1 Introduction

1.1 Primary World Background
Steienž is spoken in the same coniverse as Tairezaž (in which language it is know as Steianž), and is indeed a close relative of Tairezaž. The foundations of Steienž were laid around 1998, that is, simultaneously with those of Tairezaž. I've however never spent as much work and time on Steienž as on Tairezaž, and it's development has always been dependent on its bigger sister - after fixing some part of Tairezaž, I've often asked myself if that should work the same way in Steienž, and when the answer has been no, how it should then work.

1.2 Intrafictional Background
Steienž is the official language of Steiene, one of the states that rose from the collapse of the Federation of Planets, and of Keizdreze, which split away from Steiene several centuries later. The Keizdrezež dialects by now are clearly differentiated from those of Steiene, but the standardized written language, and to an extent also the formal spoken language of national media and politics, remains common to both. This article deals primarily with the Standard language as used in Steiene.

The language descends from Late Klaiš dialects spoken in what was to become Steiene. While Classical Klaiš is usually said to be the common ancestor of the Klaišic language (which among others include Steienž and Tairezaž), some developments are common to most or all Late Klaiš dialects, most noteworthily the reduction of short final vowels . In Steienž vocalic reduction was to go on farther than in any other Klaišic language, until all non-stressed vowels turned into schwas or became lost. A drastic, early change that helped servering early Steienž from what would become the Vanizan Tairezaž dialects was the shift to initial stress.

Steienž orthography has long since become inextricably intertwined with Steiene's politics, with the two major political blocs advocating different orthographical philosophies. The Pougzen ("blacks"; pro-military, pro-centralism, pro-state control) argue for etymological spellings emphasizing the links with Classical Klaiš and the other Klaišic languages, the Sosten ("whites"; anti-military, pro-decentralization, less fond of state control) for phonetic ones, often to the point of indicating sub-phonemic variation. The standard spelling is technically determined by the Steienean Academy of Language on Verekke (Steiene's capital planet), a body which is under tight political control, ensuring that decisions reflect the balance between the Sosten and Pougzen in the Steienean parliament. The present orthography is the result of repeated compromises; some say it combines the worst of the two philosophies. However, pronunciation is quite unambiguously indicated by spelling, and while the rules are not always as straight-forward as one could wish for, they are less complex than those of English.

The Keizdrezežen has, this far at least, accepted the successive spelling reforms coming out of Steiene without demanding influence. This may be seen as part of a wider pattern, where the two Steienž-speaking states are roughly equal on the political level, but with Steiene strongly dominant on the cultural one.

2 Phonology

2.1 Stress
Stress accent is infallibly on the initial syllable of the word, with the only exceptions being loans retaining their foreign pronunciation, and of course unstressed words.

2.2 Vowels
In stressed syllables Steienž distinguishes five monophthongs and four or six diphthongs. The monophthongs are the classical five; i e a o u [I E a O U]. The diphthongs are ei eu ai au [EI eU aI aU], plus arguably oi ou [OY OU], which historically are allophones of ai au occuring after labial consonants; the difference is indicated in writing, and there is a marked tendency to differentiate them in newer loans.

In unstressed syllables all vowels were long ago reduced to schwa, written in accordance with Tšánaian tradition as e. Further reductions has since merged schwas with adjacent nasals and liquids to produce syllabic consonants or caused them to disappear entirely, but these later developments are, despite attempts by the Sosten, not recognized in writing. The exact rules vary between dialects; the Standard's may be given like this: i) Schwa merges with a following nasal/liquid to produce a syllabic nasal/liquid. ii) Syllabic nasals/liquids followed by a vowel lose syllabicity. iii) A syllabic nasals/liquid preceeded by another syllabic consonant loses syllabicity. Eg zedel [zEdl=] "girl", zedelen [zEdl=n] "girls", zedele [zEdl@] "girl's", zedelener [zEdl=nr=] "to/for girls". Notice also steienž ['stEIn=Z].

2.3 Consonants
Counting Steienž's consonantal phonemes is not entirely straight-forward. The chief problem is the "long" voiceless consonants, which are, in the dominant sociolects, pronounced no different from their "short" counterparts when final, but unlike those fail to become voiced when intervocalic. Eg tešš [tES] "see(s)", gerund teššenn [tESn=] vs daš [daS] "have/has", gerund daženn [daZn=]. If the long vs short distinction is considered lost on the phonemic as well as the phonetic level, huge numbers of words must be considered to have irregular stem changes under inflection, if the distintion is considered to still be present underlayingly, there is a considerable number of phoneme-pairs whose primary allophones sound the same. The orthography, as can be seen from the examples above, both indicates "length" and recognizes intervocalic voicing, which is certainly redundant, although helpful from the learner's point of view. And to this come the voiced stops and fricatives, which contrast with the voiceless ones in positions other than intervocal, but intervocalically are homophonous with the voiced allophones of the "short" voiceless ones.

