Kadu language

Kadu vowels consist of eight monophthongs and a diphthong /ai/.[5]

Kadu has 20 consonants.

The final consonants need to be nasals /m, n, ŋ/ or voiceless stops /p, t, k, ʔ/.[3]

Kadu has three tones; high, mid, and low.

C₁C₂V₁V₂C₃

C: Consonant

V: Vowel

C₁: necessary, this can be any Kadu consonant except unvoiced nasals.

C₂: optional, this can be only /l, w, y/.

V₁: necessary, this can be any Kadu vowel, however, /ɘ/ appears only in the form of CɘC.

V₂: optional.

C₃: optional, this can be only /p, t, m, n, ʔ, ŋ/.[5]

Abstract nouns such as freedom, love, experience, and anger are not attested in the Kadu noun class. They are usually expressed by verbs or adjectival verbs.

The language has two categories of nouns:

1, So called "simple nouns" are treated as monomorphemic by the native speakers.

2, Nouns known as "complex nouns" are polymorphemic, and most of the complex nouns come from the process of compounding.

Adjectives that expresses dimensions and qualities such as "tong" (=big) and "lom" (=warm) function as verbs, and are categorized as verbs.

The verbs are structurally categorized as:

1, Simple verbs, which are treated as monomorphemic words by the native speakers.

and

2, Polymorphemic complex verbs.

Kadu verbs may be reduplicated using the same morpheme or may take attendant words to express the repeated or frequent actions.

V-V constructions function as resultative, directional, evaluative, explanatory, or manner.

The adverbs are also "simple" or "complex" like nouns and verbs.

One thing to point up is that the complex adverbs are derived from verbs or nominals by the processes of reduplication or semi-reduplication.

Most of the native numerals in Kadu are lost.

Numerals are always attached to classifiers, although classifiers do not occur with multiples of ten.

As for ordinal numbers, Burmese ordinal numbers are used because the original ordinal numbers are already lost.

Quantifiers follow the head noun they quantify.

There are nominal relational markers, verbal particles, clausal particles, utterance final particles, and speaker attitude particles.

Yes/no questions are formed by simply adding either of the two interrogative particles "la" and "ka" at the end of the phrase.

Yes/no questions can also be expressed by an alternative interrogative expression like "is it A or not A", which can be found in Mandarin Chinese as well.

Interrogative sentences can be made by adding "chi" (=true) at the end of sentences, like "right?" in English language.

Wh- questions are formed by attaching the Wh-word forming morphemes, "ma" or "ha", to specific nomials or nominal postpositions.

Wh- question words also may function as indefinite pronouns such as "whatever", "anyone" and so on.

Verbs can be negated by negative proclitics, "a-" and "in-".[3]