Justin B Rye 1995-2001
glossary sounds numbers nouns adjuncts pronouns verbs phrases syntax coinages examples lexicon

SECTION V: ADJUNCTS

Va - Adjectives

BEFORE NOUNS

The familiar adjective-noun order of English phrases like "a strong horse" is unchanged, but there are extra endings on the adjective which agree in gender and case (see IVa, IVb) with the noun involved:

AFTER LINKING VERBS

As well as appearing before nouns, adjectives can occur after certain "linking" verbs (most obviously "to be" - see VIIIc).  This again resembles English ("the horse is strong").  In this situation the adjectives take subject-case endings:

<kéntha re·s rasek·a> "the horse is strong"

One un-English extra feature of this construction is that the verb itself is seen as redundant, and can usually be left out (though to help you along I'll mark the spot with a swung-dash):

<kéntha ~ rasek·a> "the horse is strong"

Since it's often also possible to omit the subject, this means an adjective on its own can be a full sentence:

<~ rasek·a> "it's strong"

INTENSIVES

Intensive forms are created simply by adding the word <bei>, and may carry comparative or superlative meanings ("-er", "-est") dependent on context:

<jorda·ra bei kuoise> "a very big town"

<kéntha·p ~ rasek·a bei> "my horse is stronger"

Vb - Adverbs

In English adjectives like "strong" usually have equivalent adverbs like "strongly", but this is not true for <rasek>.  It is possible to use a plain adjective adverbially - <rasek desen·ap> is "I spoke strongly" - but this gives much the same impression as English "they played good" for "they played well".  The concept is more formally conveyed by means of a so-called participial construction (IXd): <desen·ap en rasek>.

Nonetheless, many specialised adverbs do exist independent of the adjectives; they form a heterogeneous collection ranging from <¿fatemaf?> "how much?" to <puete> "even".  None of them ever take any affixes or require any extra kind of agreement; if they're dependent on a verb they tend to be put in immediately preceding position, but if they're qualifying an adjective they usually follow it (e.g. <rasek beit>, "too strong"), and if they modify the entire sentence (as <tioan> "perhaps" often does) they may be at the very beginning or end.

Vc - Postpositions

PLACEMENT

You may be familiar with "prepositions", so called because they are positioned before a noun ("on the table", "to Paris").  This language on the other hand uses "postpositions", which are essentially the same idea but go after their noun (which is put in Oblique case - IVd):

<thun> "beside" --> <ji·da thun> "beside the king"

<or> "from" --> <tánne·pa·da or> "from my father"

AGREEMENT

One extra complication is that postpositions, like verbs, take pronoun-suffix agreement (see VIc): zero (as above) after a third-epicene noun, <·es> after a third-neuter noun, <·oton> for second-polite and so on.  As with verbs, redundant subject pronouns are omitted:

<foni> "across" --> <togo·don foni·es> "across the sea"

<nuchar> "with" --> <nuchar·oton> "with you"

Sentences can consist of noun plus postposition, with no assistance from any verb: <ji ~ thun> "the king was beside him/her/them".  However, these are really cases of omitted "be" - see VIIIc.

"TO"

The most important of all postpositions is <u> "to", as in <ji·da u> "to the king".  It's technically irregular, as its suffixes drop their vowel:

<kéntha·don u·s> "to the horse" (not <u·es>)

<pa·da u·p> "to ME!" (not <u·ap>)

Furthermore it can sometimes be omitted altogether - the distinctive oblique-case neuter ending <·(d)on> can be interpreted as implying <u> by default:

<kuoise·don om·pe·p> "I was walking to town..."

The word <u> is the basis for many compound postpositions, such as <uambi> "into" (from <ámbi> "within") and <uma> "onto" (from <ma> "upon").

BIDIRECTIONAL VERBS

Several verbs in this language have neutral basic meanings and range from "active" to "passive" with the assistance of postpositions.  The commonest example of these "bidirectional verbs" is <fáru>, which on its own means something like "transfer"; when accompanied by <u> ("to") it means "give", and with <or> ("from") it means "take".  It can even have both at once: <kéntha or·ap u·n fáru> (literally "horse from-me to-thee transfer") is "he took a horse from me and gave it to you".  Other examples of bidirectional verbs are <eota> "trade/buy/sell" and <ana> "travel/come/go".

Vd - Possessives

There is no direct equivalent of the common English preposition "of".  However, the idea of "X's Y" can be conveyed simply by putting the two words together in a possessive construction: the "owner" noun, followed by the "possession" noun.  The first noun doesn't take any "genitive case" mark equivalent to the English "'s" - it's only the second noun that inflects.  See VIc: if the "owner" is neuter it takes a pronoun-suffix <·es>, but the epicene-gender equivalent is zero.  Thus:

<kéntha ianúr·es> (i.e. "horse leg-its") "the horse's leg(s)"

<ji ianúr· > (i.e. "king leg-his") "the king's leg(s)"

<ji kéntha· > (i.e. "king horse-his") "the king's horse(s)"

Possessive phrases can be the basis of further possessivisation, and each noun can be accompanied by its own adjectives:

<ji kéntha ianúr·es> "the king's horse's leg(s)"

<ordara ji l·a kéntha> "the aged king's many horses"

Be careful, though - apparent possessive phrases may turn out to be subject and object pairs before a verb, or even complete descriptive sentences with an omitted linking verb (see VIIIc):

<ji kéntha numa> "the king saw the horse"

<ji ~ kéntha> "the king is a horse!"

There is no verb meaning "have", either, though there are common verbs meaning "belong to" and "lack (not have)":

<kéntha ji·da om·fakan·es> "the horse belongs to the king"

<ji kéntha man·techan> "the king does not lack horses"

SECTION VI: Pronouns