If we assume that underlaying this pair of voiced~voiceless contrasts is the ancestral three-way contrast voiced~short~long, we end up with the following set of consonants (where however written b d g sometimes represent underlaying /p t k/ and similarly for the fricatives):

Stops: voiced b d g; short voiceless p t k; long voiceless pp tt kk.

Fricatives: voiced v z ž γ; short voiceless f s š x; long voiceless ff ss šš xx.

Affricates: dz ts dž tš

Liquids: l r

Nasals: m n ń [m n N]

Semivowel: j [j]

Orthographically, there are also "long" nasals and liquids - ll rr mm nn ńń - but these do not contrast with the "short" ones in any way. These "long" consonants all descend from phonetically and phonemically long consonants in Old Steienž. To further complexify matters, there are also orthographically long final fricatives (voiced and voiceless) and nasals representing simplified final clusters, clusters which return with the adding of endings. Eg tezz [tEz] "brother", tezden [tEzdn=] "brothers"; aness [an@s] "daughter", aneske [an@sk@] "daughter's"; ponn [pOn] "base", ponder [pOndr=] "base (dative)" (but accusative ponnz [pOnz]!). The above-mentioned gerunds in -enn also belong to this group; teššenn has dative teššenter [tESn=tr=]. Leaving phonemics aside, from a pragmatic view it is to be noted that a consonant being "long" or not has no effect on the pronunciation of a given form, but gives clues to the shape of other forms of the word.

(It may be mentioned that when writing notes, diaries etc writers not infequently leave out the length diacritic, represented as doubling of the consonant in transliteration, as well as the diacritic turning the i letter into j. This later is faciliated by the fact that Steienž's phonetic structure makes it usually easy to tell when /i/ or /j/ is intended - /j/ occuring initially before vowels and intervocalically, /i/ only in the initial syllable. However, there is some scope for ambuigity, since Vi.V contrasts with V.jV - minimal pair pejel [pE.jl=] "hazard(s)" vs peiel [pEI.l=] "listener")

2.4 Phonotactics
Allowed initial clusters are s or z followed by a stop of the same voicing, or any stop or fricative followed by a liquid. Final clusters are rather rare, and usually ends in s z š or ž, if syllabic consonants are interpreted as @C. Medial clusters can be longer due to compounding or loss of schwas (eg spontele [spOntl@] "hunter"), and suffer few constraints except that they must have uniform voicing. Voicing sandhi between different words, à la in Tairezaž, is less prevalent.

Two vowels can only stand next to one another when the first is a diphthong in -i (eg peiez "is listened to"). A stressed monophthong or diphthong in -u will be separated from a following schwa by an epenthetic -j- (eg moujenn "looking" from mou "look(s)" and the gerund ending -enn). When inflection would create two adjacent schwas they are either separated by a -j- or merge to one - which is lexically determined.

(Notice that moujenn is phonetically [mOUjn=] - the -j- persists despite the schwa being absorbed by the nasal.)

3 The Article

Steienž has a definite article ez. It does not change form for case or number, but takes the form es before unvoiced consonants, and e' before s- and z-. When stressed, it takes the pronunciations [Ez] [Es [E], when unstressed [@z] [@s] [@]. It may be noted that orthographically, the variation is identical with that found in Tairezaž. It was introduced amid unusual agreement, since the Sosten appreciate the phonetic precision, and the Pougzen like the resemblance to Tairezaž. However, one cannot please all - orthographically radical Sosten heartily dislike the silent stop-gap sign in e', while their opposite numbers among the Pougzen would prefer etymological ez perserved everywhere.

There is no indefinite article.

4 Nouns

4.1 Overview
The Steienž noun inflects for two numbers, singular and plural, and five cases; nominative, accusative, dative, possessive and instrumental. For the majority of nouns, the possessive and intrumental are identical in form, and for a quite a few the nominative and accusative singular fall together. Case and number is indicated by suffixes that are basically agglutinative, with schwa reductions introducing some traces of fusion.

It may be noted that among the languages of the Klaišic family Steienž is unique in that it retains all of the ancestral five cases. Tairezaž for instance has jettisoned the possessive and intrumental, while acquiring an new genitive case, whereas Telenž has kept only the nominative and the possessive.

4.2 The Nominative
The nominative singular is, for the majority of nouns, identical to the noun stem. However, simplifications of final clusters have left large numbers of nouns with "truncated" nominative singulars that lack the final element of the stem. For instance, the nouns daive- "house", γoll- "head", mest- "spaceship", teikr- "sister" have nominative singulars daive, γoll, mess, teik. The nominative plural is indicated by the ending -n (after vowels), or -en (after consonants). The abovementioned nouns therefore have nominative plurals daiven, γollen, mesten, teikren.

