfective, with markers used to denote the other aspect. Inherently perfective verbs, which form the majority in Blylandic, use skolen as their future tense auxillary, and werþen (with present participle) as their imperfective aspect auxillary. Inherently imperfective verbs, such as the copula wesen, use beun as their future tense auxillary (other than wesen itself, whose form is replaced by beun in the future), and duun as their perfective aspect auxillary. Note that there is no perfective present in Blylandic; the simple present of perfective verbs actually represents the aorist, a type of gnomic aspect in Blylandic, and duun as an auxillary never appears in its present indicative form.

The past tense


 * Blylandic: Past/non-past distinction marked, no remoteness distinction

Notes: The formation of the past tense differs between strong and weak verbs. Strong verbs typically form their past tense by ablaut, while weak verbs use a dental suffix -d.

The future tense


 * Blylandic: No inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction

Notes: With the exception of the copula wesen (whose future is suppletive), the future tense is always marked with a "composed" inflection, using either skolen or beun as auxillaries. And the future tense is only mandatory for imperfective verbs; the simple present of perfective verbs can also denote future events.

The perfect


 * Blylandic: Perfect of the 'have'-type

Notes: The vast majority of verbs use hęben (with supine) as their perfect auxillary, including the copula. The only two verbs that use wesen (with supine) as their perfect auxillary are gein ("to go") and qemen ("to come").

Position of tense-aspect affixes


 * Blylandic: Tense-aspect suffixes

The morphological imperative


 * Blylandic: Second person singular imperatives but no morphologically dedicated second person plural imperatives

Notes: Only the copula and certain preterite-present verbs have a second person plural imperative separate from the indicative form. The same applies to the dual.

The prohibitive


 * Blylandic: The prohibitive uses a normal imperative and a normal negative

Notes: The main way of forming prohibitives in Blylandic is simply to conjugate the negative auxillary mesen in the imperative mood.

Imperative-hortative systems


 * Blylandic: Neither a maximal nor a minimal system

Notes: While the second person singular imperative bears no relation to any other second person singular forms, the dual and plural are largely identical with their indicative counterparts. Like the second person singular, the third person imperatives have dedicated forms. The first person plural does not have a dedicated imperative form; instead the subjunctive is used.

The optative


 * Blylandic: Inflectional optative absent

Notes: Blylandic does not have an inflectional optative. Instead, the auxillary skolen is used in the subjunctive to denote the optative, or the subjunctive is used directly.

Situational possibility


 * Blylandic: Situational possibility is expressed with verbal constructions

Notes: Blylandic uses three auxillaries to express situational possiblity. The auxillary konnen indicates ability, magen indicates possibility under circumstances, while muuten indicates permission.

Epistemic possibility


 * Blylandic: Verbal constructions used

Notes: Blylandic uses the auxillaries munen and muuten (the latter only in its past tense) as epistemic auxillaries.

Overlap between situational and epistemic modal marking


 * Blylandic: Overlap only for possibility or necessity

Notes: The auxillary muuten in its past tense can be used either situationally or epistemically, but only for necessity.

Semantic divisions of evidentiality


 * Blylandic: Only indirect evidentials

Notes: The auxillary used to denote indirect evidentials is munen.

Coding of evidentiality


 * Blylandic: Modal morpheme

Notes: See above

Suppletion according to tense or aspect


 * Blylandic: Tense

Notes: Some Blylandic verbs show suppletion in the past tense. Most notably, wesen has is and was, and gein has giis and jai.

Suppletion in imperatives and hortatives


 * Blylandic: None

Verbal number and suppletion


 * Blylandic: None

Notes: Blylandic verbs make no assumption as to how many times the action described by the verb is performed. Such information must be explicitly given via numeral adverbs.

Word order
Order of subject, object and verb


 * Blylandic: Subject-object-verb (SOV)

Notes: The typical word order is SOV. V2 word order, in which a fully inflected verb is placed in the second position of a clause, is very rare in Blyland, but is somewhat more common in Europe. Subordinate clauses are always SOV. For polar questions and imperatives, the order is actually VSO or AuxSOV.

