Béu : Chapter 2

..... Building up a noun phrase (NP)

Now we talk about the béu noun phrase. This can be described as ;-

Quantifier₁ Head₂ (Adjective₃ x n) Genitive₄ Determiner₅ Relative-clause₆

1) The Quantifier is either a number or a word such as "all", "many", "a few" etc.

2) The head is usually a noun but can also be an adjective. When you come across an adjective as head of a noun phrase, its meaning is "the person/thing that is "adjective" ".

3) An adjective ... not much to say about this one, you can have as many as you like, the same as English.

4) A Genitive is made from a noun (and I guess an adjective as defined in 2) ) with an n suffix. It says that the head has some quality or relationship to the genitive.

A genitive or a genitive phrase can be considered an adjective. Ownership is also shown by the genitive, however note that when the head is a multi-syllable word and the owner is a stand alone pronoun, then ownership is shown by an infix in the actual head (see "Possessive Infixes").

5) Either dí "this", or dè "that".

6) This is a clause, beginning with tà that qualifies the head of the noun phrase.

Note ... We can have genitives and we can have "genitive phrases". A genitive phrase has no suffix, but the particle nà must be placed immediately in front of it.

The son of the king => sonda blicon

The son of the old king => sonda nà blico gáu

An interesting point is that in the absence of a "head" any of the other 5 elements can constitute a NP by itself.

..... Pronouns and what is meant by S, A and O

béu is what is called an ergative language. About a quarter of the world languages are ergative or partly ergative. So let us explain what ergative means. Well in English we have 2 forms of the first person singular pronoun ... namely "I" and "me". Also we have 2 forms of the third person singular male pronoun ... namely "he" and "him". These two forms help determine who does what to whom. For example "I hit him" and "He hit me" have obviously different meanings (in English there is a fixed word order, which also helps. In béu the word order is free).

timpa = to hit ... timpa is a verb that takes two nouns (LINGUISTIC JARGON ... a transitive verb).

pás ò timpari = I hit him pà ós timpori = He hit me ... OK in this case the protagonist marking in the verb also helps to make things disambiguous. But this will not always help, for example when both protagonists are third person singular.

So far so good. And we see that English and béu behave in the same way so far. But what happens when we take a verb that takes only one noun (LINGUISTIC JARGON ... a transitive verb). For example doika = "to walk". In English we have "he walked". However in béu we don't have *ós doikori but ò doikori (equivalent to saying "*him walked" in English). So this in a nutshell is what an ergative language is.

It is the convention to call the doer in a intransitive clause the S argument. For example ò_S flomporta = She has tripped

It is the convention to call the doer in a transitive clause the A argument. For example ós_A timpori jene = He hit Jane

It is the convention to call the "done to" in a transitive clause the O argument. For example ò timpori jene_O = He hit Jane

The S was historically from the word "Subject" and the O historically from the word "Object", but it is best just to forget about that. In fact when I use the word "subject" I am talking about either the S argument or the A argument.

If you like you can say ;-

In English "him" is the "done to"(O argument) : "he" is the "doer"(S argument) and the "doer to"(A argument).

In béu ò is the "done to"(O argument) and the "doer"(S argument) : ós is the "doer to"(A argument).

Below are two tables showing the two forms of the béu pronouns.

I	pás	we (includes "you")	yúas
		we (doesn't include "you")	wías
you	gís	you (plural)	jés
he, she	ós	they	nús
it	ʃís	they	ʃís

me	pà	us	yùa
		us	wìa
you	gì	you (plural)	jè
him, her	ò	them	nù
it	ʃì	them	ʃì

There could be another member it the above table. When a action is performed by somebody on themselves, a special particle tí is used.

Just as in English, we do not say "*I hit me", but "I hit myself" ... in béu we do not say *pás pà timpari, but pás tí timpari.

LINGUISTIC JARGON ... "myself" is what is called a "reflexive pronoun". In English there are many reflexive pronouns (i.e. "myself", "yourself", "herself", etc. etc.) : in béu only one.