The nominative is used for subjects, for objects of prepositions and as vocative. It is also the quote form of the noun, which occurs in dictionaries. Words with truncated nominative singulars will normally have also the nominative plural indicated in dictionaries; teik (teikren).

4.3 The Accusative
The basic accusative marker is -s, in the plural added onto the nominative singular. After voiced stops and v it assimilates to -z, after s z š ž x γ and to avoid illegal consonant clusters it takes the form -es. Eg teikres, plural teikrens. Final clusters of the type s+stop+s and the voiced equivalents z+stop+z are simplified to -ss and -zz respectively, causing words like mest- and tezd- to be mess and tezz respectively in both nominative and accusative singular. Final nasal+stop+s/z clusters lose the stop, and have the nasal written long; eg pond- "base" has accusative singular ponnz.

The primary function of the accusative is to mark direct objects.

4.4 The Dative
The dative marker is -er after consonants, in the plural added to the nominative plural, and -r after vowels. Notice that due to schwa reduction, -er is always pronounced either [r=] or simply [r]. A word like teikr- should theoretically be [tEIkrr=] in the dative singular, but in practice it is generally reduced to [tEIkr=], although still written teikrer.

The dative is used for indirect objects and beneficaries.

4.5 The Possessive
The possessive is indicated by the suffix -e. When added to a noun stem ending in a schwa, this ending is effectively lost in the singular, giving a noun with identical nominative and possessive singular. Eg drege "boy", drege "boy's" - cf dregen "boys", dregene "boys'".

The possessive preceeds the noun it governs, and typically indicates possession, eg es teikre daive "the sister's house". It is also used with body parts and other components of a whole, eg e' zedele γoll "the girl's head", ez daive zaññ "the corner of the house" (lit: "the house's corner"). Notice that a word governed by a possessive is automatically definite, and never takes the article. To get indefinite "a corner of the house", resort must be taking to an analytic expression; zaññ ke ez daive "a corner of the house". The part-of-the-whole concept may become somewhat metaphorical; meste γollzez "a ship's captain".

4.6 The Instrumental
The instrumental is indicated by the suffix -e, which means that it is typically identical in form to the possessive. However, when added to a noun stem ending in a vowel, the ending becomes -je, differing from the possessive. Thus mize "a woman" or "a woman's", but mizeje "by a woman".

The instrumental is used for demoted subjects in passive constructions, eg ez mize teššek ez dazres "the woman saw the man" vs ez daz teššezek ez mizeje "the man was seen by the woman", and for agental complements to passive participles, eg mouž "seen", mouž dazre "seen by a man".

4.7 Noun Tables
In order to provide some summarization, below are given all case and number forms for the regular nouns xab "ridge", mess "spaceship" and reze "country, region":

		Singular	Plural		Singular	Plural		Singular	Plural
Nominative		xab	xaben		mess	mesten		reze	rezen
Accusative		xabz	xabens		mess	mestens		rezes	rezens
Dative		xaber	xabener		mester	mestener		rezer	rezener
Possessive		xabe	xabene		meste	mestene		reze	rezene
Instrumental		xabe	xabene		meste	mestene		rezeje	rezene

4.8 Special Cases
The so-called "a-nouns" originally had stems ending in short -a. Vowels reduction has largely levelled their pecularities in Steienž, but despite now apparently ending in consonants they still retain instrumental singulars in -eje; eg kraz "state" (=an independent country and/or its administrative apparatus), instrumental singular krazeje. They also always have accusative singulars in -es regardless of the final consonant of the stem, eg jam "friend, companion", singular accusative james, not **jams, which would be expected for a normal noun of this shape. In dictionaries, a-nouns are traditionally indicated by a following "a" in parenthesis; kraz (a). This somewhat cryptic indication is however now often replaced by simply giving the instrumental singular in parenthesis; kraz (krazeje).

The accusative singular of words whose stems end in nasal+stop are marked by -s or -z as if the stop was still there. So, pond- "base" has accusative singular ponnz, whereas zbeñk- "battle" has zbeññs.

The difference in behaviour between "long" and "short" voiceless consonants is well examplified by nominal inflection. We may look as dak "sorrow" and nekk "spaceport". If "length" is considered to be phonemic, this need not be seen as irregular. Cf also the declension of xab, which has a voiced consonant throughout, above.

		Singular	Plural		Singular	Plural
Nominative		dak	dagen		nekk	nekken
Accusative		daks	dagens		nekks	nekkens
Dative		dager	dagener		nekker	nekkener
Possessive		dage	dagene		nekke	nekkene
Instrumental		dage	dagene		nekke	nekkene

5 Pronouns

5.1 Overview
Steienž's pronouns are, on the whole, very regular and noun-like, in some instances to the point where plural pronouns are formed from singular ones by adding the nominal plural marker -n. Noteworthy is that the language has, alone in the Klaišic family, acquired a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first person plural.

