Syntax
Neo-Mandaic preserves the SVO word order of Classical Mandaic, despite its longstanding contact with Persian (which follows SOV word order). Topic-fronting, which tends to obscure the word order, is typical of all three languages. Simple sentences consist of a subject, which may be implied in the verb, and a predicate, which is headed by a verb or the copula (see Table 9 below). The independent forms of the copula introduce predicate nominal and predicate locative constructions, and the enclitic forms introduce predicate adjectives. Much like other Semitic languages, Neo-Mandaic employs a predicate locative construction to express the notion of possession. In the simple present tense, this construction uses the independent form of the existential particle *eṯ and the preposition l- ‘to/for,’ which takes the enclitic suffixes introduced in Table 5. Before l-, the existential particle assumes the form eh-, yielding the forms ehli ‘he has’ (lit. ‘there is for him’), ehla ‘she has,’ and so forth. In tenses other than the simple present, the copular verb həwā ~ həwi (hāwi) is used in the place of the existential particle, e.g. agar pərāhā həwāle, turti zaḇnit ‘if I had money, I would have bought a cow.’
Compound sentences combine two or more simple sentences with coordinating conjunctions such as u ‘and,’ ammā ‘but,’ lo ‘or,’ and the correlative conjunction -lo … -lo ‘either … or.’ Complex sentences consist of a main clause and one or more dependent clauses introduced by a relative pronoun, provided that the referent of the antecedent of the clause is definite—if it is indefinite, no relative pronoun is used. The Classical Mandaic relative pronoun d- has not survived, having been replaced by illi, an Arabic loan that introduces non-restrictive relative clauses, and ke, a Persian loan that introduces restrictive relative clauses, both of which appear immediately following the antecedent of the clause. The antecedents of restrictive relative clauses are marked with the restrictive morpheme –i, which resembles the indefinite morpheme in form alone, e.g. ezgit dukkāni ke həzitu awwál ‘I went to the places which I saw before.’ If the antecedent is the object of the relative clause, it will be represented within the relative clause by a resumptive relative pronoun, as in the example above (həzitu ‘I saw them’).
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