One other point ... béu has generally a pretty free word order. But in a sentence such as jene tí laudori (Jane washed herself) it would be pretty unusual to have the tí before jene

There is an emphatic pronouns based on the possessed form of bùa "body". The emphatic forms are given below ;-

me myself	bapua	we ourselves	bayua
		we ourselves	bawua
you yourself	bigua	you yourselves	bejua
him himself, her herself	bonua	them themselves	bunua
it itself	bisua	them themselves	bisua

The above forms come just after the normal pronouns and the two words stand in apposition. If a pilana is applied to one, it must be applied to the other as well. For example ;-

pás bapuas ò timparu => I myself will hit her

..... 64 Adjectives

good	bòi^*	bad	kéu
long	yàu	short	wái
high, tall	hái	low, short	ʔàu
right (R.H.S.), positive	lugu	left, negative	liʃi
white	ái	black	àu
young	sài	old (of a living thing)	gáu
clever, smart	jini	stupid, thick	tumu
near	nìa	far	múa
new	yaipe	old, former, previous	waufo
big	jutu	small	tiji
hot	fema	cold	pona
open	nava	close	mapa
simple, easy	baga	complex, difficult, hard	kaza
sharp	naike	blunt	maubo
wet	nuco	dry	mide
empty	fene	full	pomo
fast	saco	slow	gade
strong	yubu	weak	wiki
heavy	wobua	light	yekia
beautiful	hauʔe	ugly	ʔaiho
contiguous, touching	yotia	apart, separate	wejua
fat	somua	thin, skinny	genia
bright	selia	dull, dim	golua
thin	pilia	thick	fulua
east, dawn, sunrise	cúa	west, dusk, sundown	dìa
tight	taitu	slack, loose	jauji
neat	ilia	untidy	ulua
soft	fuje	hard	pito
wide/broad	juga	narrow	tisa
rough	gaʔu	smooth	sahi
deep	gubu	shallow	siki
right	sèu	wrong	gói

In the above list, it can be seen that each pair of adjectives have pretty much the exact opposite meaning. However in béu there is ALSO a relationship between the sounds that make up these words.

In fact every element of a word is a mirror image (about the L-A axis in the chart below) of the corresponding element in the word with the opposite meaning.

ʔ
m
y
j		au
f		o
b		oi
g		i
d		ia		high tone
l	===========================	a	============================	neutral
c		ua		low tone
s/ʃ		u
k		eu
p		e
t		ai
w
n
h

^* Note that the adverb version of this word is slightly irregular. Instead of boiwe it is bowe. People often shout this when impressed with some athletic feat or sentiment voiced ... bowe bowe = Bravo bravo

..... Adjectives and how they pervade other parts of speech

The main parts of speech in béu are nouns, adjectives and verbs (there are also particles but they are a mixed bag, it is hard to generalise about them). However we can generalise about nouns, adjectives and verbs. Nouns (N), adjectives (A) and verbs (V) are called "parts of speech". In béu, sometimes, aNn unmodified word can belong to 2 or 3 different parts of speech at once.

For convenience I am going to introduce another part of speech : the geladi (G). You find the G-form a lot in complement clauses (that will be explained later). In our linguistic tradition we call it the infinitive form of the verb. This is the "base form" of the verb and it resembles a noun in many respects.

For example solbe means "to drink" and is a geladi. But more often you find this word in other forms. For example if you came across solbarin which means "I drank, so they say". I am counting the form solbarin as a verb (V), and the form solbe as a geladi(G). That is I am treating them as different parts of speech. This is just for convenience. I do not want to get into an argument about linguistic theories etc. etc. This is just to make things easy to discuss.

Let us start of with a single-syllable adjective. Let us see what "forms" a single-syllable adjective can take and what "parts of speech" these forms can belong to. Consider the word gèu "green" ;-

Along the top of the above chart you can see N, A, V and G. These are different part of speech. The form under these 4 headings, shows the form géu takes when it is one of these 4 parts of speech. Now géu is fundamentally an adjective (that is what that pentangle around the "A" means).

You can see that we have two nouns in the above chart. One has its original form, I call this one "the substansive noun", i.e. "the green one". The other changes its form by taking the affix -ma. I call this one "the qualitative noun", i.e. "greenness".

Now how can we tell if the unmodified géu is representing an adjective or a substansive noun. Well we can tell by its position with respect to other elements in the clause.

gèu is an adjective if it comes immediately after the copula^* sàu. For example báu rì gèu => The/a man was green. (if you wanted to put a substantive after sàu, you would stick aja "one" in front of it).

gèu is also an adjective if it comes immediately after a noun i.e. báu gèu dí => This green man ((An aside ... (báu gèun dí = the green one's man here) ))

In other positions géu represents a substansive noun^**.

^*gèu is a qualitative noun if it comes immediately after the copula of existence gaza. For example ʔá pona => It is cold ... or ... ʔá pona paʔe => I am cold

^**Well actually in one other position géu represents a qualitative noun ... after the "copula of existence" (just to make things complicated).

We can see that we can derive two verbs from géu. By affixing -du we get an intransitive verb meaning "to become green". And by affixing -ldu we get an transitive verb meaning "to make green". You can see that the V-forms and the G-forms are the same.

