Seuna nouns

Nouns in Seuna has a lot of old ideas. Seuna suffixes and some grammar has an old idea. Seuna rubbish the same.

plural

The plural is formed by adding a final "n". In the writing system this is represented by a grammatical mark :, not by the soundmark n.

kloga = shoe, klogan = shoes

There is a subgroup of nouns that become plural by changing internally.

man	bla	men	bala	male(adjective)	obla
woman	gla	women	gala	female(adjective)	egla

role.tags

Nine role.tags are end.stuck to nouns.

u = "by"

yo = "to" or "upto"

ji = "for"

fi = "at"

ge = "of"

le = "from"

s ... can be said to show the accusative case. Also used for the vocative case.

wa = "towards" or "about"

ho = "with"

yo is used to indicate the receiver of a gift.

wa also corresponds to English "about" as in "I think about you".

fi is often eroded to f if the word ends in a vowel or n. The eight position.tags can be thought of as a semantic expantion of fi. You normally use fi along with one of the position.tags.

The nominative is unmarked. Also the nouns that follows all prepositions are unmarked ???

There is a special symbol given to each of these tags, that is in text, they are never spelled out phonetically but their special symbol is used.

position.tags

Eight tags are front.stuck to nouns.

bali = above

keja = below

fas = in front (i.e. this side of)

cimo = behind (i.e. at the far side of)

ni = on (covers about the same semantic space as English "on")

tian = beside

pi = in > pilia "to enter" ... pilyari "I entered"

ompu = out > pilua "to exit" ... pilwari "I went out"

There is a special symbol given to each of these tags, that is in text, they are never spelled out phonetically but their special symbol is used.

motion verbs

na go pidwolo = (S/he goes into the house)

na run pidwolo = (S/he runs into the house)

"go" and "run" are considered "motion verbs" hence a change of position is assumed when they are used. When no change in position occurs

with a "motion verb", the sentence must receive extra marking. i.e.

na run pidwolof = (S/he runs in the house)

cat jumped niwall = The cat jumped onto the wall

cat jumped niwallf = The cat jumped on top of the wall (the English translation is actually ambiguous)

"the cat jumped from the wall" would be

meu jumped wallle

or if you really wanted to pin the meaning down

meu jumped niwallle

When two nouns come together

attributive

For the many situations in which one noun qualifies another and ownership isn't involved, we use the particle ta between the nouns.

book ta mi = a book written by me

possession

As mentioned above the endtag -ge is translated by "of" in English. However -ge actually functions in a smaller range of situation than "of". In actual fact it is only used when "possession" is involved. For example;-

book mige = my book (a book owned by me)

inalienable possession

yu = second person pronoun

baba = father

babayu = your father

nogami = my leg

As well as body parts and family members, also locations take the inalienable construction (Interesting fact - the words for "face" and "back", can be considered both body parts and locations.

pi = the interior, the inside

dwolo = house

pidwolo = the interior of the house

pidwolof = in the house

other associations

door ta room

paper ta today

table ta wood

milk three litres milk

ta can be used withiut a proceding noun.

ta room = the one of the room

ta today = the one of today

ta wood = the one of wood

ta hia = the red one

tan hia = the red ones

ta wood = the one made of wood

tan piboatfi = the ones in the boat

ta mige = that one of mine

tan mige = those ones of mine

two nouns together

In Seuna when to nouns come together, they can be translated into English with an "and" between them. (Same also for verbs).

X Y Z.jwo = X and Y and Z X Y Z.ple = X or Y or Z When speaking a list, there is a definite pause between each item.

jwo and ple are both clitics.

Adposition is not allowed in Seuna - you can not have "Obama, the president" but must insert a ta between the two nouns, introducing the second element, in a relative clause. Similarly "William the Conqueror", Alexander the Great"

Co-ordinative compounds ( motherfather = parents, swordspear = weapen, armleg =limb) when both words contribute equally to the compound. Called Dvandva in Sanskrit.

My son, the doctor, went to town My son, the doctor, and I went to town

compounds

tolno.senai = windmill

tolno.mose = watermill

There are many compounds. The compounds are head final. More than 50% are attributive compounds.

The same method of compounding is used for object incorporating in verbs.

I hunt deer => I deer.hunt

hand.makeoi = handmade

wife.beatgu = wifebeater

Index

1. Introduction to Seuna
2. Seuna : Chapter 1
3. Seuna word shape
4. The script of Seuna
5. Seuna sentence structure
6. Seuna pronouns
7. Seuna nouns
8. Seuna verbs (1)
9. Seuna adjectives
10. Seuna demonstratives
11. Seuna verbs (2)
12. Asking a question in Seuna
13. Seuna relative clauses
14. Seuna verbs (3)
15. Methods for deriving words in Seuna
16. List of all Seuna derivational affixes
17. Numbers in Seuna
18. Naming people in Seuna
19. The Seuna calendar
20. Seuna units