Rirh'hhwaeh'afwe Syntax
Comparisons with 'than'
To express a concept such as "x is (adjective) than y", Rihan uses the construction (adjective) aou'nel x y-hel, for example, Daelfte aou'nel llhea lacendt'hel "big is better than small". A statement, such as "their sensors are better than we thought", in which there isn't a comparison between two nouns, the structure is similar, but with the addition of the word fvah after the aou'nel. The example sentence given in English, when rendered in Rihan, would read Daelfte aou'nel, fvah aelhen siurrhel lloannen mnean, literally better than, what thought sensors-from theirs we, or, using more grammatically correct constructions in English, "better than what we thought of [from] their sensors".
Appositives
Where a phrase in Rihan such as "Joe is happy" would be expressed simply as Ahr'viduus Jho, literally, "is-happy Joe", or "Joe is my brother" as Ahr'dinam arham Jho, literally, "is-brother mine Joe", a phrase such as "Joe, my brother, is happy" is expressed with a more complex structure using the particles hje...udt, like this: Ahr'viduus Jho hje dinam arham udt.
Questions
Questions can be formed in three ways in Rihan. The simplest way is to add the adverb ie, "yes," to a statement, positive or negative, e.g. Ahr'viduus lloann, "they are happy," would become Ahr'viduus lloann, ie?, that is, "they are happy, yes?"
The second way is by using the particle -difv. This particle can only be used in a question containing a verb, as it is attached to the verb being brought into question. The statement "you understand" in Rihan is ssuaj hwi. To ask, "do you understand?" one would affix -difv to the verb, resulting in Ssuaj-difv hwi?, that is, "Do you understand?"
The third way is similar to the Chinese method of forming questions - giving two options, positive and negative, to the speaker. This is used in the same situations as the particle difv, and the meaning is identical; usage depends entirely on the preferences of the speaker. To form a question in this way, the verb is repeated twice - once in the positive indicative form, and once in the negative indicative form in the appropriate tense and aspect. The above question, "do you understand?", in this form would be rendered as Ssuaj ssuajkhe (hwi)?.