grammarla

grammarla is a constructed grammar framework used in linguistics and language education to illustrate cross-linguistic variation and to test parsing algorithms. It is designed to be neutral, minimal in irregularities, and easily documented, so researchers and students can focus on theoretical concepts rather than idiosyncratic features of natural languages.

The language-like system underlying grammarla features a small phoneme inventory and a regular, phonemic orthography using the Latin script. Morphology is primarily analytic, with optional affixes for derivation; pronouns are separate from nouns. The canonical syntax is subject–verb–object (SVO). Noun phrases include determiners and adjectives in a fixed order; adjectives follow determiners. Verbs carry aspect markers that precede the main verb. Negation is expressed with a dedicated particle preceding the verb, and questions are formed with a question particle at the sentence level or by rising intonation in demonstrations.

The vocabulary in grammarla is deliberately compact, with a core lexicon of a few hundred items to enable clear demonstration of grammar rules. Morphological processes are regular, and there is limited inflection for number and definiteness.

In practice, grammarla is used in textbooks, university courses, and computational linguistics experiments to benchmark parsers, grammars, and language-learning tools. It has accompanying resources such as a reference grammar, a lexicon, and an openly accessible parser.