User:Aquatiki/Sandbox

Intro to Verb Conjugation

The part of Syreni most like English (in terms of layout) is the verb conjugation. English is called and SVO language, which means it lists the parts of a sentence in the order subject-verb-object. It is thought that perhaps Syreni began this same way. The major difference being, Syreni glues all those English words together into one, big, monster word! It is easiest to picture a collection of nine "slots" into which one may inject part, with only the root and person being obligatory.

#	1	2	3	4	5	6	Root	7	8	9
Function:	Voice	Deixis	Class	Person	Prep.	Plural		Voice	Deixis	Class
For:	"Subject"			Both		Both?		"Object"

Let's look at the first three and the last three. These are the Voice, Deixis, and Class of the "Subject" and "Object". "Subject" and "Object" are in scare-quotes because sometimes they behave in ways quite unlike anything you might expect, sometimes the very opposite of what the names imply! Voice 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.

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. 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 Plural" slot is often ambiguous as to whether it is marking the "subject" or the "object" as a distributive plural. It may only be applied to very animate subjects. There are two other infixes that can go here, so that some people prefer simply to call it 'slot 6', but we will continue to use the original name. The "energetic" and "inert" markers also go here and they are also ambiguous as to whether they refer to the "subject" or "object". Lastly, the "reversal" of persons marker is in this slot.

The Person is most important for immediately forming words, because it is required. Here are the indicative person infixes:

Indicative Person Markers

	Paucal	Duoplural
1
2
O
1->2
1->O
2->O