Adyghe grammar


is a polysynthetic language with an ergative verb-final clause structure and rich verb morphology.

Ergative–absolutive

Adyghe is an ergative–absolutive language, unlike nominative–accusative languages, such as English, where the single argument of an intransitive verb behaves grammatically like the agent of a transitive verb, in ergative–absolutive language, the subject of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the agent of a transitive verb. For example, the word кӏалэ "boy" in the intransitive sentence кӏалэр малӏэ "the boy dies" behaves grammatically different from the word кӏалэ "boy" in the transitive sentence кӏалэм ар еукӏы "the boy kills it".
Nouns in Adyghe can have the following roles in a sentence:
In intransitive verbs the subject is in the absolutive case thus it indicates that the subject is changing.
In transitive verbs the subject is in the ergative case thus it indicates that the subject causes change to the object which gets the absolutive case.
It is important to distinguish between the intransitive and transitive verb, because the subject and object noun cases as well as the sentences' verb conjunctions depend on it. A fault in this can change the meaning of the sentence drastically, switching the roles of the subject and object. For instance, look at the following two sentences:
Even though the noun cases of the word boy кӏалэ are the same, they behave grammatically different because the verb еплъын "to look" is considered an intransitive verb in contract to the verb елъэгъун "to see" which is transitive.

Noun

Singular and plural

A Circassian noun can be in one of the following two states: singular or plural
Singular nouns have zero morpheme, while plural nouns use the additional хэ morpheme, which is attached to the main form of the word. For example: singular: унэ "home", тхылъ "book", plural: унэ-хэ-р "homes", тхылъ-хэ-р "books".
Unlike English verbs, Circassian verbs use -х- or -а- morphemes to form their plural versions. The second morpheme is attached to the verb in front of the verb's root, and the first is attached after it. For example: ар макӏо "he is going", ахэр макӏо-х "they are going"; ащ ыӏуагъ "he said", ахэмэ а-ӏуагъ "they said".

Definite and indefinite forms

Circassian nouns usually have either definite or indefinite form. The idea behind this concept is close to the idea of definite/indefinite articles in English. The definite form of Circassian nouns have -р or -м
formats at the end of the word. For example: кӏалэ "boy" – indefinite noun - it can be used in generalizations or when the boy is unknown to either the "speaker" or "listener" ; кӏалэр, кӏалэм "the boy" – it is used when the mentioned boy is well known to both the "speaker" and "listener".

Cases

Adyghe has four different noun cases, each with corresponding suffixes: absolutive, ergative, instrumental, and adverbial.

Absolutive case

The absolutive case of a definite noun is marked by the affix -р both in the singular and plural forms. The absolutive case usually expresses subject in conjunction with intransitive verbs or direct object in conjunction with transitive verbs: For example:
In the following example, Кӏалэр is in the absolutive case, it points to the subject, and the sentence is in the absolutive form with an intransitive verb ;
In the following example, джанэр is in the absolutive case, it points to the direct object, and the sentence is in the ergative form with a transitive verb.

Ergative-Oblique case

A noun in the ergative case is marked by the affix -м . This case has two roles: Ergative role and Oblique role.
An example with an intransitive verb еджэ "reads" and indirect object тхылъым "book".
An example with an transitive verb реты "gives" and indirect object пшъашъэм "girl".
The Ergative-Oblique case can also be used as an adverbial modifier. For example: Студентхэм мафэм ӏоф ашӏагъ "The students have worked during the day" ; Кӏалэхэр мэзым кӏуагъэх "The boys went to the forest".

Instrumental case

Indefinite nouns are marked by the suffix -кӏэ : тхылъ-кӏэ, "by/with a book", ӏэ-кӏэ "by/with a hand". Definite nouns express this case using the ergative suffix -м in conjunction with the affix -кӏэ: уатэ-м-кӏэ "by/with the hammer", тхылъы-м-кӏэ "by/with the book". The instrumental case expresses instruments, directions or purposes of action.
In the following example, the instrumental case is used to indicate a instrument :
In the following example, the instrumental case is used to indicate a purpose of action:
In the following example, the instrumental case is used to indicate a direction:

Adverbial case

Has the suffix -эу . The adverbial case usually expresses a transition into something, or defines the subject/object of a verb. It points to the real subject in the sentence. For example:

Derivation">Morphological derivation">Derivation

Сomposition and suffixation are the most typical ways to form Circassian nouns. There are different ways of composing words, for example: мэзчэ́т, псычэ́т, мэкъумэ́щ "agriculture", шхапӏэ "cafeteria".
The following suffixes are used to form Circassian nouns:
MeaningSuffixExample
Manner-кӏэзекӏуакӏэ "behavior", кӏуакӏэ "gait", кӏочӏакӏэ "strength".
Time-гъухьэдэгъу "death time", къэщэгъу "age of marriage", лӏыжъыгъу "old age time"
Fellow-гъулъэпкъэгъу "kinsman", унэгъу "family", ныбджэгъу "friend".
Place-щ:хьакӏэщ "sitting-room", чэмэ́щ "cowshed".
Location-пӏэ:еджапӏэ "school", уцупӏэ "station".
Agent-кӏо:еджакӏо "student", лэжьакӏо "worker".
Tool-лъ:щыгъу́лъ "saltcellar", дэгъа́лъ "vessel for oil".
Horrible-джэ:кӏуадж "bad road", теплъаджэ "ugly".

Possessive

Possessive cases are one of the most important grammatical characteristics of nouns in the Circassian language. There are two main forms of possessive cases:
Organic form is used when referring to relatives and body parts. Singular Circassian nouns of the organic form are expressed by the following prefixes:
PronounPrefixExample
First personс- or сы-с-шъхьэ "my head", сы́-гу "my heart"
Second personу-, п-у-нэ́ "your eye", п-лъакъо́ "your leg", п-ӏэ "your hand";
Third personы-ы-шы "his brother", ы́-пхъу "his daughter", ы́-къу "his son".

Plural nouns have these prefixes:
PronounPrefixExample
First personты-, т-ты-нэхэ́р "our eyes", т-шъхьэхэ́р "our heads", т-ӏэбжъанэхэр "our legs";
Second personшъу-шъу-лъакъохэ́р "your legs", шъу-шъхьацыхэ́р "your hair";
Third personа-а́-гу "their heats", а-лъа́къу "their legs".

Proprietary form

Proprietary form is used when referring to property, objects, concepts, ideas and attributes. Singular Circassian nouns of the proprietary form are expressed by the following prefixes:
PronounPrefixExample
First personси-си-тхы́лъ "my book";
Second personуи-уи-тхы́лъ "your book";
Third personи-и-тхы́лъ "his book".

Plural nouns have these prefixes:
PronounPrefixExample
First personти-ти-у́н "our home".
Second personшъуи-шъуи-у́н "your home".
Third personя-я-у́н "their home".

[Pronouns]

In the Circassian language pronouns belong to the following groups: personal, demonstrative, possessive, interrogative, adherent, indefinite.
Personal pronouns are only expressed in first and second person in singular and plural forms: сэ /sa/ "I", тэ /ta/ "we" о /wa/ "you" and шъо /ʃʷa/ "you".
In order to express third person, the special demonstrative pronouns ар "he", мор "that", мыр "this", ахэр, мыхэр "they, that" are used. For Circassian personal pronouns there is no contrast between the absolutive and ergative grammatical cases. These two grammatical cases merge into one common case, so personal pronouns have only four different cases: absolutive, ergative, instrumental and adverbial.
Grammatical cases of personal pronouns:
In a sentence a personal pronoun usually plays role of subject or object:
Demonstrative pronouns are мы "this", мо "that", а "that". There is a contradistinction between "мы" and "мо" on how far the referred object is. The pronoun "а" is neutral on this matter.
Demonstrative pronouns switch four grammatical cases:
The plural form of demonstrative pronouns is expressed by the -хэ- formant:
Possessive pronouns express the idea that something belongs to someone. There are several possessive pronouns in the Circassian language:
These pronouns change their form in different grammatical cases in the same way. Let us show examples of how they are used in a sentence:
The following pronouns are interrogative pronouns of the Circassian language:
The interrogative pronoun хэт? "who?" is used to address the nouns that belong to the class of human being, and the pronoun сыд? "what?" is for the nouns that belong to the class of thing. For example:
Circassian adherent pronouns:
Examples:
There is only one pronoun in the Circassian language which belongs to the group of indefinite pronouns. This pronoun is зыгорэ́. It has several close meanings: "someone", "one", "something", "somebody" and so on. The indefinite pronoun has the same forms in different grammatical cases like nouns have:
Here are examples of how these forms are used in a sentence:

Verbs

In Adyghe, like all Northwest Caucasian languages, the verb is the most inflected part of speech. Verbs are typically head final and are conjugated for tense, person, number, etc. Some of Circassian verbs can be morphologically simple, some of them consist only of one morpheme, like: кӏо "go", штэ "take". However, generally, Circassian verbs are characterized as structurally and semantically difficult entities. Morphological structure of a Circassian verb includes affixes which are specific to the language. Verbs' affixes express meaning of subject, direct or indirect object, adverbial, singular or plural form, negative form, mood, direction, mutuality, compatibility and reflexivity, which, as a result, creates a complex verb, that consists of many morphemes and semantically expresses a sentence. For example: уакъыдэсэгъэгущыӏэжьы "I am forcing you to talk to them again" consists of the following morphemes: у-а-къы-дэ-сэ-гъэ-гущыӏэ-жьы, with the following meanings: "you with them from there together I am forcing to speak again ".

Transitivity

Verbs in Adyghe can be transitive or intransitive.
In a sentence with a transitive verb, nouns in the absolutive case play the role of direct object. In the sentences of this type the noun in the subject's position is in the ergative case :
In these sentences the verbs етхы "is writing", къыштагъ "took", къыубытыгъ "has caught" are transitive verbs, and the nouns письмэр "letter", уатэр "hammer", тхьакӏумкӏыхьэр "rabbit" are in the absolutive case and express direct object in the sentences, while the nouns кӏалэм "boy", пхъашӏэм "carpenter", хьэм "dog" are subjects expressed in the ergative case.
In a sentence with an intransitive verb, there is no direct object, and the real subject is usually expressed by a noun in the absolutive case
In these sentences with intransitive verbs, nouns that the play role of subject are expressed in the absolutive case: чэмахъо-р "cowherd", пэсакӏо-р "guard", лӏы-р "man".
There are verbs in the Adygeh language that in different contexts and situations can be used both as transitive and intransitive. For example:
In the first sentence the verb мэкъутэ "is being broken" is used as an intransitive verb that creates an absolutive construction. In the second sentence the verb е-къутэ "is breaking" creates an ergative construction. Both of the verbs are formed from the verb къутэ-н "to break".
In the Adyghe language, intransitive verbs can have indirect objects in a sentence. The indirect objects are expressed by a noun in the oblique case. For example:
In these sentences with intransitive verbs, nouns that play the role of indirect object are expressed in the oblique case: пшъашъэ-м "girl", чъыгы-м "tree", тхылъы-м "book".
Intransitive verbs can be turned into transitive with the causative prefix гъэ-. For example:
The verbs in the first sentences мачъэ "is running", мэкуо "is screaming" are intransitive, and the verbs in the second sentences егъачъэ "forces... to run", егъэкуо "makes... scream" are already transitive.

Dynamic and static verbs

Adyghe verbs can be either dynamic or static.
Dynamic verbs express actions that are taking place :
Static verbs express states or results of actions:
Certain verbs in English with one meaning can have two forms in Adyghe, one static and the other dynamic. For instance, the verb тӏысын "to sit down" is a dynamic verb that expresses someone moving into a sitting position, in contrast to щысын "to be sitting" which expresses the static of a person sitting.