Order of subject and verb


 * Blylandic: Subject precedes verb (SV)

Order of object and verb


 * Blylandic: Object precedes verb (OV)

Order of object, oblique and verb


 * Blylandic: Oblique-object-verb (XOV)

Notes: The tendency in Blylandic is to place obliques (dative arguments and postpositional phrases) before the direct object.

Order of adposition and noun phrase


 * Blylandic: Postpositions

Notes: Old Blylandic adpositions could occur either before or after the noun phrase, and in some cases (if they governed the dative) be placed anywhere in the sentence as if they were adverbs, a behaviour that in the Germanic language family is only otherwise found in Old English. As the language evolved, the location of adpositions became fixed through influence from the other Likkran languages.

Order of genitive and noun


 * Blylandic: Genitive-noun (GenN)

Order of adjective and noun


 * Blylandic: Modifying adjective precedes noun (AdjN)

Notes: Typically, genitives and adjectives precede the noun they modify. However, in some cases they can occur after the noun.

Order of demonstrative and noun


 * Blylandic: Demonstrative word precedes noun (DemN)

Order of numeral and noun


 * Blylandic: Numeral precedes noun (NumN)

Order of relative clause and noun


 * Blylandic: Relative clause precedes noun (RelN)

Notes: Old Blylandic actually placed relative clauses after the noun it modified. The main reason for the switch in order is largely the influence of the Likkran linguistic area, which is heavily dominated by languages that place relative clauses before the noun. To compare, Guruni has relative clauses preceding the noun, but Nodaimese has them after the noun.

Order of degree word and adjective


 * Blylandic: Degree word precedes adjective (DegAdj)

Position of polar question particles


 * Blylandic: No question particle

Notes: Blylandic forms polar questions by moving the fully conjugated verb into the first position. Blylandic syntax means that sentences whose main clauses have the fully conjugated verb in the first position are either polar questions or commands; declarative sentences are prohibited from beginning with a verb, necessitating the use of dummy pronouns in some cases.

Position of interrogative phrases in content questions


 * Blylandic: Obligatory initial

Notes: Blylandic grammar requires the interrogative word to be in the first position in content questions.

Order of adverbial subordinator and clause


 * Blylandic: Beginning of the subordinate clause

Notes: Blylandic has a general adverbial subordinating suffix -þi that attaches to the end of the verb (and hence clause), but the actual subordinating conjunction (e.g. wanne "when") is placed at the very beginning of the clause. Relative clauses behave similarly, being flanked by a declined form of þiss and -þe.

Relationship between the order of object and verb and the order of adposition and noun phrase


 * Blylandic: OV and postpositional

Relationship between the order of object and verb and the order of relative clause and noun


 * Blylandic: OV and RelN

Relationship between the order of object and verb and the order of adjective and noun


 * Blylandic: OV and AdjN

Order of negative morpheme and verb


 * Blylandic: Type 1 (NegV) / Type 2 (VNeg)

Notes: With two exceptions, Blylandic forms negatives by attaching the auxillary verb mesen (wesen becomes mesen in the negative, while oren becomes njoren). The location of this auxillary in relation to the main verb is determined grammatically; in declaratives, it occurs after the verb, while in polar questions and imperatives, it occurs before the verb. Note that if V2 order is used, the auxillary occurs before the verb in declaratives.

Position of negative word with respect to subject, object and verb


 * Blylandic: SOVNeg

Notes: In polar questions and imperatives, it is NegSOV.

Simple clauses
Alignment of case marking of full noun phrases


 * Blylandic: Nominative-accusative (standard)

Notes: The nominative and accusative cases in Blylandic are distinguished in the masculine and feminine genders, but not the neuter gender. While some masculine and feminine nouns do not have separate forms for the nominative and accusative singular, this is simply an example of syncretism, and the adjectives do distinguish the two cases in the masculine and feminine singular.

