User:Aquatiki/Sandbox

Intro to Verb Conjugation

The part of Syreni most like English (if it is like it in any way) is the "verb conjugation". English is called an SVO language, which means it usually lists the parts of a sentence in the order subject-verb-object. It is thought that perhaps Syreni began this same way assuming that they ever had nouns. Syreni, however, glues all those English words together into one, big, monster word! It is easiest to picture a collection of eleven "slots" into which one may inject part, with only the root absolutely being obligatory and able to appear on its own.

#	1	2	3	4	5	6	Root	7	8	9	10	11
Function:	Case	Deixis	Class.	Person	Prep.	State		Mode	Case	Deixis	Class.	Person
For:	"On Side"					???			"Off Side"

Let's look at the four items that group together. These are the Case, Deixis, Class and Person which all can occur on the "on" or the "off" side. "On" and "Off" are used instead of "subject" and "object" because sometimes they behave in ways quite unlike subjects and objects! For now - even though this is generally wrong - let's equate "on" with subject and "off" with object. Case lets you know the intentionality or passivity of the subject/object. Deixis is a fancy word for 'this' vs. 'that', but in Syreni it's a lot more complicated! Class is short for "classifier" which lets you know what kind of thing you're dealing with: person, animal, thing, etc. (Technically, you could have as many as four sets of voice-deixis-class-person on each side, but we won't talk about that!)

The Person marking is generally required. In English, we talked about first (I or We), second (You or Y'all), and third (He, She, It, They) person. Of course, Syreni has more! We kind of have the Zeroth Person in English. Consider the sentence "It is raining." Who or what is raining? The sentence doesn't mean anything more than "There is rain" but again, what is 'there' doing there? These are actions without actors. Syreni can do this with almost any verb. It is usually best to translate the Zeroth Person as "There is/was/will be ...". Third person means neither of us talking right now, and the fourth person is usually handled by "the other one" in English. Here are the personal affixes:

Indicative

	General	Dual
0	bə̣-	No
1	di-	r̀-
2	tzí-	ŋòj-
3/4	ı̣n-

Interrogative

	General	Dual
0	bb̀	No
1	dụì-	ẹʊ̪-
2	tzí-	ǝ̪ò-
3/4	mn̄ǹ-

definite unknown = someone

indefinite unknown = anyone

indefinite = whoever

Real conditional = If I ....

Unreal conditional = Were I to ...

Next, Preposition is a kind of clarifier for the verbal-root. Why aren't they part of the verb? Consider the English verb "to turn into". It's quite different from "to turn" and yet all manner of things might come in between "turn" and "into" in any given sentence (e.g. "Frankie turned very slowly but nevertheless deliberately into pickled cod.") "Into" is crucial to distinguish a very different meaning for "turn", but it is separated from it. That's how the prep. spot functions in Syreni. There are a great deal many "prepositions" in Syreni. Many of them refer to what in human language are nouns.So many, in fact, that some linguists think that they were originally noun that got incorporated into the endless verbal stew! This happens a little in English. (e.g. "I was picking berries" can turn into "I was berry-picking.")

The State slot can be ambiguous as to whether it is marking the on-side or the off-side. The most common infix here marks something as a distributive plural. It may only be applied to very animate subjects and is usually quite clear from context. There are two other infixes that can go here. The "energetic/inert" markers also go here and they are also ambiguous as to whether they refer to the "subject" or "object". (In other languages, these would be part of deixis. This is also the slot for negation of the verbal idea.

Mode has a variety of functions which are hard to classify as a group. In one sense, this changes the "part of speech" of the phrase-word. They are:

Title	Word	IPA	Function
ADVERB			Like English -ly
SUBJUNCTIVE			Used to make a verb dependent upon the preceding one, much like English "to" or "that".
PARTICIPLE			Like Engligh -ing
TOPICAL			Sets the topic. "In regards to ...". It is also a participlizer.
CONSTRUCT			Participlizer. Add the word "of" after.

Lastly, we look at the root itself. Just as you have to learn in English that "sink, sank, sunk" are all forms of the same verb, you'll have to learn three forms of each verb in Syreni. The names of the principle parts of the verb roots are:

• Imperfective,
• Perfective, and
• Future.

The imperfective is used for incomplete or ongoing actions. The perfective implies a finality or unity to the action. The future is used to refer to times after today. The dictionary form of the word is the imperfective, but the other forms are typically listed after it.

