LFN has an analytic grammar and resembles the grammars of languages such as the Haitian Creole, Papiamento, and Afrikaans. On the other hand, it uses a vocabulary drawn from several modern romance languages – Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French, and Italian.
Complete grammars are available on the official website in several languages: LFN, German, English, Spanish, Esperanto, French, Italian, Polish, Russian, Finnish.
LFN has a fairly strict word order. The general word order is:
A noun phrase has this order:
A verb phrase has this order:
A prepositional phrase generally follows what it modifies, and has this order:
The roles of nouns in a sentence are indicated through prepositions and word order. There are no cases.
Nouns are commonly preceded by determiners. Plural nouns are formed by appending -s to nouns ending in vowels or -es to nouns ending in consonants. This does not alter the stress:
Mass nouns include liquids, powders, and substances, such as acua (water), arena (sand), and lenio (wood). They do not normally require determiners or the plural. However, one may add these to indicate specific examples or different types:
Gender is typically not indicated. If necessary, nouns may be followed by mas (male) or fema (female):
A few terms for family members and traditional roles do show distinctions of gender. For example:
A noun can be made into an abstract noun by adding -ia (-ity, -ness, -ship, -hood). In this way madre (mother) becomes madria (motherhood).
Apposition — the use of one noun to modify another — is mostly limited to names and titles:
Determiners in LFN precede the noun they modify. There are two articles: la (the) and un (a), used as in English:
Other words function similarly:
| tota — all ambos — both esta — this, these acel — that, those cada — every, each cualce — whatever, whichever alga — some, several, a few no — no, zero |
multe — many, much poca — few, little plu — more min — less, fewer otra — other mesma — same tal — such |
In addition, numbers and possessive determiners (see below) are also used.
There is a default order of determiners, but variations are acceptable as long as the meaning is clear:
Personal pronouns are invariant:
| me — I, me tu — you (singular) el — she, her, he, him lo — it on – one |
nos — we, us vos — you (plural) los — they, them |
El is used for people and higher animals. Its use can be extended metaphorically to lower animals, robots, the moon, hurricanes, etc. Lo is used for things, simple animals, plants, ideas, etc. The exact dividing line is left to the speaker.
There is an indefinite pronoun on, which is used like German "man" or French "on":
There are no gender distinctions between "he" and "she". If gender is significant, one can use words like la fem, la om, la fia, la fio, la fema, la mas (the woman, the man, the daughter, the son, the female, the male), etc, or gender-irrelevant terms such as la plu grande, la carnor, or la otra (the bigger one, the butcher, the other one).
Unlike in the Romance languages, there is no polite/impolite contrast for the second person: tu is always used for the singular, vos always for the plural.
The reflexive pronouns are also me, nos, tu, and vos. For the third person, singular and plural, lfn uses se:
The possessive determiners are mea, nosa, tua, and vosa. Sua is used for all third persons:
For the possessive pronouns, LFN uses the possessive determiners, preceded by la:
Other pronouns include the following:
| ci — who cadun — everyone, everybody algun — someone, somebody cualcun — anyone, anybody nun — no one, nobody esta — this one estas — these ones acel — that one aceles — those ones multe — much, many |
cual — what cada cosa — everything alga cosa — something cualce cosa — anything, whatever no cosa — nothing esta — this (thing) estas — these (things) acel — that (thing) aceles — those (things) poca — little, few |
There are no conjugations of verbs in LFN. The basic form remains the same regardless of person, number, tense, mood, aspect, etc.
The present tense is represented by the verb by itself:
The present tense is also used to indicate habitual actions and states, facts of nature, mathematics, or logic, and as a "historical" tense, such as when relating a story that has been clearly established as occurring in the past:
The past tense is indicated by the particle ia:
The future tense is indicated by the particle va:
The particle ta indicates the irrealis mood and can be used where other languages might use a conditional or subjunctive mood. Its use is optional:
One combination ― ia ta ― is used to express "would have":
Certain adverbs and verbal constructions add precision to the tenses:
Negation is indicated by putting no before the tense particle or (in the present tense) the verb. Double negatives should be avoided:
Commands are indicated by dropping the subject pronoun. Hortative sentences include the subject, but are preceded by ta ce ("would that..."):
Lo and on are used as dummy pronouns before verbs that refer to weather or other general situations:
A verb that is fundamentally intransitive may be used as a transitive causal verb by moving the original subject to the object position, and adding a new subject:
The infinitive is identical to the basic form of the verb. It acts like an abstract noun, but accepts an object or an adverb. It can appear as a subject or an object of the verb, and it has no determiner:
In LFN, verbs often come in pairs. The first verb is like the modal verb in English. However, the idea goes beyond modals to include "attitudinal" verbs such as finje (pretend) and pare (seem). The second verb is simply the infinitive, as in English:
A verb can be used as a noun, known as a verbal noun, without change by adding la or other determiner. It represents a particular occurrence of the verb:
Verbs can be made into adjectives: The active participle is formed by adding -nte to the verb. For example, come becomes comente, meaning "eating". This should never be used as a gerund, as it often is in English (e.g. "I love eating” is ‘’me ama come’’).
The active participle as an adjective can take an object.