Alignment of case marking of pronouns


 * Blylandic: Nominative-accusative (standard)

Alignment of verbal person marking


 * Blylandic: Accusative alignment

Notes: Blylandic verbs agree with the subject. This means that verbs treat the sole core argument of intransitive verbs and the agent of transitive verbs (both in the nominative) identically.

Expression of pronominal subjects


 * Blylandic: Mixed

Notes: In Blylandic, subject pronouns are obligatory only in the first and second person dual, and in the first and second person where the form of the verb is ambiguous (e.g. strong pasts). Third person subject pronouns are always optional, unless a dummy pronoun is needed to ensure that a declarative sentence does not begin with a verb (e.g. "It is raining" is It regns, but "Is it raining?" is Regns?).

Verbal person marking


 * Blylandic: Person marking of only the A argument

Third person zero of verbal person marking


 * Blylandic: No zero realisation of the third person forms

Notes: In the present indicative, the third person singular ending is -s, while the third person plural ending is -ent. In comparison, the first person singular ending is null.

Order of person markers on the verb


 * Blylandic: A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb

Ditransitive constructions: the verb 'give&#39;


 * Blylandic: Indirect-object construction

Notes: The recipient of geben ("to give") is in the dative case, while the object to be given is in the accusative case.

Reciprocal constructions


 * Blylandic: Both reflexive and non-reflexive reciprocal constructions

Notes: The mediopassive encompasses reciprocal and reflexive meanings (as well as the passive voice), but the two can be distinguished. The reciprocal uses wanren, while the reflexive uses sek. Regardless of the distinguishing method used, the verb must be in the mediopassive.

Passive constructions


 * Blylandic: There is a passive construction

Notes: Blylandic has two ways of representing the passive voice. The first, which is more ambiguous, is simply to use the mediopassive. The second is to combine the supine with wesen. In both cases, the patient is in the nominative case, and the agent is marked using -ap (with dative).

Antipassive constructions


 * Blylandic: No antipassive

Applicative constructions


 * Blylandic: No applicative construction

Notes: There is no applicative in Blylandic; benefactive arguments are marked on the relevant noun (-fyr with accusative), instead of using a verbal construction.

Periphrastic causative constructions


 * Blylandic: Purposive but not sequential

Notes: The causative in Blylandic is formed with the verb gǫr. This takes a nominative subject, and an infinitive clause to represent the effect. An example is Willem Loubehafni geingǫrde, meaning "I made Willem go to Lobehaben". The subject of the infinitive clause is in the accusative case, as part of an accusative and infinitive construction. Note that gǫr is considered a "composed" inflection that attaches to the infinitive, hence the orthographic and phonological peculiarity (the question version is Gǫrde Willem Loubehafni gein?, which does separate the two verbs). The sequential type is forbidden by Blylandic syntax.

Nonperiphrastic causative constructions


 * Blylandic: Morphological but no compound

Notes: The nonperiphrastic causative is no longer productive in Blylandic. It is formed by i-umlaut and the result is always a weak verb. For example, fallen means "to fall", while fęllen means "to fell, to make fall".

Negative morphemes


 * Blylandic: Negative auxillary

Notes: All verbs except two use the negative auxillary mesen with the infinitive.

Symmetric and asymmetric standard negation


 * Blylandic: Asymmetric negation

Notes: In the affirmative, the main verb is fully conjugated. In the negative, the main verb is placed into the infinitive, and the agreement markers are instead represented on the negative auxillary.

Subtypes of asymmetric standard negation


 * Blylandic: In finiteness and other grammatical categories

Notes: Affirmative clauses have the main verb conjugated for tense, mood, person and number, and in a finite form. Negative clauses transfer the tense, mood, person and number marking to the auxillary and render the main verb in a non-finite form.

Negative indefinite pronouns and predicate negation


 * Blylandic: Negative indefinites show mixed behaviour

Notes: In Blylandic, predicate negation with indefinites works similarly to English. The elective existential is used in negative clauses, and the negative indefinite in affirmative clauses, to form such constructions. For example, Iineget witennjem means "I do not know anything", while Ek niinet wiit means "I know nothing".

