Tallfellow - Basic Sentences

Grammar

Word Order

The simplest Tallfellow sentences are formed in much the same way as a sentence in English. The subject of a sentence comes before the verb, and the object of a sentence comes after it.

Verb Forms

There aren't any. Tallfellow verbs have no inflections at all, and don't have to agree with anything. Tallfellow does have things like past and future tense, but they're handled by adding an independent word, as we'll see later on.

Articles

Tallfellow has no articles, either; that is, there is no synonym in Tallfellow for “the” or “a”, as in “the cat” or “a blackberry”. Just use the word without adding an article.

Example: Blawi globu baban. “The cat drinks the water.” (or “A cat drinks water”, or “The cat drinks water”, or...)

Pronouns

Tallfellow has four first-person pronouns. They are:

• pin “I, me”

• emb “you (singular; not used when talking to more than one person)”

• sal “she, her, he, him, they (singular), them (singular), it (a living creature)”

• gur “it (a plant, or something not alive)”

Examples:

Pin globu mombi. “I drink the milk.” (or “I drink milk”, etc.)

Emb bomba borng. “You (one person) see a/the lark.”

Sal mawu ral. “She/he/it (something alive) eats the strawberry; they (singular) eat the strawberry.”

Note that all Tallfellow pronouns are the same whether they're the subject or the object. That is, there's no distinction between “I” and “me”, for instance; you use the same pronoun “pin” for either one.

Examples:

Blawi gler pin. “The cat looks for me.”

Simbes bomba emb. “The nonbinary person sees you.”

Pibin bro sal. “The boy finds her/him/it/them (singular and a living creature).”

Blawi mawu gur. “The cat eats it (something that is not a living creature).”

It might be helpful to go over the last two pronouns in more detail. sal is an animate pronoun, and gur is an inanimate pronoun. Tallfellow does not have any form of grammatical gender in the sense of masculine vs. feminine, but it does have a distinction between animate and inanimate in its pronouns (only), much like English's contrast of “it” with other, animate pronouns such as “he” and “she”.

Tallfellow. however, doesn't draw the line between those quite where English does. Anything that is a living creature counts as animate in Tallfellow. We might call a cat “it” in English, and would almost certainly use that to describe, say, a spider. That's incorrect in Tallfellow; both are sal, just like a person is.

Examples:

Sal umbur barsun. “She is a woman.”

Sal umbur reganing. “It is a pigeon.”

Gur umbur baban. “It is water.”

“Living” turns out to be an important descriptor here, by the way; things that are not strictly alive, such as undead creatures or machines, don't count as animate. Plants, despite being alive, also don't count. But we'll see more examples of all that in later lessons.

Vocabulary

• bában “water”

• banál “blackberry”

• bársun “woman”

• bláwi “cat”

• bílu “take, pick up”

• bómba “see, understand”

• bórm “bread”

• bórng “lark”

• bró “find, reach, arrive at”

• emb “you (singular)”

• glér “search for, seek, look for”

• glóbu “drink”

• gur “it (inanimate)”

• hóbind “person, halfling”

• lárus “child, young person (of any gender); niece, nephew”

• máwu “eat; spend time, experience”

• mómbi “milk”

• nowún “cheese”

• píbin “boy, son, nephew, young man”

• pin “I, me”

• rál “strawberry”

• rálungo “cranberry”

• réganing “pigeon

• rémendi “meet”

• rós “girl, daughter, niece, young woman”

• sal “she, he, they (singular), it (animate), her, him, them (singular)”

• símbes “nonbinary person, fey being”

• tóri “man”

• úmbur “is, am, are, be”

• wambál “raspberry”

Exercises

Translate the following sentences into English:

1. Sal umbur borng.

2. Pibin mawu nowun.

3. Simbes bro ralungo.

4. Barsun bilu pin.

5. Larus remendi emb.

6. Pin gler gur.

7. Ros mawu banal.

8. Hobind bro reganing.

9. Tori globu baban.

10. Reganing mawu borm.

Translate the following sentences into Tallfellow:

11. “I pick up the raspberry.”

12. “She eats cheese.”

13. “The boy meets a halfling.”

14. “The cat sees me.”

15. “He finds a blackberry.”

16. “The nonbinary person drinks milk.”

17. “The lark looks for water.”

18. “It's a cat.”

19. “They are a nonbinary person.”

20. “It's a strawberry.”

(Return to the main Tallfellow page, or to the list of lessons; or, try the Memrise course associated with these lessons for more practice.)