5.2 Personal Pronouns
The first person pronouns come from the stems ta- "I" and zime- "we". The forms are given below; it will be noted that the exclusive plural is simply ta- inflected as a noun for plural and case.

		Singular	Plural (excl)	Plural (incl)
Nominative		ta	tan	zim
Accusative		tas	tans	zimes
Dative		tar	taner	zimer
Possessive		ta	tane	zime
Instrumental		ti	tane	zimeje

The second person pronouns are derived from the stem ša "you":

		Singular	Plural
Nominative		ša	šan
Accusative		šas	šans
Dative		šar	šaner
Possessive		ša	šane
Instrumental		ši	šane

The third person pronouns come from the stems sen- "he/she/it" and ker- "they". Notice that there is no way to indicate gender or animacy by the choice of personal pronoun.

		Singular	Plural
Nominative		sen	ker
Accusative		sens	kers
Dative		sener	kerer
Possessive		sene	kere
Instrumental		seneje	kereje

Notice the instrumentals seneje "by it" and kereje "by them"; they are historically unjustified forms, modelled on zimeje. The expected forms would have been identical to the possessive forms, which undoubtly helped the replacements along.

Notice also that sen and ker when unstressed come out as [sn=] and [kr=] respectively. Adding endings yields further semiregular reductions; eg sener [sn=r], kerer [kr=.r=], sene [sn@]. Notice especially the unstressed instrumental forms; [sn=.j@], [kr=.j@].

5.3 The Relative pronoun
The relative pronomial stem is xi. It lacks instrumental forms, but otherwise inflect similarly to nouns:

		Singular	Plural
Nominative		xi	xin
Accusative		xis	xins
Dative		xir	xiner
Possessive		xa	xine

Notice the possessive singular xa. Along with the "null" possessives ta and ša, it is one of the very few cases where the Klaiš possessive ending -â has avoided turning into schwa.

5.4 The Reciprocal Pronoun
The reciprocal pronoun is used when mulitple subjects does something to one another or for one another. It has also a nominative form used after prepositions, and a possessive one for when the subjects do something to one another's something. Like the relative it lacks the instrumental. The forms are:

Nominative		ver
Accusative		vers
Dative		verer
Possessive		vere

Some examples: Ker teššek vers "They saw one another", Ker nirk vere daivens "They liked one another's houses".

5.5 Indefinite Pronouns
Steienž does not have any true indefinite pronouns "someone" or "something". Instead, the nouns tsek "person" and rek "thing, object" are frequently used with very vague reference; eg ta teššezek tsege "I was seen by a person" = "... by someone". For "everyone", "nothing" one finds phrases like jiz tsegen "all people", eš regen "no things". This goes also for things like "everwhere", "never": jiz teden "all places", eš deren "no time".'

The words jiz "all" and eš "no, none" belongs to a group of indeclinable quantifiers that are treated much like actual numerals. This group also includes dzeun "many", uzzeñ "a few" and nik, a higher-register synomym of eš.

(The odd spelling of uzzeñ ['UzN=] is due to it being an irregular shortening of earlier uzgen ['Uzgn=].)

5.6 Interogative Pronouns
The interogative pronouns are derived from the root fe-. They inflect for number and case, and, unlike anything else in Steienž's pronomial system, make a distinction between sentient and non-sentient. The forms are:

		Sentient			Non-Sentient
		Singular	Plural		Singular	Plural
Nominative		fenn	fenden		fell	fen
Accusative		fennz	fendens		fells	fellens
Dative		fender	fendener		fer	fener
Possessive		fende	fendene		felle	fellene
Instrumental		fende	fendene		feje	fene

As can be seen, the sentient forms behave like a perfectly regular noun, whereas the non-sentient forms are divided between the simple stem fe- and the expanded stem fell-. The non-sentient dative singular fer, besides the expected meanings "to what" and "for what", is also used for "why", in which usage it will happily cohabit in the same clause as another dative. Eg Fer sen tsaik sens kerer? "Why did he/she give it to them?".

5.7 Demonstrative Pronouns and Demonstratives
The demonstrative pronouns are derived from the stems a- "this" and li- "that". The forms are strongly reminicent of those of ta, ša and xi, as is seen in the table below:

		Singular	Plural		Singular	Plural
Nominative		a	an		li	lin
Accusative		as	ans		lis	lins
Dative		ar	aner		lir	liner
Possessive		aje	ane		la	line
Instrumental		aje	ane		li	line

Note aje for "of this" and "by this". The expected descendants of the Classical Klaiš forms há and híja would be **a and **i. The first would have made "the X of this" indistinguishible from "this X" (cf below), whereas the replacement in the instrumental doubtlessly was helped along by the tendency for possessives and instrumentals to be formally identical, and by the fact that the relationship between i and the stem a- would be entirely opaque.