Person

Adyghe verbs have different forms to express different persons. These forms are, mostly, created with specific prefixes. This is what it looks like in singular:
and in plural:

Tenses

Adyghe verbs have several forms to express different tenses, here are some of them:
TenseSuffixExampleMeaning
Present~∅макӏо /maːkʷʼa/he is going; he goes
Preterite~агъэ /~aːʁa/кӏуагъэ /kʷʼaːʁa/he went
Discontinuous past~гъагъ /~ʁaːʁ/кӏогъагъ /kʷʼaʁaːʁ/he went
Pluperfect~гъагъ /~ʁaːʁ/кӏогъагъ /kʷʼaʁaːʁ/he went a long time ago"; he had gone"
Categorical Future~н /~n/кӏон /kʷʼan/he will go
Factual Future~щт /~ɕt/кӏощт /kʷʼaɕt/he will go, he is about to go
Past continuous~щтыгъкӏощтыгъ /kʷʼaɕtəʁ/he used to go; he was going
Conditional perfect~щтыгъкӏощтыгъ /kʷʼaɕtəʁ/he was going to go; he would have gone
Future perfect~гъэщт /~ʁaɕt/кӏуагъэщт /kʷʼaːʁaɕt/he will have gone
Recent past~гъакӏ /~ʁaːt͡ʃʼ/кӏогъакӏ /kʷʼaʁaːt͡ʃʼ/he just went
Present Perfect~гъах /~ʁaːχ/кӏогъах /kʷʼaʁaːx/he already went

Valency increasing

The following prefixes increase the valency by one, meaning, they introduce another argument in the verb.
CasePrefixMeaningExample
Causativeгъэ~ "to force, to make"гъэ-плъэн
"to make him look at"
Comitativeдэ~ "with"д-еплъын
"to look with"
Benefactiveфэ~ "for"ф-еплъын
"to look for"
Malefactiveшӏо~ "against one's interest"шӏу-еплъын
"to look against his interest"
Reflexiveзэ~ "self"зэ-плъын
"to look at oneself"

Moods

Imperative mood of second person in singular has no additional affixes: штэ "take", кӏо "go", тхы "write"; in plural the affix -шъу is added in front of the verbs: шъу-къакӏу "you go", шъу-тхы "you write", шъу-штэ "you take".
Conditional mood is expressed with suffix -мэ: сы-кӏо-мэ "if I go", сы-чъэ-мэ "if I run", с-шӏэ-мэ "if I do".
Concessive mood is expressed with suffix -ми: сы-кӏо-ми "even if I go", сы-чъэ-ми "even if I run", с-шӏэ-ми "even if I do".
Optative mood is expressed with the complex suffix -гъо-т: у-кӏуа-гъо-т "would you go", п-тхы-гъа-гъо-т "would you write".
Interrogative form is expressed with the affix -а: мад-а? "is he sewing?", макӏу-а? "is he going".
Negative interrogative form is expressed with the affix -ба: ма-кӏо-ба "isn't he is going?", мэ-гыкӏэ-ба "isn't he washing?".

Participle

Present participles in the Circassian language are formed from the appropriate dynamic verbs with the suffix -рэ:
Participles can also be created from static verbs. In this case no additional morphological modifications are required. For example: щысыр "sitting", щылъыр "lying". In the past and future tenses participles have no special morphological attributes, in other words, their form is identical to the main form of the verb. The forms of participles in different grammatical cases are equal to the forms of the appropriate verbs. The same is also true for their time-tenses.

Masdar

Masdar in Adyghe is formed by adding the suffix -н :
Masdar has grammatical cases:
Masdar also can have different forms for different persons:

Negative form

In the Adyghe language negative form of a word is expressed with different morphemes. In participles, adverbial participles, masdars, imperative, interrogative and other forms of verbs their negative from is expressed with the prefix -мы, which, usually, goes before the root morpheme, that describes the main meaning:
In verbs the negative meaning can also be expressed with the suffix -эп/-п, which usually goes after the suffixes of time-tenses. For example:

Morphology

[Adjectives]

From the morphological point of view adjectives in the Circassian language are not very different from nouns. In combinations with nouns they lose their grammatical independence. Adjectives form their plural form the same way nouns do, they also use the same affixes to form different grammatical cases.
Adjectives can be either qualitative or relative.
Adjectives can be in singular or plural form: фыжьы "white" - фыжь-хэ-р "whites".
They switch grammatical cases similarly to nouns:
CaseSingularPlural
Absolutiveфыжьырфыжьыхэр
Ergative-Obliqueфыжьымфыжьыхэм
Instrumentalфыжьыкӏэфыжьыхэкӏэ
Adverbialфыжьэуфыжьыхэу

