User:DavidPenry/Annobonese Creole

Simple Sentences
Fa d’Ambô follows a subject-verb-object (SVO) word order. Sentences that are ditransitive (they include a direct object pronoun as well as an indirect object pronoun) must place the indirect object in precedence to the direct object- this arrangement is equivalent to that of the Spanish arrangement, a language which Fa d’Ambô is based heavily on. However, unlike Spanish, an indirect object is not preceded/marked by a preposition in Fa d’Ambô. The table below displays one sentence translated across Fa d’Ambô, Spanish, and English to further highlight this specific matter: The literal English translation of Pay da mina dyielu would be "Father give child money." In Spanish, the preposition a "to" precedes the indirect object el niño "the child" (a + el contract into al), forming the overall meaning "... to the child." Fa d’Ambô lacks the use of this type of prepositional marker before indirect objects.

Noun Gender/Class
Nouns of Annobonese Creole are generally invariable, without employing grammatical gender or class. However, to express the specific gender of an animate noun to differentiate something that is male versus female, napay (male, man) or miela (female) may be added to the root word. For example: napay may be joined with mina (child) to form napay mina (boy, son). The same may be done with miela + mina = miela mina (girl, daughter).

Plurality
The plurality of a noun in Annobonese Creole usually goes unmarked (Ø) due to the fact that it can be implied from the context in which the noun fits within a sentence or clause. If the plurality cannot be directly implied and a type of plurality marker is necessary, there are a few ways in which to do so:


 * 1) Employ a plural demonstrative (i.e. these, those). Example: galafa (bottle) + -nensyi (those) = galafa nensyi (those bottles)
 * 2) Employ a numeral adjective. Example: canoe (canoe) + tisyi (three) = canoe tisyi (three canoes)
 * 3) Employ a quantitative adjective. Example: xadyi (house) + muntu (much) = xadyi muntu (many houses)
 * 4) Reduplicate the noun (full reduplication). Note that this specific plurality marker indicates the inclusion of all members of a noun. Example: ngolo (shell) + ngolo = ngolo ngolo (all the shells)

Articles
Articles are only used in the language when speakers feel they are necessary. When they are included, they are positioned directly before the noun. The definite article utilizes one form for both the singular and plural forms of nouns, na. The indefinite article can appear as either wan or an for nouns in the singular form and zuguan for the plural counterparts. Example: The Annobonese sentence Na may banku translates to English as "The white woman", where na is the definite article "the", may signifies "woman", and banku serves as the color adjective "white." The indefinite article is used in the example in the section above regarding word order, where wan serves to mark an undefined xat (letter): No skéve wan xat (We write a letter).

Combinations of articles with plurality markers (refer to plurality section above) are also common in the language. These combinations can aid to clarify the plurality of definite articles, seeing as they have no plural form on their own. Example: Na mina nensyi (These/those children). Nensyi serves as the plural demonstrative "these" or "those." Na mina, without the implementation of the plural demonstrative, could be interpreted as singular "the child" rather than plural "the children", assuming context is unknown.