These stems also works as demonstratives with nouns, but are not inflected in this use. Eg a mize "this woman", li dazrer "to/for that man".

6 Verbs

6.1 Overview
The Steienž finite verb inflects for three tenses, past, present and future, and for two voices, active and passive. Present tense and active voice are unmarked; past, future and passive are indicated by suffixes. The infinite forms are gerund, active participle and passive participle, plus an infinitive now restricted to formal writing. Mood is indicated by adverbs (see section 7 Adjectives and Adverbs), while aspect is not overtly indicated.

6.2 The Passive Voice
Any transitive verb can be passivized by the suffix -ez, which becomes -jez after monophthongs and after diphthongs in -u. The original direct object becomes the subject of the passive verb, any indirect object remains, and the original subject may optionally be present as an agental complement in the instrumental. Eg tešš "see(s)", teššez "am/are/is seen", tši "love(s)", tšijez "am/are/is loved".

6.3 The Present Tense
The active present is typically identical to the verbal stem; eg tešš- "to see", tešš "see(s)". Exceptions are stems which end in illegal final clusters, which are truncated in the active present, eg spont- "to hunt", sponn "hunt(s)". The passive present is simply the stem plus the passive ending -(j)ez.

The active present is the dictionary form of verbs. Verbs with truncated active presents will also have their active past given.

6.4 The Past Tense
The past is marked by the ending -k after vowels and after l and r, -ek after other consonants. Eg tšik "loved", spontek "hunted", passive counterparts tšijezek "was/were loved", spontezek "was/were hunted". The longer form -ek is also used with stems ending in clusters that in end in -l or -r, eg tazl- "to drink", past tazlek "drank" (cf present taz). Notice voicing of "short" consonants, eg saret- "to know", saredek "knew".

6.5 The Future Tense
The future marked by the ending -ss after vowels and postvocalic l m n ñ r, and -ess otherwise. The passive future is thus marked by -(j)ezess. Eg tšiss "will love", minss "will lead", tazless "will drink", staksezess "will be killed", saredess "will know".

In addition to functioning as a true tense, the future tense form is also used as a kind of pseudo-imperative. It is used primarily for "legitimate commands", ie when (in the opinion of the speaker!) the addressed part must obey - the implication being that the addressed part has no control over his/her (immediate) future action. Military orders is the archetypical example, but the usage is found in a wide variety of situations. The imperative mood (indicated by the adverb er and typically combined with the present tense) is reserved for situations where the addressed part may legitimately deny a request; its usage implies asking, rather than ordering, the addressed part to do as one wishes.

6.6 The Infinite
The infinite is essentially dead in the spoken Standard, its uses having been usurped by the gerund, a process doubtlessly assisted by their near-coalescence in form, or replaced with other constructions. It, however, persists in formal writing, as well as in certain conservative dialects.

The infinitive marker is -n after vowels, -en after consonants. It takes case inflections - indeed, the dative -(e)ner "in order to ..." is its most common usage. Tan skenek stanener "We came (in order) to dance" to create an example that a Steienean bureaucrat probably would not being writing. Reasonably common are also constructions like tšik stanens "loved to dance". To really confound those unused to formal texts, these two could be combined; Sen zgalešek sulens peiener "He/she ceased to speak in order to listen". It is also found in the nominative, eg Krazenen sens e zar "To nationalize it is just" (krazene "nationalize(s)", homophone of krazene "of/by states"). There is also a passive infinitive, eg krazenejezen "to be nationalized", the use of which is perceived, by the average speaker, as very formal and bureaucratic.

6.7 The Gerund
The gerund is indicated by the ending -enn, -ent-. After vowels a hiatus-preventing -j- is inserted. The gerund is a verbal noun, taking full nominal inflection, but retaining the ability to take objects for transitives. Eg e' zazenn daives "the construction of a house" (zaz- "construct"), dative e' zazenter daives "to/for the construction of a house".

As mentioned above, the gerund has, in spoken and informal written language, usurped many of the uses of the infinitive. In the nominative and accusative of stems ending in a consonants, the very difference in form is merely orthographical, so the example tšik stanens would simply be spelt tšik stanenns in a more informal context. It makes very little difference if one prefers to translate the former as "loved to dance" and the later as "loved dancing". Krazenen sens ... may simply be expressed as Krazenejenn sens ... "Nationalization of it ..." to be less formal. The use of the dative infinitive for "in order to ..." will in speech typically be replaced by constructions of the type Tan skenek, lai tan zorenek stanenns "We came, because we wanted to dance". The passive infinitive will likewise be replaced by circumlocutions, there being no passive gerund.

