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