Fith is isolating, with no words modified by inflections or derivational affixes. The following analysis of the parts of speech is heavily influenced by Western European languages; this is not at all how a Fithian would describe the language.
Nominals
Nouns - A noun is placed on the stack as is and does not affect items already on the stack. Noun forms themselves are not marked for number, gender or case. Articles are optional, in which case the precise meaning is determined from context (e.g., zhong hong lo typically means "A man of THE nation").
Articles - The articles ke ("the"), emn ("a, some") and zhenh ("in general, as a class") are optional. When they are used, they occur after a noun or noun phrase: e.g., hong fthong shlo emn, "man people of a" -> "a man of the people." An example of zhenh is yumn zhenh tra humh vai "human [as a class] Terra from be" -> "Humans, as a rule, are from Terra."
Plural Markers - The plural markers ku ("singular", default), wa ("dual", used less often than in Middle Fith texts) and a ("plural") do not affect the stack but indicate that all subsequent nouns and pronouns are of the number indicated. Plural markers can occur anywhere.
Pronouns - The 18 pronouns can be singular or plural depending on the plural marker in effect. The following chart shows only the translations of the singular (plurals would be "we", "us", "our" for the first person, second person as shown, "they, them, their" for the third person).
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agent
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patient
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possessive
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male
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female
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male
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female
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male
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female
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1
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lu, I
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fi, I
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ba, me
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im, me
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zha, my
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ro, my
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2
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shi, you
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go, you
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de, you
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na, you
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ong, your
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su, your
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3
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za, he
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hu, she
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em, him
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pe, her
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ta, his
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un, her
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Predicates
Verb - A two-argument verb removes a subject and an object and replaces them with a clause on the stack. Verbs are not marked for tense, number, gender or person; this is assumed from context or made explicit by modifiers. A three-argument verb removes a subject, object and focus from the stack, replacing them with a clause. The special noun vo ("it", as in, It is raining) is used when the subject, object or focus is unspecified.
Tense Markers - The tense markers zroe ("present", default), yan ("past") and shti ("future") do not affect the stack but indicate that all subsequent verbs are of the tense indicated. Like plural markers, tense markers can occur anywhere.
Others
Modifiers - A modifier can be used as an adjective or adverb: an adjective if the stack top is a noun or noun phrase, an adverb if the stack top is a verb or verbal phrase. A modifier always removes the stack top and replaces it with a phrase. For instance, hong lo, "loyal man", and hong shi vin um lo, "man you follow still loyally" -> "The man still loyally follows you."
Postpositions - These have a similar function to English prepositions: fthong hong lo, "people man of" -> "man of the people". Fith has two classes of postpositions: traditional postpositions, as lo, where the object of the postposition is the second item from the top of the stack, and the swap postpositions, where the object of the postposition is the top of the stack, as in hong fthong shlo, "man people of" -> "man of the people". The swap postpositions were originally all contractions of shen and a traditional postposition (e.g., shlo is a contraction of shen lo) though unrelated forms have since emerged (sre, "up", and zhomn, "[swap] up").
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