6.8 The Passive Participle
The passive participle is an adjectival derivative of a transitive verb, which describes the state of the direct object after the action indicated by the verb is carried out. It is formed by the ending -ž after vowels, voiced stops, nasals and after l r, by -š after voiceless stops and by -ež after fricatives. Eg teššež "seen", tšiž "loved", sulž "said". Notice that with truncating verb stems ending in a voiceless stop, one on the surface gets -š after the consonant preceeding the stop; sponnš "hunted".

6.9 The Active Participle
The active participle is an adjectival derivative of a verb stem, which describes the state of the subject as it is carrying out the action indicated by the verb. It is formed by the ending -ez after consonants, -z after vowels. Examples; spontez "hunting", stanez "dancing", ñerzez "thinking", saredez "knowing", melez "fighting" (cf stems spont-, stan-, ñerz-, saret-, mele-).

6.10 Verb Tables
To summarize, here are given the basic forms of some regular verbs. The past and future tenses of the passive and the case-inflected forms of the infinitive and gerund are not given, since they are entirely predictable given the present passive and the nominative of the infinitive and gerund. The verbs are tešš- "to hunt", sul- "to say" and mele- "to fight":

Present		tešš		Infinitive		teššen		Present		sul		Infinitive		sulen		Present		mele		Infinitive		melen
Past		teššek		Gerund		teššenn		Past		sulk		Gerund		sulenn		Past		melek		Gerund		melejenn
Future		teššess		Passive Part.		teššež		Future		sulss		Passive Part.		sulž		Future		meless		Passive Part.		melež
Passive		teššez		Active Part.		teššez		Passive		sulez		Active Part.		sulez		Passive		melejez		Active Part.		melez

Notice that the passive present and the active participle are formally identical for verbs with stems ending in consonants.

6.11 Zerovalent verbs
The "zerovalent" verbs are a subgroup of the intransitive verbs, that do not take subjects. These are verbs indicating actions that are perceived as happening "by themselves" - they typically corresponds to English constructions with empty dummy subjects. Eg krešt- "to rain"; krešš "(it) rains", kreštek "(it) rained".

6.12 The Copula
The basic stem of the copula is ja-. This verb inflects quite regularly, but assumes various reduced forms in unstressed positions, that thanks to the Sosten are fairly faithfully recognized in writing. To be exact, there are three written forms of the stem; ja- when stressed, je- [j@-] when unstressed and preceeded by a vowel (or clause-initial) and e- [@-] when unstressed and preceeded by a consonant. The unstressed forms are however restricted to the finite forms. The forms are given below:

Present		ja	je	e		Infinitive		jan
Past		jak	jek	ek		Gerund		jajenn
Future		jass	jess	ess		Passive Part.		-
Passive		-	-	-		Active Part.		jaz

The active participle jaz is primarily used for turning relative clauses into attributes. Eg Kere teik, xi je γollzez, ek eš tel tan "Their sister, who is a captain, was not with us" may be turned into Kere jaz γollzez teik ek eš tel tan "Their being a captain sister was not with us". Notice that the construction levels tense distinctions - xi jek γollzez "who was a captain" and xi jess γollzez "who will be a captain" would also turn into jaz γollzez. If the tense is important, the relative clause must be retained.

6.13 Special Cases and Irregular Verbs
Verbal stems ending in a postvocalic "short" voiceless stop or fricative shows voicing of the final consonant in certain inflected forms - some examples can be seen above. Whether such verbs are irregular or merely "special" depends on whether "length" is considered phonemic. The variations are here examplified by the verbs zek- "to go, to travel" and saret- "to know":

Present		zek		Infinitive		zegen		Present		saret		Infinitive		sareden
Past		zegek		Gerund		zegenn		Past		saredek		Gerund		saredenn
Future		zegess		Passive Part.		-		Future		saredess		Passive Part.		saretš
Passive		-		Active Part.		zegez		Passive		saredez		Active Part.		saredez

Outrightly irregular is the verb daš- "to have, to possess":

Present		daš		Infinitive		dažen
Past		dašš		Gerund		daženn
Future		dašš		Passive Part.		daž
Passive		dažez		Active Part.		daz

As is seen, the tense distinctions has collapsed entirely, since daš and dašš are both pronounced [daS]. The active finite forms are therefore frequently avoided in favour of passive constructions - Ilene daš daives "Ilene has a house" would be replaced by passive Daive dažez Ileneje "A house is possessed by Ilene" - or simply replaced with another verb, like γrod- "to possess, to own". The gerund daženn "possession" and the active participle daz "having, possessing" are however common, as is the agental derivative dažel "possessor, owner" (γrodel is essentially synonymous, but has formal and legal connotations).

7 Adjectives and Adverbs

7.1 Overview
Steienž treats adjectives and adverbs much the same, and very many words are used as both, eg meun is "swift" or "swiftly" depending on context. Adjectives and adverbs do not take any inflections (as long as they stay adjectives/adverbs; the very frequent nominalized adjectives take full nominal inflection), and usually preceed what they modify; eg dair "beautiful" and zedel "a girl" give dair zedel "a beautiful girl", and similarly raigess "will eat", meun "swift, quick" gives meun raigess "will eat quickly". The rest of this section will deal primarily with the various "grammatical" adverbs.