A qualitative adjective as a compliment in a sentence goes after the word it describes: кӏалэ дэгъу "good boy", унэ лъагэ "high house"; a relative adjective goes before it: пхъэ уатэ "wooden hammer", гъучӏ пӏэкӏор "iron bed". In the second case adjectives do not change their form, only the appropriate nous do. For example: in plural - гъучӏ пӏэкӏорхэр "iron beds".
In different grammatical cases:
CaseSingularPlural
Absolutiveгъучӏ пӏэкӏорыргъучӏ пӏэкӏорхэр
Ergative-Obliqueгъучӏ пӏэкӏорымгъучӏ пӏэкӏорхэм
Instrumentalгъучӏ пӏэкӏорыкӏэгъучӏ пӏэкӏорхэкӏэ
Adverbialгъучӏ пӏэкӏорэугъучӏ пӏэкӏорхэу

Combining adjectives with nouns it is possible to produce a great lot of phrases: пшъэшъэ дахэ "beautiful girl", кӏалэ дэгъу "good boy", цӏыф кӏыхьэ "long man", гъогу занкӏэ "straight road", уц шхъуантӏэ "green grass" and so on. These phrases can be easily included into sentences. If a noun has a certain grammatical case, the adjective gets the suffix of the case instead of the noun, for example кӏэлэ кӏуачӏэ-р "the strong boy and уатэ псынкӏэ-мкӏэ "using the light hammer.
Circassian qualitative adjectives also have comparative and superlative forms. For example: нахь фыжь "whiter, more white" and анахь фыжь "whitest, most white",
The Comparative degree is formed by auxiliary word нахь:
Ар ощ нахь лъагэ – he is higher than you,

Нахь ины хъугъэ – He became bigger ,

Нахь лIэблан охъун фай - You must be braver.
The superlative degrees is formed by auxiliary word анахь :
Ар пшъашъэмэ анахь дахэ – She is the most beautiful among the girls,

Ар зэкӏэмэ анахь лъагэ - It is the highest,

Зэкӏэми шхын анахь дэгъумкӏэ ыгъэшхагъ – he feeds him with the tastiest meal,

Ар заужмэ анахь лъэшы – He is the strongest.

Affixes

The following suffixes are added to nouns:
SuffixMeaningExample
~кӏэ newунакӏэ
~жъы oldунэжъы
~шхо largeунэшхо
~цӏыкӏу smallунэцӏыкӏу

The following suffixes are added to adjectives:
SuffixMeaningExample
~ӏо slightlyдыджыӏо
~щэ too muchдыджыщэ
~дэд veryдэгъудэд
~бз absolutelyдэгъуабз
~шъыпкъ truly; reallyдэгъушъыпкъ
~ашъу kind ofдэгъуашъу
~кӏай quite; prettyдэгъукӏай
~нчъэ lackingакъылынчъэ

Opinion

To indicate a thought or an opinion of someone, the prefix шӏо~ is added to the adjective. This can also be used on nouns but it is very uncommon. For example:

Scaliness of an adjective

The suffix ~гъэ is appended to indicate a measure of a certain adjective. Usually it is used for measurable adjectives like length, height, weight, size, strength and speed but it can be used on any adjective such as good, tasty, beauty and etc. This suffix can be used to scale adjectives, for instance, the word ӏэшӏу-гъэ can be used to express different levels/qualities of tastiness. This suffix turns the adjective to a noun.
The suffix ~гъакӏэ is appended to adjectives to form nouns meaning "the state of being the adjective", in contract to the suffix ~гъэ which is used to measure and scale the adjective. Some examples:
In the Adgyeh language adverbs belong to these groups: adverbs of place, adverbs of time, adverbs of quality and adverbs of amount.

Adverbs of place

Adverbs of this group are formed from the appropriate qualitative adjectives using the suffix ~эу /~aw/. Adverbs in this group describe the manner in which the verb was done.
Adverbs can be produced different ways and from different parts of speech. The most productive ways to form adverbs are:
suffixing :
concatenating:
rethinking or transfer of some forms of words of different parts of speech into adverbs:
In a sentence adverbs play role of adverbials:

Contradiction

Adyghe has the word нахь /naːħ/ "rather, actually" which can be used to introduce a clarification or a contradiction in a sentence, for instance, the speaker would use this word when clarifying his statement in contract to the listener's belief. Some examples:
In English the word "and" is used to connect parts of speech with others, while in Circassian, there are different ways to connect different parts of speech with others.
The conjunctions ыкӏи /ət͡ʃəj/ "and" can also be used to connect different parts of speech.