Actually the V-form is not geudu or geuldu. The V-form is actually a myriad of forms. But they are all built up from the geudu or geuldu foundations. As an example let us build up one of the myriad of forms that the V-form can take. First we delete the final vowel ... then we add a vowel that represents the subject ... then we add, either r, n or s (depending on if we want the indicative mood, the subjunctive nood or the imperative) ... then we add a vowel (or consonant + vowel) as a tense/aspect marker ... then we possibly add an optional evidential marker n, s or a. So we could get geudu + i + r + i +a => geudiria = "you became green, I saw it" ... one of the many forms considered as a V-form.

OK. We have seen how a single-syllable adjective works. Now for a 2-syllable adjective. Consider the word naike "sharp" ;-

We can see that in this case it is possible to have 3 parts of speech from only one form. However in this case the "finite" verb (V) is built up directly from naike and not from the G-form. So, for example, we have naikiria = "you sharpened (it), I saw you do it". Rather than *naikediria. The G-form is built up from the base form by adding the affix -du.

Notice that with géu we had two verbs generated by adding affixes. In this case we only have one verb and it is transitive.

And above we see one more possibility for a word that is fundamentally an adjective. You will see that the G form has a irregular ending. Quite a number of common adjectives act like mapa (so maybe I should not call them irregular). You will see that there is also a pentangle around the "G". This is because we can not say if this word is basically an infinitive verb or an adjective. There would be two entries in a dictionary.

Again only one verb and it is transitive. There are three ways that we can make an intransitive clause.

1) pintu tí mapori = The door closed itself ... this form strongly implies that there was no human agent. Possibly the wind closed the door (or a supernatural element when it comes to that).

2) pintu lái mapori = The door was closed ... this is the standard passive form. It strongly implies a human agent but the agent is either unknown or unimportant.

3) pintu lí mapa = The door became closed ... this uses the adjective form of mapa and the "copula of becoming" láu. This form has no implication as to the humanness of the agent.

By the way, the G-form of nava "open" is navai

Let us go back to gèu and consider gèu in an intransitive clause. As above we have 3 ways.

1) báu tí geuldori = The man made himself green ... this form implies that there was some effort involved.

2) báu lái geuldori = The man was made green ... this is the standard passive form. It strongly implies a human agent but the agent is either unknown or unimportant.

3) báu lí gèu = The man became green ... this uses the adjective form of gèu and the "copula of becoming" láu. This form has no implication as to the humanness of the agent.

And of course gèu has a fourth way ...

4) báu gèudori = The man became green

Actually 3) and 4) have the same meaning.

Any single syllable adjective, must have the suffix du in all its verbal forms. For example ;-

auldu = to blacken, maŋkeu = faces

aulduri maŋkiteu = they blackened their faces ... interesting construction ... we use the transitive form even tho' they perform the action on themselves.

..... pilana or the case system

..

These are what in LINGUISTIC JARGON are called "cases". The classical languages, Greek and Latin had 5 or 6 of these. Modern-day Finnish has about 15 (it depends on how you count them, 1 or 2 are slowly fading away). Present day English still has a relic of a once more extensive case system : most pronouns have two forms. For example ;- the third-person:singular:male pronoun is "he" if it represents "the doer", but "him" if it represents "the done to".

The word pilana is built up from ;-

pila = to place, to position

pilana <= (pila + ana), in LINGUISTIC JARGON it is called a "present participle". It is an adjective which means "putting (something) in position".

As béu adjectives freely convert to nouns^*, it also means "that which puts (something) in position" or "the positioner".

Actually only a few of them live up to this name ... nevertheless the whole set of 14 are called pilana in the béu linguistic tradition.

..

The pilana are suffixed to nouns and specify the roll these nouns play in the clause^**.

The pilana are abbreviated to a single consonant in the béu writing system. That is, in the béu writing system, the final vowel of all pilana is invisible^***.

The pilana are partly an aid to quicker writing. However they also demarcate a set of 14 affixes and make quite a neat system.

You could call these 14 plus the unmarked noun a case system of 15 cases. Well you could if you wanted to (up to you).

Note that -lya and -lfe are represented by a special amalgamated symbols which do not occur elsewhere.

Notice that by a addition of pilana, you might expect to get the forms alye and alfi. As you can see this is not the case. Perhaps the amalgamated form has the final vowel changed under the pull of the initial vowel, a.

^* You can tell if pilana is being an adjective or a noun by the environment that you find it in.

^** Well actually that is not true of pilana number 12 : "-n" modifies a noun in a noun phrase.

^***Maybe a corollary of the béu habit of dropping verbal arguments, when it is at all possible :-)

Now one quirk of the pilana, something that I think would not happen in a natural language, is that if the noun receiving the pilana is more than one word long^*, then the pilana changes from a suffix to a preposition. The prepositional forms of the pilana are given on the above chart to the right. These free-standing particles are also written just using the symbols given on the above chart to the left. That is in writing they are shorn of their vowels as their affixed counter-parts are.

