Seuna adjectives

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Adjectives have the form CVCV. The second vowel can be a diphthong.

Antonyms

Many adjectives come in opposite pairs. For example;-

big jutu small tiji
hot fema cold pona
fast saco slow gade
beautiful hau'e ugly @aiho

Each of these pairs have a specific relationship to each other. In fact the first consonants of every pair are related, the first vowels of every pair is related and so on. As stated in the section "Word ordering" in "Seuna word shape", there is a proper order for listing the consonants and a proper order for listing the vowels. The relationship between the sounds is that they are reflected about the middle member of each series; about "l" for the consonant series and about "a" for the vowel series.

Not all antonyms are formed in the above manner however. Some are derived from the positive "pole". For example;-

important mutu
unimportant @umutu

Colour terms

There are 12 colour terms.

black hau
white @ai
red hia
green geu
yellow ki'o
light blue nela
dark blue nelau
orange suna
brown dunu
pink celai
purple helau
grey loso

List of all antonyms

big jutu small tiji
beautiful hau'e ugly @aiho
wide/broad juga narrow tisa
hot fema cold pona
fast saco slow gade
many kaya few bawa
heavy hubua light @ikia
strong yubu weak wiki
soft @uje hard hito
high, tall hai low, short @au
deep gubu shallow siki
good boi bad keu
exact tiki about jubu
long yau short wai
white ai black hau
vertical feti horizontal pobu
parallel tona perpendicular jema

The last two and the first produce three more adjective by combining together and prefixing @u.

@utoje = neither parallel or perpendicular

@ufepo = sloping, inclined

@ujuti = about average

The comparative and the superlative

big jutu beautiful hau'e
bigger jutus more beautiful hau'es
biggest jutustu most beautiful hau'este

Note that the final vowel of the superlative is the penultimate vowel repeated.

Verbs from adjectives

to expand jutundu
to increase jutuŋgwa

Alonegwa is the verb "become" and tu is the verb "do". The nasal is the nasal used for constructing compound words, represented by a dot in the Seuna writing system.

Adjectives and nouns

For antonyms, the "positive" member of a pair is used as a noun of state. The noun is formed by adding un.

tujuun = size haueun = beauty

The vowel strings in the above look quite daulting. However, using an apostrophe to represent a glottal stop, they are tuju'un and hau'e'un

Compounding

jutu kloga = size of shoe .... general, big/small/medium etc. kloganjutu = shoe size .... thinking about a specific measuring system i.e. European, etc. etc.

jutu poibo = size of mountain .... general, big/small/medium etc. poibonjutu = mountain size .... thinking about a specific measuring system i.e. a monro, etc. etc.

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