Conjunctions

Conjunctions in the Circassian language play the same role like in English, they are used to connect together, in different ways, words or parts of a difficult sentence. According to structure of Circassian conjunctions they can be separated into two groups: simple and complex.

Simple conjunctions

Among simple Circassian conjunctions are:
In the Circassian language participles are different both by their semantics and structure. Semantically they fall into the following groups: affirmative, negative, interrogative, intensive, indicatory and stimulating.

Affirmative

For example:
- Непэ тадэжь къакӏоба. - Хъун. "- Come to us today. - OK";
- Къэсӏуагъэр къыбгурыӏуагъа? - Ары. "- Have you understood what I have said? - Yes";
Адэ, непэ тыдэкӏыни тыкъэшхэщт. "Certainly, we will go out today and eat."

Negative

For example: Хьау, хьау, зыми сэ сыфаеп "No, no, I don't want a thing";

Interrogative

For example: Сыдигъо шӏуа автобусыр къызыкӏощтыр? "When perhaps will the bus come?";

Intensive

For example:
Адэ, Пщымаф, гущыӏэу птыгъэр пгъэцэкӏэжьын фай. "Well, Pshimaf, you must keep your word".
Кӏо, кӏалэр еджэн фаи къытдэкӏышъугъэп. "Well, because the boy needs to study he couldn't come out with us.

Indicatory

For example: Мары машинэу зигугъу къыпфэсшӏыгъагъэр "This is the car which I have told you about";

Stimulating

For example: Еу, псынкӏэу зегъахь! "Come on, get out of here quickly".

Others

For example: Уатэр къэсфэхь, Ашъыу, отычэр къэсфэхь " Bring me the hammer, er, I mean, bring me the ax".
For example: Ашъыу!, зэ щыгъэт "Ugh!, shut up for a moment".
For example: Хъугъэ!, некӏо тыкӏожьыщт "That's enough, let's return".
For example: еоой, идж сыд цӏыфым ышӏэжьыщтэр? "Alas, what will the person do now?".

[Demonstratives]

Adyghe has four demonstratives: а /ʔaː/, джэ /d͡ʒa/, мо /mo/ and мы /mə/.
а /ʔaː/
  2. : а ӏанэ — that table
  3. : а пшъашъэ — that girl
  4. : а кӏалэм еӏо — that boy is saying
мо /maw/
  2. : мо ӏанэ — that table
  3. : мо пшъашъэ — that girl
  4. : мо кӀалэм еӀо — that boy is saying
мы /mə/
  2. : мы ӏанэ — this table
  3. : мы пшъашъэ — this girl
  4. : мы кӀалэм еӀо — this boy is saying
  5. : мы мэгъэ — this year
джэ /d͡ʒa/
  2. : джэ ӏанэ — that table
  3. : джэ пшъашъэ — that girl
  4. : джэ кӏалэм еӏо — that boy is saying
тэ
  2. : тэ ӏанэ? — which table?
  3. : тэ пшъашъэ? — which girl?
  4. : тэ кӀалэм еӀо? — which boy is saying?

    Conjugation">Grammatical conjugation">Conjugation

The demonstratives can be used to express different things like:

[Postpositions]

