Syntax is the order in which we put words to form sentences. This section has a lot of English sentences, because I figured that would be more effective at illustrating the structures underlying the language to people already familiar with how english works.
I decided that all sentences would have a basic structure of Subject - Indirect object - Direct Object - Verb - Adverb - Local noun. The subject comes after the indirect object in the absence of a direct object. Adjectives come after nouns. This would give a sentence like 'I gave the red book to the kind cat" an order along the lines of "I-ERG cat-DAT kind book-ABS red gave" (for those curious, this translates to kin awanan onti pannain asano kiefalo). There is no copula (to be-like word that joins adjs to nouns).
Much like English and other Indo-European languages, there are interrogative and imperative sentences in addition to basic statements. Interrogative will be focused on first.
Interrogative sentences rely in large part on different word order; The verb and all clauses affecting it are moved to the beginning of the sentence, while subject and object(s) move to the end. The order within these two groups is kept the same, however. In addition to this, whatever part of the sentence is being asked about - possibly multiple - is replaced with the relevant question word. The following is a list of common question words:
alo - what
alo awo - which
alo main - who
alen - how
alun - why
alowin - when
alin - where
aloso - whose (not always person)
alo konen - how many
Other words are typically formed from a combination of alo and the subject they refer to, similarly to the listed words for 'which', 'who', and 'how many' (and a relatively obvious etymological origin for the others). The following is an interrogative sentence:
¿fepalapilo áwano kiso alo?
said cat my what?
what did my cat say?
Imperative also employs word order in its construction. The addressee - that is, the person being told to do whatever it is the sentence refers to - is moved to the very end of the sentenced, after the verb and any adverbs. The addressee itself is a construction of the verb fale, conjugated for whichever addressee is relevant in present imperfective irrealis, along with the addressee succeeding it.
Dependent clauses can get rather complex, as they tend to in many languages. On the most basic level, they are often marked with an. This particle can be (very) roughly translated as 'that', but it is used in somewhat different ways to the English word. Generally, whenever a full sentence is a noun phrase, or when it plays any role within a larger sentence at all, it will be marked with an. Additionally, an marks any predicate used in an unusual manner (i.e. as a descriptor).
As has been mentioned above, there is no copula. This presents some challenges; how, for example, would one translate 'I was sick'? Two particles - ilo for past and awao for future - are placed after the adjective to determine tense. Mood is marked just as usual, treating the adjective as a verb around which particles are placed. fen, ek, and jek are used as particles placed after the mood markers but before the adjective itself that mark perfective, inceptive, and cessative aspect respectively.