One can emphasize the idea that the subject is in the midst of an activity or process (the progressive aspect) using the active participle. Or one can use expressions such as en la media de:
The passive participle is formed by adding -da to the verb. For example, come becomes comeda, meaning "eaten". This should not be confused with the past tense (me ia ama la pan is "I loved the bread").
The passive participle can be used to express the passive voice. Or one can usa a generic subject pronoun instead:
Subject complements are introduced by es or verbs such as pare (seem) and deveni (become):
Object complements are introduced by the preposition a:
Adjectives follow the noun they modify, with two exceptions: bon (good) and mal (bad) may come before the noun, due to their frequent use.
Unlike the natural Romance languages, adjectives in LFN do not have gender or plural forms, i.e. they don't "agree" with the nouns they describe.
The comparative is made with plu (more) or min (less). "The most" is la plu and "the least" is la min:
Equivalence is indicated with tan... como:
Like verbs, adjectives can be used as nouns. For example, bela means "beautiful", but un bela means "a beautiful one" or "a beauty." This works with participles, too: la studiante and la studiada mean "the student" and "the studied," respectively, from the verb studia, "study."
An adjective can be made into an abstract noun by adding -ia (-ity, -ness, -ship, -hood). In this way bela becomes belia, meaning beauty.
LFN doesn't have an explicit way of marking adverbs. Un om felis for example means "a happy man", whereas el dansa felis means "he/she dances happily". Instead, any adjective can be used as an adverb by placing it after the verb or after a pronoun object, or at the beginning of the sentence
Adverbs used to modify adjectives precede the adjective. Dedicated adverbs, such as aora and oji can fall anywhere, as long as they don't cause confusion.
Examples of common adverbs include the following:
| aora ― now alora ― then ancora ― still, yet ja ― already sempre ― always nunca ― never cuasi – almost an ― even |
ier ― yesterday oji ― today doman ― tomorrow asi ― here ala ― there tro ― too (excessively) apena ― barely, scarcely cisa – maybe |
Prepositions are placed before the noun or noun phrase, and the prepositional phrase is placed after the noun being modified, or, if used adverbially, at the beginning of the sentence or after the verb. There are 22 basic prepositions in LFN:
| a ― at, to ante ― before, in front of asta ― until ca ― than como ― like con ― with contra ― against de ― of, from, since en ― in, into, during entre ― between, among estra ― out of, except |
longo ― along par ― by per ― for, in order to pos ― after, behind, according to sin ― without sirca ― around, approximately su ― below, under, beneath supra ― above, over sur ― on, about, concerning tra ― through ultra ― beyond, past, across |
Some prepositions can be used as adverbs by placing a or de before them.
There are three coordinating conjunctions in LFN and three correlative conjunctions:
| e ― and o ― or ma ― but, yet |
e ... e ... ― both ... and ... o ... o ... ― either ... or ... no ... (e) no ... ― neither ... nor ... |
There are a number of interrogative words that are used to introduce questions:[1]
| cual ― what, which ci ― who, whom de ci ― whose, of whom cuando ― when |
do ― where como ― how cuanto ― how much, how many perce ― why |
(Note that cual is used both as a determiner and as a pronoun. These are also used to introduce subordinate clauses, discussed below.)
For example:
Questions may include one of these words or may be indicated by rising intonation alone. One may also express questions by beginning the sentence with the interrogative particle esce ("is it that... ?") or by adding no (no) or si (yes) to the end of the sentence. In writing, questions always end with a question mark (?):
Relative clauses (or adjective clauses) function like adjectives. There are two relative pronouns which typically introduce relative clauses:
Relative clauses follow the noun or noun phrase that they modify:
Relative pronouns may be preceded by prepositions:
Cuando and do can also be used to introduce relative clauses:
Noun clauses function the same way that nouns and noun phrases do in a sentence. Two subordinating conjunctions commonly introduce noun clauses:
For example:
Relative pronouns and interrogative words can also introduce noun clauses:
Adverbial clauses function like adverbs, modifying the verb or the sentence as a whole. Some are introduced by these subordinating conjunctions:
Adverbial clauses usually follow the main clause:
Some of the interrogative words can also be used to introduce adverbial clauses:
Do and cuando are often preceded by prepositions:
| a do ― to where, whither de do ― from where, whence de cuando ― since |
pos cuando ― after en cuando ― while asta cuando ― until |
For example:
Numbers in LFN are as follows:
| 0 ― zero 1 ― un 2 ― du 3 ― tre 4 ― cuatro 5 ― sinco |
6 ― ses 7 ― sete 8 ― oto 9 ― nove 10 ― des |
Higher numbers are constructed as follows:
| 11 ― des-un 20 ― dudes 100 ― sento 321 ― tresento-dudes-un |
1000 ― mil 45 678 ― cuatrodes-sinco mil sessento-setedes-oto 1 000 000 ― milion 1 000 000 000 ― mil milion |
Numbers that express quantity precede the noun; numbers that express order follow the noun:
Fractions are constructed with -i, e.g. dui, tri, cuatri,... desi, senti, mili, etc. These are also used as verbs meaning "to halve", "to divide into three parts", etc.
Multiples and groups can be referred to with -uple, as in duple ― "double, duo, couple, pair". Add -i to make a verb, such as dupli - "to double".