7.2 Adverbs of Comparation
Degrees of comparation of adjectives and adverbs are indicated by extra adverbs, much like English "more" and "most", except that they are used with all adjectives and adverbs. The adverbs in question are tše "most", daγ "more", mex "less" and sis "least". Eg taiks "big", daγ taiks "bigger", xapp "cowardly", sis xapp "least cowardly". In informal speech the vowels of these tend to schwa; daγ taiks is not infreguently pronounced as [d@x'taIks].

7.3 Modal Adverbs
Moods, except for the unmarked indicative, are similarly indicated by adverbs, which however follows the verb. They in general combines freely with tense and voice, although for semantic reasons a past imperative, for instance, is a very rare sight. The modal adverbs are:

Debitive; marker γez; indicates that the subject ought to do something; eg Ta zek γez "I should go".
Desiderative; marker zenn; indicates that the subject wants to do something; eg Ta zek zenn "I want to go".
Dictive; marker ma; used in indirect speech; eg Sen sulk šu sen zolk ma sens "He/She said that he/she did it".
Imperative; marker er; turns a sentence into an imperative; eg Skez er! "Come!".
Interogative; marker fe; turns a sentence into a yes-no question; eg Šan teššek fe sens? "Did you see it?".
Necessitive; marker tsinn; indicates that the subject must do something; eg Ta zek tsinn sus ker "I must go to them".
Permissive; marker ski; indicates that the subject is allowed to carry out an action; eg Ša skez ski "You may come".
Potential; marker fiks; indicates ablitity of carrying out the verb's action; eg Sen teššek fiks "He/she could see it".
Subjunctive; marker xau; indicates irrealis or hypotheticality; eg Tse ta je xau ša "If I were you".

These markers are quite often highly reduced in pronunciation, but returns to full form when stressed. Er, fe and ma are very rarely fully stressed, and generally come as [@r], [f@] and [m@]. Zenn and tsinn often reduced to [zn=] and [tsn=].

As has already been mentioned, the unmarked (indicative) future is also used as a kind of imperative, the difference being roughly that between giving command (indicative future) as against asking a favour (imperative present). The imperative future is avoided.

It is to some extent possible to combine these, in particular the interogative readily combines with most of the others; eg Ker teššek fiks feu šas? "Were they able to see you?".

7.4 Adverbs of Time and Place
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7.5 Miscellanea
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8 Prepositions

Steienž's prepositions are quite unremarkable, except for the fact that they require their noun phrases to be in the nominative. Unlike most other attributes, attributive prepositional phrases follow what they modify, eg ez daive zun e' zujef "the house beneath the tower". Prepositional phrases standing as adverbials tend to be clause-final, but are also frequently found clause-initially or immediately after the finite verb.

Common prepositions include; at "in, inside", atses "into", dži "with", ke "of, belonging to", kil "in orbit around", sus "to, towards", zeres "from" (not infequently pronounced [zr=s], zo "during" zun "below, beneath; downwards".

9 Conjunctions

The primary coordinating conjunction is ne "and". It is normally pronounced simply [n=]; only when stressed for emphasis it takes the "expected" pronunciation [nE]. It is used both to coordinate individual phrases and whole clauses, but note that it is never used between multiple adjectives modifying the same nominal phrase. For instance, "a big and ugly dog" must be rendered as taiks izer vouf "a big ugly dog"; taiks ne izer vouf would be interpreted as "a big dog and an ugly one", refering to two dogs. In the right context it could also be interpreted as "a ugly dog and an big thing/person". Another important coordinating conjunction is siger "or", which typically only covers exlusive "or" (XOR) - inclusive "or" (OR) may be rendered as siger siger ne "or or and" when precision is required, or by the abreviation ssn, which not infrequently is spoken as ['sEzn@], shortened from [sE sE nE], that is the letter-names read out, by people with a scientific and/or technical education.

(The pedantically minded may satisfy themselves that "(a XOR b) XOR (a AND b)" really does mean the same as "a OR b". In technical writings one can usually safely assume that siger means XOR; in literary or informal writing the distinction is usually paid little attention, and people without higher education will happily use siger to mean OR. In ordinary conversation, the distinction is of course rarely important, note only that ša skez ski e' saštes siger ez meks in all sociolects and contexts means "you may take the red one XOR the yellow one", not "you may take the red one and/or the yellow one"!)

Subordinating conjunctions include; gu "but", šu "that" (as in "Mary saw that John ...") and tse "if".