The letters m, b, k, g and d are free to be used as abbreviations. Perhaps m <= mò, two particles for joining clauses etc. etc.

^*Another case when the pilana come as prepositions is when the noun ends in a constant. This happens very, very rarely but it is possible. For example toilwan is an adjective meaning "bookish". And in béu as adjectives can also act as nouns in certain positions, toilwan would also be a noun meaning "the bookworm". Another example is ʔokos which means "vowel".

..... noiga or simple arithmetic

Above right you can see the numbers 1 -> 11 displayed. Notice that the forms of 1, 3, 6, 7 and 9 have been modified slightly before the "number bar" has been added.

In the bottom right you can see 7 interesting symbols. These are used to extend the range of the béu number system (remember the basic system only covers 1-> 1727). Their meanings are given in the table below.

elephant	huŋgu
rhino	nàin
water buffalo	wúa
circle	omba
hare	yanfa
beetle	mulu
bacterium, bug	ʔiwetu

To give you an idea of how they are used, I have given you a very big number below.

Which is => 1,206,8E3,051.58T,630,559,62 ... E represents eleven and T represents ten ... remember the number is in base 12.

O.K. this number has a ridiculous dynamic range. But this is for demonstration purposes only: if you can handle this number you can handle any number.

This monster would be pronounced aja huŋgu uvaila nàin ezaitauba wúa idauja omba idaizaupa yanfa elaibau mulu idaidauka ʔiwetu elaivau dó

Now the 7 "placeholders" are not really thought of as real numbers, they are markers only. The béu community has a very strong feeling that there are only 1727 proper numbers. You never see (the béu equivalent of) "a thousand" or "a million". Rather you would hear "ONE thousand exactly", or "ONE thousand approximately". (Actually I tell a lie, there are a number of sayings, where you can hear "ONE thousand" etc. etc.)

When first introduced to this system, many people think that the béu culture must be untenable, however strangely enough the béu culture has lasted many thousands of year, despite the obvious confusion that must arise when they attempt to count elephants.

One further point ...

If you wanted to express a number represented by digits 2->4 from the LHS of the monster, you would say auvaidaula nàin .... the same way as we have in the Western European tradition. However if you wanted to express a number represented digits 6 ->8 from the RHS of the monster, you would say yanfa elaibau .... not the way we do it. This is like saying "milli 630" instead of "630 micro".

Ah that is another thing ... if the number magnitude is such as to place it next to the "decimal point", then in pronouncing the measurement, omba (which means "circular" or "circle")is replaced with the units being used. For example hi? is the unit used to measure height (it equals 2.237 mtr). My height (1.8 mtrs) would be pronounced hi? apaijauza. A height of 4.037 mtrs would be pronounced as aja hi? apaijauza.

If the amount occurs both side of a "placeholder" but not next to the "decimal point", then hi? is pronounced (and written)before everything.

STICK A CHART IN HERE ... HI 23 ?IWETU 45 ... ?IWETU 45 HI ... HI 23 ?IWETU

However if the amount occurs only one side of a "placeholder" and not next to the "decimal point", then the unit is pronounced (and written) at the opposite end from the "placeholder".

Our SI system uses magnitude words which are prefixed to the unit of measurement (for example "kilo" in kilometre). béu also has magnitude words (the seven already given) but they are inserted into the number itself. It is a bit similar to the way we use comma's to separate a long number string into groups of three digits.

To make a number negative the "number bar" is placed on the left. See below ;-

Also a number can be made imaginary by adding a further stroke that touches the "number bar". See below ;-

As you can see above, there is no special sign for the "addition operation". The numbers are simply written one beneath the other. Similarly with subtraction but one number would be negative this time.

There is a special sign to indicate multiplication (+), and there is an equals sign (-).

Division is the same as multiplication except that one of the numbers is in "fractional form".

There is an alternative multiplication/division notation : instead of using the + sign, the two quantities can instead be written side by side (see the example above).

-6 is pronounced ela gompave ... gompa = "left", gompave = "negative

4i is pronounced uga lepia ... and what does lepia mean, well it is the name of the little squiggle that touches the number bar, for one thing.

-4i is pronounced uga lepia gompave

-1/10 is pronounced diapa gompave

i/4 is pronounced duga lepia

And so ends chapter 2 ...

Béu : Chapter 2

Contents

..... Building up a noun phrase (NP)

..... Pronouns and what is meant by S, A and O

..... 64 Adjectives

..... Adjectives and how they pervade other parts of speech

..... pilana or the case system

..... noiga or simple arithmetic

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