Nova is an oligosynthetic language, which interprets and describes the world as a series of events which are subject to various degrees of control by those involved in them. Oligosynthesis is an idea first proposed by Benjamin L. Whorf, a fire insurance inspector who dabbled in Linguistics. Nova has considerably more basic elements than Whorf proposed for Nahuatl, but the total is still less than 1000 and over 300 of those are inflections or a class of morphemes called integers which basically stand alone. It may be as quick as a flash of lightning or as long lasting as a planet. Nova divides them into classes based upon their duration.
Control is the analysis of who or what initiates or controls the event in progress.
This analysis is largely based upon size and intelligence. After duration, understanding control is the key to understanding Nova syntax. Nova is heavily inflected but many of the inflectional categories are not those people have come to expect from a Natural Language. Others are common enough categories but not used where they might be expected, for example, much of what Natural Languages call voice and associate with verbs, occurs in Nova as nominal cases. The morpheme list used by Nova will strike some as oddly primitive.