10 Numerals

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11 Syntax

11.1 Phrasal Syntax
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11.2 Clause Syntax
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11.3 Miscellanea
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12 Derivation

12.1 Overview
This section aims at giving an overview of derivational patterns that are productive in Modern Steienž. It will also mention some patterns that, while more or less unproductive, are highly common or otherwise interesting. Productive derivation in Steienž consists almost entirely of the adding of suffixes; compounding and prefixes have been productive in earlier stages of its development but have largely fallen out of use because the way they cause root vowels to be reduced or dropped, making stems more or less unrecognizable. Many older derived forms has become synchronically unitary due to such changes; no (non-linguist) native speaker thinks of izer [Izr=] "ugly" being as derived from sar [sar] "beautiful" with a negative prefix.

12.2 Nominal Derivation
Essentially any adjective can without change of form be used as a noun and take full nominal inflection. This kind of "derivation" is sometimes known as 'conversion'. So dins "small" can also mean "a small one", mek "yellow" or "a yellow one", etc. This applies also to participles, eg sponnš "hunted" or "a hunted one", or stanez "dancing" or "a dancing one".

Abstract nouns are regularly formed from adjectives by the ending -es, eg spik "dark", spikes "darkness", tir "proud", tires "pride".

Agental nouns are formed from verbs by the ending -el, eg raigel "eater" from raig- "to eat. Agentals in -el are basically synonymous with the nominalized active participles of the same verbs, but in many cases one of the forms, most commonly the agental, has acquired a special, lexicalized, meaning, with the other remaining as the properly agental form of the verb. Examples include stanel "(professional) dancer" vs stanez "dancer"="any person who happens to be dancing" (it may be pointed out that E' Stanezene Daive, or "The House of the Dancing Ones", one of Steiene's most famous cultural institutions, employs a great many stanelen!) and moizel "indicator"="diacritic sign" vs moizez "indicator"="any indicating device". An example where the nominalized participle got lexicalized is ñerzez "thinker"="sentient being" vs ñerzel "thinker"="some one who thinks (something)". An interesting case is γollzez "captain", which is etymologically the nominalized active participle of the now obsolete verb γollz- "to head (something)"="to be the person in charge of something", in turn from the (perfectly current) noun γoll "head". Note that no form **γollzel "header" is used, and probably would no longer be understood by native speakers.

The noun-forming ending -ss, -st- had ceased to be productive already in Classical Klaiš, but nouns formed with it are still very common in Steienž. Examples include meless "war", zaress "justice", teless "inhabited planet", mess "spaceship", suless "speech", sporess "scream" and many others. It originally formed abstracts from adjectives (cf zar "just") and verbal nouns from verbs (cf sul- "to speak, to say"), but many meanings has drifted over time.

12.3 Adjectival Derivation
The most common ending for deriving adjectives from nouns is -ž, seen for instance in the very word steienž. Examples include dazrež "manly, masculine" from dazr- "man", zańgež "angular" from zańg- "corner", tšempež "arboreal" from tšempe- "forest" and saukš "metallic" from sauk metal (note assimilation). As seen by steienž from Steiene, any nominal ending may be lost before this ending is added; another example is miž "womanly, feminine" from mize "woman", where -ze is a feminine ending.

The adjectival ending -n is much less productive, but can often be found on adjectives corresponding to nouns ending in -ss, -st-; eg melen "military", telen "planetary". It also occurs on scores of older adjectives, for instance kolen "classical", krazen "of the state", sain "true".

Adjectives meaning "able to X" and "able to be Xed" are formed from verbs by the endings -erm (-rm on verb stems ending in a vowel) and -ven respectively. Eg teššerm "able to see", teššfen "able to be seen"="visible". Normally, -ven is for obvious reasons to be found only on transitive verbs; an idiosynchratic exception is zekfen "mobile"="capable of being moved", despite that the verb zek- is intransitive "to move" only.

12.4 Verbal Derivation
Almost any adjective can be turned into a transitive verb by adding the ending -e, eg krazene "nationalize(s)" from krazen "of the state", sašte "make(s) (smth) red" from sašš "red". English "to redden" would be translated by the passive of this; ez džeil saštejezek "the sky was made red"="the sky reddened". Note that this is a special use of the passive form - with a "normal" transitive verb the construction would have indicated that the sky was affected by some outside agency. Here the passive takes on the function of a middle voice. Were an explicit agent introduced in the construction, the passive form would revert to its properly passive meaning.

The ending -z, often assimilated to -s, forms verbs, typically transitives, from nouns, eg sauks- "to cover (something) with metal", form sauk "metal", mamez- "to mother (someone)"="to bear and nurse (a child)", zujefs- "to tower (something)"="to pile something up in tower-like piles", as seen with often idionsynchratic meanings. It also occurs with verbal stems, without adding anything tangible to their meaning: Eg ñerz- "to think"; cf ñeress "a thought" from the same stem.