PARTS OF SPEECH edit
There are in Volapük the following Parts of Speech: Noun, Pronoun, Adjectiv, Verb, Participle, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction, Interjection. Their uses are the same as in English.
There are no Articles in Volapük.*
The grammatical distinctions are: Number, Gender, Case, Person, Degree, Tense, Mood, Voice.
These distinctions are marked by adding a sound or a syllable at the beginning or end of the simple root-form. In English we often mark them by separate words. Thus the one word pulogoms stands for the five words, they will have been seen. They is indicated by the ending oms ; will have been by the syllable pu at the beginning
- log is the simple root-form, and means, as a noun, eye,
but as a verb, to see. Pu and oms may be analyzed thus: u as a verb-prefix (or tense augment, as it is called) indicates the future-perfect ; p is the sign of the passiv voice. In oms, s denotes the plural ; m denotes the masculin third person
- o is characteristic of all person endings and unites them to the
verb.
When no such distinctiv syllables are added it is understood that
the number is singular ;
the gender is masculin ;
the case is nominativ ;
the person is the third ;
the degree is positiv ;
the tense is present ;
the mood is indicativ ;
the voice is activ.
Nouns have number, gender and case.
Pronouns have number, gender, case and person. Verbs have number, gender, person, tense, mood and voice. Adjectivs and adverbs have degree. Adjectivs may also have the inflections of nouns, but this is seldom required.
* Anyone may convince himself of possibility of dispensing with articles
by reading aloud any extract. Omission of articles will be found not to
obscure sense. In telegrams, articles are seldom used.