D'ni/Idioms

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There are some idioms to the D'ni that differentiate it from English. A D'ni fanfic writer should have these rules handy:

Word order[edit | edit source]

  • The adjectives follow the noun they describe. 'Small rock' is Præd prin
  • Articles always precede the noun they refer to, never the adjective: 'the natural rock' is 'the-rock natural', so we must say repræd vogec, and not **re-vogec præd.
  • When a word has several modifiers (adjectives, adverbs), the closer a modifier is to that word, the greater its significance. While English has them scattered on both sides of the noun, D'ni arranges them all afterwards in descending order of significance, single-word adjectives first, then adjectival phrases.
  • The bond between verb and object is very strong and can never be broken. Thus, when adverbs are introduced into a sentence that has both verb and object, they don't come directly after the verb as would be expected but rather are placed after the object.

Commas[edit | edit source]

  • The repeating ‘and’ ga between a series of words is correct, so it is okay to say 'I walked between rocks and plants and trees and mountains and caves and animals' while in English it might be annoying...

Quantity[edit | edit source]

  • Quantity factor such as 'a bit', 'very' or 'a lot' are expressed with preposition b' followed by a number between 1 and 25. B'fasí ('to 25') means 'absolutely'. Numbers above 25 are used for exaggeration. See also Numbers