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THE ARTICLE
Definite article lo: the. Lo patro the father; lo patros the fathers; lo matro the mother; lo matros the mothers; lo garden, lo gardenos the garden, the gardens.
Ending o may be dropped before a word beginning with a vowel: l’abro, l’abros the tree, the trees; l’ideo, -s; the idea, -s; l’ok, -os the eye, -s; l’uk, -os the corner, -s; l’aventur, -os the adventure, -s; l’olda vir, -os the old man, men.
In the plural, when preceding an invariable word, s may be added: los Nelson exir, los Johnson entrir the Nelsons went out, the Johnsons came in; los sencesa kur d’et infan me lasir this boy’s ceaseless “whys” tired me.
Ending s may also be added to give extra weight and when suggested by a want of clearness or euphony.
There are no graphical (written) accents nor any diacritical signs in Neo.
To mark the stress of foreign or universal words ending with a stress-carrying vowel, an accent is put on this vowel: pashà, papà. This does not contradict the principle of accents’ absence in Neo, as it only concerns “foreign” words.
This accent may optionally be replaced by an apostrophe: pasha’, papa’.
Indefinite article un: a, an. Un vir e un fem a man and a woman; no un sol boy not a single boy.
Both definite and indefinite article may optionally be omitted, as is normal practice in Russian, in Latin and in several oriental languages.
THE ADJECTIVE and THE ADVERB
The Adjective ends with the letter a: grana large; leta small; forta strong; debla weak; iza easy; dufa difficult; komoda convenient; decenta decent; blonda blond; bruna brown.
When the adjective is used as a noun, ending s must be added in the plural: lo granas the large ones; lo letas the small ones; lo blondas the blond ones; lo brunas the brown ones; l’albas the white ones; lo skuras the dark ones.
Ending a may OPTIONALLY be dropped when adjective PRECEDES the noun to which it relates (NEVER WHEN IT FOLLOWS IT), so long as this elision does not create confusion, and so long as after the elision the adjective has no more than ONE syllable or at most TWO:
| et dom | (eta dom) | this house |
| yen dom | (yena dom) | that dom |
| bel floros | (bela floros) | beautiful flowers |
| un nus felet | (un nusa felet) | a pretty little girl |
| mi ricir va bon brif | (va bona brif) | I received your good letter |
| un gentil dam venir | (un gentila dam) | a nice lady came |
| let domos e klezos grana | (leta domos) | small houses and big churches |
| il un gentil boy | (gentila boy) | he is a nice boy |
The ADVERB deriving from an adjective ends with the letter e: forta strong, forte strongly; energa energetic, energe energetically; ekonoma, -ome economic, -ically.
THE NOUN
The Noun ends with o (plural os): frato, fratos brother, brothers; soro, soros sister, sisters; gardeno, gardenos garden, gardens; tablo, tablos table, tables; libro, libros book, books.
Ending o is frequently dropped IN THE SINGULAR, so long as the pronunciation remains very easy: frat, sor, garden. One may not say tabl, libr, because the pronunciation would be difficult. THE PLURAL ENDING os NEVER DROPPED.
Ending –in is used to design feminine nouns: doktor, doktorin doctor, lady doctor; roy, royin (usual contraction: roin) king, queen; leon, -in lion, lioness; vender, venderin seller (m, f); amik, amikin friend (m, f); librer, librerin bookseller (m, f); biblioteker, bibliotekerin (usual contraction: bibliotekin) librarian (m, f).