In the Circassian language, as well as in other Ibero-Caucasian languages, role of prepositions belongs to postpositions. It is difficult to define the exact count of postpositions in the Circassian language, because even such major parts of speech as nouns sometimes can be included into the group, together with some verb prefixes. For example, in the sentence Тхылъыр столым телъ "The book is lying on the table" the noun has no preposition, but the meaning remains clear because in the verb те-лъ "is lying" the prefix те- expresses something's being on a surface, so this form of the verb literally means "on the surface is lying".
Nouns and adverbs sometimes play role of postpositions. For example, nous that describe different parts of human body sometimes function as postpositions. For example: Шъузыр лӏым ыпэ итэу кӏощтыгъэ "The wife was going in front of the husband".
Nouns and pronouns combine with a postposition in the ergative grammatical case only. For example, the postposition дэжь "near, beside" requires a word in the ergative case:
Postpositions can attach possessive prefixes to themselves. For example, in singular:
in plural:
The following words are used as postpositions in the Circassian language:
The suffix ~a /aː/ initials the interrogative particle that indicates a yes-or-no question. For example:
If question is posited to word having the negative suffix ~п, it is converted to suffix ~ба. The suffix ~ба /baː/ initials the negative interrogative particle. For example:
If question is posited by auxiliary interrogative words:
Order of words in a Circassian sentence is, generally, free, but the situation where verb goes at the end is the most typical.
Structure of a full sentence is, usually, defined by its form of verb. In the Circassian language there are the following types of sentences:
I. Nominative sentence, where subject is in the absolutive grammatical case, verb is intransitive, and there is no direct object:
II. Ergative sentence, where subject is in ergative case, direct object is in absolutive case, and the verb is transitive:
III. Sentence, where subject is in zero form. In this type of sentences both transitive and intransitive verbs can be used:
This type of Circassian sentences is rarer than the first two. In the Circassian language there are compound sentences that can consist both of independent parts only, and of the main part in combination with dependent subparts.
Compound sentences with independent parts:
Compound sentences with dependent parts are structurally different. The most typical Circassian compound sentence with a dependent part is the sentence where its dependent part expresses some sort of circumstances explaining the main part:

[Number]s

When composed, the hundred word takes the -рэ suffix, as well as the ten and the unit if any ,

шъэрэ тIурэ ,

шъэрэ пшӀыкӀузырэ ,

шъитӀурэ щэкӀырэ плIырэ.
минитӀу ,

минищ ,

минищ шъэ ,

минищ шъитIу ,

миниплӀ ,

миниплӀы шъэ ,

минишъиплIтIу ,

минишъиплӀщ ,

минитфы шъэ ,

минишъитфтIу ...
When there is a certain amount of the noun, the noun is followed by -и and the multiplier digit root.
for example:
Зы кӀалэ - One boy,

КӀалитӀу - two boys,

КӀалиплӏ - four boys,

КӀалишъэ - 100 boys,

Зы мафэ - one day,

МафитIу - two days,

Мафищы - three days.

Ordinal numbers">Ordinal number (linguistics)">Ordinal numbers

ятIунэрэ - second,
ящынэрэ - third,
яплIынэрэ - fourth.
Япэрэ мафэ - First day,

ЯтIонэрэ мафэ - second day,

ЯтIонэрэ цуакъо - second shoe,

Яхэнэрэ классым щегъэжьагъэу тутын сешъо~I have been smoking since the sixth class.

[Discrete number]s

о плIэрэ къыосIогъах - I have told you four times already.
щы /ɕə/ "three" - щанэ /ɕaːna/ "third",

плӏы /pɬʼə/ "four" - плӏанэ /pɬʼaːna/ "fourth",

хы "six" - ханэ /xaːna/ "sixth" and so on.
In a sentence: Чӏыгоу къытатыгъэм изыщанэ картоф хэдгъэтӏысхьа́гъ "On one third of the allocated land we have planted potatoes",
Хатэм изыщанэ помидор хэдгъэтIысхагъ- third part of vegetable garden we used for the tomatoes,
Ахъщэ къыратыгъэм ыпӏланэ чыфэ ритыгъ – The quarter of the money he received, he lent.

[Separative number]s

зырыз /zərəz/ "by one",

тӏурытӏу /tʷʼərətʷʼ/ "by twos",

щырыщ /ɕərəɕ/ "by threes",

плӏырыплӏ /pɬʼərəplʼ/ "by fours",

тфырытф /tfərətf/ "by fives" and so on.
In a sentence: Еджакӏохэр экзаменым тӏурытӏоу чӏахьэщтыгъэх "Pupils entered the examination room by twos".

[Approximate number]s

зыхыбл /zəxəbl/ зы-хы-бл "about six or seven",
зытӏущ /zətʷʼəɕ/ зы-тӏу-щ "about two or three".
In a sentence: Непэ садэжь нэбгырэ зытIущ къыIухьагъ "About two or three people have approached me today".