LFN has an analytic grammar and resembles the grammars of languages such as the Haitian Creole, Papiamento, and Afrikaans. On the other hand, it uses a vocabulary drawn from several modern romance languages – Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, French, and Italian.
Complete grammars are available on the official website in several languages: LFN, German, English, Spanish, Esperanto, French, Italian, Polish, Russian, Finnish.
Word order
LFN has a fairly strict word order. The general word order is:
subject noun phrase — verb phrase (— object noun phrase) Joan core — "John runs" Maria oia Joan — "Maria hears John"
A noun phrase has this order:
(determiners —) (quantifiers —) noun (— adjectives) La tre omes grande... — "The three large men..." La multe femes peti... — "The many small women..."
A verb phrase has this order:
(tense/mood —) verb (— adverb) ...ia come rapida — "...ate quickly..." ...va come lente — "...will eat slowly..."
A prepositional phrase generally follows what it modifies, and has this order:
preposition — noun phrase
...en la cosina — "...in the kitchen" ...pos medianote — "...after midnight"
Nouns
The roles of nouns in a sentence are indicated through prepositions and word order. There are no cases.
Nouns are commonly preceded by determiners. Plural nouns are formed by appending -s to nouns ending in vowels or -es to nouns ending in consonants. This does not alter the stress: casa > casas — house > houses fem > femes — woman > women
Mass nouns include liquids, powders, and substances, such as acua (water), arena (sand), and lenio (wood). They do not normally require determiners or the plural. However, one may add these to indicate specific examples or different types: la acua — the water (e.g. in the cup) lenios — woods (e.g. various kinds)
Gender is typically not indicated. If necessary, nouns may be followed by mas (male) or fema (female): un cavalo mas / un cavalo fema — a stallion / a mare
A few terms for family members and traditional roles do show distinctions of gender. For example: madre / padre — mother / father fio / fia — son / daughter prinse / prinsesa — prince / princess
A noun can be made into an abstract noun by adding -ia (-ity, -ness, -ship, -hood). In this way madre (mother) becomes madria (motherhood).
Apposition — the use of one noun to modify another — is mostly limited to names and titles: san Josef — Saint Joseph mea sore Maria — my sister Mary
Determiners
Determiners in LFN precede the noun they modify. There are two articles: la (the) and un (a), used as in English: la om, un fem, e enfantes — the man, a woman, and children
Other words function similarly: { | style="width: 90%" |- | style="width: 45%" | tota — all ambos — both esta — this, these acel — that, those cada — every, each cualce — whatever, whichever alga — some, several, a few no — no, zero || multe — many, much poca — few, little plu — more min — less, fewer otra — other mesma — same tal — such |}
In addition, numbers and possessive determiners (see below) are also used.
There is a default order of determiners, but variations are acceptable as long as the meaning is clear: tota, ambos la, esta, acel alga, cada, cualce mea, tua... un, du, tre... multe, poca, plu, min otra, mesma, tal bon, mal
Pronouns
Personal pronouns are invariant: { | style="width: 90%" |- | style="width: 45%" | me — I, me tu — you (singular) el — she, her, he, him lo — it on – one || nos — we, us vos — you (plural) los — they, them |}
El is used for people and higher animals. Its use can be extended metaphorically to lower animals, robots, the moon, hurricanes, etc. Lo is used for things, simple animals, plants, ideas, etc. The exact dividing line is left to the speaker.
There is an indefinite pronoun on, which is used like German "man" or French "on": On debe segue la regulas — "One must follow the rules."
There are no gender distinctions between "he" and "she". If gender is significant, one can use words like la fem, la om, la fia, la fio, la fema, la mas (the woman, the man, the daughter, the son, the female, the male), etc, or gender-irrelevant terms such as la plu grande, la carnor, or la otra (the bigger one, the butcher, the other one).
Unlike in the Romance languages, there is no polite/impolite contrast for the second person: tu is always used for the singular, vos always for the plural.
The reflexive pronouns are also me, nos, tu, and vos. For the third person, singular and plural, lfn uses se: Me ia lava me — "I washed myself." El ama se — "He loves himself," "She loves herself."