Polar questions


 * Blylandic: Interrogative word order

Notes: The distinguishing feature of interrogatives when compared to declaratives is that the head verb is placed first.

Predicative possession


 * Blylandic: Have-possessive

Notes: A locational possessive is possible, using the existential oren, a nominative possessed object and a dative possessor, but it is uncommon. The usual verb for "to have" is hęben.

Predicative adjectives


 * Blylandic: Predicative adjectives have nonverbal encoding

Notes: Adjectives require the copula to act as predicates, and are placed in the neuter genitive singular.

Nominal and locational predication


 * Blylandic: Split

Notes: Nominal predication uses the copula, while locational predication uses the existential.

Zero copula for predicate nominals


 * Blylandic: Zero copula is impossible

Notes: Other than when a predicate adjective is combined with the third person singular present indicative of the copula (which is a special case of sandhi), zero copula is forbidden in Blylandic.

Comparative constructions


 * Blylandic: Locational comparative

Notes: The case marker -ap (with dative) not only represents the ablative case and the agent of passive clauses, but also the point of comparison in comparative constructions.

Complex sentences
Relativisation on subjects


 * Blylandic: Relative pronoun

Relativisation on obliques


 * Blylandic: Relative pronoun

Notes: Blylandic uses the relative pronoun þiss, whose case is entirely dependent on its role in the relative clause. This pronoun must be clause-initial, as it acts along with the relativising suffix -þe to mark relative clauses.

&#39;Want' complement subjects


 * Blylandic: The component subject is left implicit

Notes: The Blylandic auxillary wilen marks the desiderative. This is combined with the infinitive of the main verb.

Purpose clauses


 * Blylandic: Balanced/deranked

Notes: There are a number of ways one may form purpose clauses in Blylandic. The deranked method is the infinitive of purpose, where an infinitive clause is used to denote the purpose of an action. The subject of such a clause left implicit. The balanced method involves using a nominalised clause, declining the subordinating suffix in the accusative (-þit), and adding the benefactive case marker -fyr. Nominalised clauses have the head verb retain its full conjugation, rather than making it non-finite.

&#39;When' clauses


 * Blylandic: Balanced/deranked

Notes: The balanced method uses an adverbial clause, flanking the subordinate clause with wanne ("when") and -þi and keeping the head verb fully conjugated. The deranked method uses a participle clause in combination with taid (which is feminine), and both are declined in the dative singular.

Reason clauses


 * Blylandic: Balanced

Notes: Reason clauses are nominalised clauses, declined in the dative (subordinating suffix -þai) and with -fram attached.

Utterance complement clauses


 * Blylandic: Balanced

Notes: The only way to denote utterance complements is to create an adverbial clause with þat.

Lexicon
Hand and arm


 * Blylandic: Different

Notes: Hand is hǫnd, arm is arm.

Finger and hand


 * Blylandic: Different

Notes: Finger is fingr

Numeral bases


 * Blylandic: Decimal

Number of non-derived basic colour categories


 * Blylandic: Six

Number of basic colour categories


 * Blylandic: 11

Green and blue


 * Blylandic: Green and blue

Red and yellow


 * Blylandic: Red and yellow

M-T pronouns


 * Blylandic: M-T pronouns, paradigmatic

M in first person singular


 * Blylandic: m in first person singular

N-M pronouns


 * Blylandic: No N-M pronouns

M in second person singular


 * Blylandic: No m in second person singular

Notes: The second person singular pronoun consistently has /θ/, but only the oblique forms of the first person singular pronoun have /m/. Among agreement suffixes, only the strong past indicative has /t/ in the second person singular. /m/ only appears in the first person singular in the copula.

Tea


 * Blylandic: Derived from Min Nan Chinese te

Notes: Both kjaa and tei exist in the language; however, the former only refers to green tea, as found in Namari and Japan.

Other
Writing systems


 * Blylandic: Alphabetic

Para-linguistic usages of clicks


 * Blylandic: Affective meanings