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

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

mu = 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.

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.

Some attrition

na go dwolopiyo (S/he goes into the house) => na go dwolopyo

na come dwolopile (S/he comes out of the house) => na come dwolople

cat jumped wallniyo (The cat jumped onto the wall) => cat jumped wallnyo

cat jumped wallnile (The cat jumped off the wall) (The ni bit is ofter missed out)

Apart from the above 4 cases, you do not often get spacial and role tags in the same word.

When two nouns come together

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

For example;-

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

book ta mi = a book written by me

inalienable possession

yu = second person pronoun

baba = father

yubaba = your father .... different from you and father - there would be a deliberate pause between the elements of that i.e. yu baba

minoga = my leg

As well as body parts and family members, also locations take the inalienable construction

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

three litres ta 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).

?? Stand-together ?? what is the correct technical term ?? Juxtaposition ??

This 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"

In theory this could cause some confusion when you have nouns with inalielable possession. But in practice it doesn't. My father and I = mi baba mi or baba mi mi. The timing --- we have one comma - one pause between different items.

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

senai.tolno = windmill ... writen as senai.tolno but pronounced senaindolno

mose.tolno = watermill ... writen as mose.tolno but pronounced mosendolno

?? We need an example with second word k... and p.. etc ??

After the nasal all unvoiced stops turn to voiced stops.

Actually it would be better if "l" was used for this link phoneme. "n" is already used in many functions and "l" is comparatively idle. However the "l" gesture is just too awkward and the nasal gesture too easy. (The moral is - if you want restful life : act awkward)

There are many compounds. The compounds are head final. More than 50% are attributive compounds. Compounds have a nasal inserted between the two components. In the writing system this is represented by a grammatical mark . (actually it should be mid-level). If the second component begins with a unvoiced sound, it changes to voices in the compound

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