It's not very nice to talk about, but the simplest verb we can test-drive is -ko, which means 'to slap' or 'to strike with the open hand', 'to body glove'. It's pronounced just like the English verb "go", but be careful not to make a diphthong out of it (normally English speakers say /gou/). It has no accent marker written, so it is middle tone. (That means, if you think of tone as a song in C Major, this one ends on C!) You should be able to put together six almost-right sentences about slapping now.

Indicative

	General	Dual
0	bə̣ko /ˈvɵ˧.go˧/ - "There is slapping"	No
1	diko /ˈzi˧.go˧/ - "I slap"	r̀go /ˈr̩˦.go˧/ - "We slap"
2	tzígo - /ˈdr̝͆i˦.go˧/ - "You slap"	ŋòjgo -/ˈŋoʒ˩.go˧/ - "You'all slap"
3/4	ı̣ŋ.go /ˈɪŋ˧.go˧/ - "He/She/It/They/The other(s) slap"

Notice how almost nothing has changed as we mashed up these two sets. That is because the indicative affixes are strong, as are the principle parts of the root.

Also notice, in the IPA transcription, we put the stress on the first syllable. This is indicated by length of the vowel/tone (as in English), not by pitch (unlike English). In my classroom, we practice with xylophones, hitting a low 'G' for low accent, 'C' for middle accent, and a higher 'E' for high accent. If you have access to a musical instrument and the ability to play while speaking, it really helps.

Case

It might be tempting to say that in English, something is either the subject or the object, either you did something or something is done to you. But even in English, hints that there is a lot more going on shine through the veil of our grammar. "I gave you fruit." Are there two objects in this sentence? Well, we would call 'you' in this sentence the indirect object', a.k.a. the recipient. There's another kind of object. What about "I had the cat neutered"? Did I do the neutering? Probably the vet did it. But he only did it because I paid him to, right? Do am I the actor? English grammarians call this the pseudo-passive voice, and it's another kind of subject. What about "I slept"? Is that the same level of intentionality as "I jumped"? What's the difference between "I shook (myself)" and "I shivered", besides the intentionality? Linguistics all the less intentional subject the experiencer and the more intentional the ergative.

A majority of human languages mark the subject of an intransitive verb and the actor of a transitive verb the same way. English is this way. "I jumped" and "I ate cheese-blue" both mark "I" the same way. "He swindled me" has an object that is the same as the subject of the last two sentences, but is made to look different. "I" is in the nominative case and "me" is in the accusative case. Languages that behave this way are called nominative-accusative languages. Some languages mark the actor of a transitive verb one way, and the subject of an intransitive verb together with the object of a transitive verb the same way. These are called ergative-absolutive languages. There are few languages that are more complicated than these two systems, but Syreni is much crazier than them all!

Syreni has four case markers, all of which can appear on the "on-side" or on the "off-side". Here they are, in table format, together with their function on either side.

On-side	Case	Off-side
Intentional, actual performer	Ergative	Pseudo-passive or Adjutative
Anti-passive or Experiencer	Absolutive	Instrument, Manner
Indirect Object	Thematic	Applicative
Patient

Deixis

In English, we have "this" and we have "that". In the distant past, we had "yon", which is still semi-perserved in the word "yonder". The old, three-way distinction was between stuff by me, stuff by you, and stuff near neither of us. Syreni is a lot like that, with some finer distinctions. Here's a table of all possible meanings (but don't worry: there are only a few affixes you have to learn)

Person	Distance		Meaning
1	Near		That which is touching me
	Far		That which is not quite touching me, "this"
	Interrogative		"who of us?", "what of mine?"
2	Near		That which is touching you
	Far		That which is not quite touching you, "that"
	Interrogative		"who of you?", "what of yours?"
3	Near	Upstream	Upstream and away from both of us, "up yonder"
		Downstream	Downstream and away from both of us, "down yonder"
	Far		"that other", "the other one" (former vs. latter)
	Interrogative		"what?", "why?", "how?", "where?"

So the good news is, you only have to learn three (and a half) affixes for deixis. Things that you and I can't give away -- i.e. body parts, words, relations, etc. -- are marked with the near-deixis infix. This is called inalienable possession in linguistics.

Now, if you've had language classes before, you may be asking yourself, "Why is 'this' - a thing by me - still labeled with the first person? I though only 'I' or 'we' were possible subjects for first-person verbs?" It would be tempting to say that the Syreni conflating 'here' and 'me', but such things are clarified by classifiers. However, it is true to say that they mix up 'here' and 'this' and 'mine' somewhat.