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9. Asha'ille by Arthaey Angosii

Texts | Grammar | Lexicon
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Asha'ille NE SAYÚL, PAS SHAV Keyanu ne anyám gedunam 'sa pashith. Arovni vae'chirumath uvajen. Gghechiv ne sayúl, t'ves en'iv ne sshavon no: "Jai! Veni no grelle, vir'kren!" Sun direvpeni ne sayúl, t'ves dirshav: "Shavjecim edh sayúlim, jhë'ë?" Pas arishav no: "Jhi, shavjas edh ghya lokeilim; sshirivpeni n'eira!" Vesik dirshavpeni: "Ojo sholdavsóte ne ashavonleni done mlosóte dasshaln?" Pas arishav no: "Ojo sholdavyi'aj ne en'ivon don'o? Yet shavaj ne sshak 'jhi,' jhiye ashavnilaj n'o." Pas én'i ne chipal migrá vek'arishavonich doyeg edh k', t'vet vae'chiruman aejírevpeni ne sayúl. Kre'dokén i n'o vek'vedá anyám chidunam k'.		Smooth English "The Stone That Spoke" Many years ago, I walked along the lake shore. I kicked a stone, and I heard something say: "Hey! I didn't like that at all!" I lifted the stone and asked: "These stones can speak, can they?" It answered: "Yes, all these wise stones can speak; I remembered how!" Then I asked: "Do you want to tell me your life story?" It answered: "Do you really want to hear it? If you say 'yes,' then I will tell it to you." I began to feel angry when it answered like that, so I threw the stone into the lake. I didn't see it again for many months.

Smooth English Translation of the GSF Text "The Stone That Spoke" Many years ago, I walked along the shore of a lake. When I kicked a stone, I heard something say: 'Hey! That didn't please me!' I lifted the stone and asked: 'These stones can speak, then?' It answered: 'Yes, these stones can speak; I remembered!' Then I asked: 'Do you want to tell me the story of your entire life?' It answered: 'Are you sure that you want to hear it? If you say "yes," then I will recount it to you.' When it answered thus, I began to be angry, and I threw the stone into the lake. I didn't see it again for many months.

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Asha'ille Grammar: A Crash Course (updated for Relay LCC2)

Website: http://conlang.arthaey.com/

PERSONS

Asha'ille's system of persons is quite complex, but this text happens to showcase only a small portion of it:

|-(e)ni| is the conjugation for the first person
|-ec| is the conjugation for objects, or things without biological gender
|-sóte| is the conjugation for referring to strangers
|-aj| is the conjugation for referring to people you find annoying

If a verb has no conjugation, it is assumed to be the same as the previous verb's.

DEIXIS

"Deixis" is defined by the SIL linguistics glossary as a "reference by means of an expression whose interpretation is relative to the (usually) extralinguistic context of the utterance, such as who is speaking, the time or place of speaking, the gestures of the speaker, or the current location in the discourse." The default deixis of Asha'ille is not unusual. The speaker is the center, the one who uses |-(e)ni| "self"; the time is the present.

However, when telling a story it is very common for the deixis to be shifted for convenience. |Keyanu| shifts the time frame of the story. If the time is in the past, then explicit past tense markers become optional. However, they are usually given after dialogue, as a reminder of the story's temporal setting.

WORD ORDER

Asha'ille is a fairly strict VSO language. A phrase of the structure |ne O, V| can be trans

Adjectives of exactly one word come before the word they modify, otherwise they come after and are usually marked for which word they modify. Note that the "adjective" category includes adverbs–an adverbizer is simply prefixed to the adjective.

Subject and object(s) are separated by |ne|. The |ne| is required before all objects, even if the subject is only implicitly given.

Any number of adverbial phrases may be included after the core VSO sentence structure. |Eg| heads an adverbial phrase that further describes the action of the sentence. And as a large simplification–the details end up not being important for this text–the contraction |'sa| heads a phrase that further describes the word immediately preceding the |'sa|.

VERBS

Asha'ille verbs can be marked for tense, aspect, mood, person, and negation.

Unmarked verbs are assumed to have the same tense as the most recent tensed verb. If no tensing information is given, present tense is assumed. Past tense is shown by either |pas| before the verb or with the suffix |-p-| between the verb and any conjugations.

Shavni.
"I speak."

Kénillevni.
Kén'i.
"I see."

Note that if the verb, after dropping |-illev|, now ends in an |n|, and the first suffix begins with an |n|, the |n| will be lengthened. This is written as an apostrophe after the |n|.

This same lengething happens when a word beginning with |n| follows the word |ne|. For example:

Kénillevni ne no.
Kén'i ne no.
Kén'i n'o.
"I see it."

Nested sentences take the object slot of the sentence. The embedded verb is nominalized via |-on|, after which follow any other conjugations of that verb. If the embedded sentence would have normally had a |ne| in it, it becomes |done|:

Shav no.
It speaks.

Kén'i ne shavon no.
"I see that it speaks."
"I see it speaking."

Kén'i ne shavon no done asha'ille. "I see it speaking Asha'ille."

NOUNS

Nouns are only marked for number: singular or plural. A plain noun is singular, while one with |-im| suffixed is plural. If the noun ends in a vowel, the suffix is simply |-m|. Adjectives do not agree with nouns in number. Asha'illen nouns have no grammatical gender, though pronouns may reflect biological sex.

ADVERBIAL PHRASES

Adverbial phrases always start with an adverb. If the phrase is more than one word long (not including the adverb itself), then a "closing adverb" is also required at the end of the phrase.

Vae'saea lommav Osarsa.
"Osarsa lives here."

Lommav Osarsa vae'mleni aimenad kae.
"Osarsa lives in my village."

Most adverbs beging with |v|. Their closing counterpart is ususally the adverb with its initial |v| replaced by |k|, as above.

Note that in the first example above, the adverbial phrase precedes the verb, whereas in the second it follows the verb. This is because, according to Asha'ille word order rules, only one-word modifiers may precede their heads.

QUESTION-FORMING

Yes/no questions are formed with the tag particle |ojo| at the beginning of the sentence.

For more complex questions, the question-words remain in situ, rather than being placed at the front of the sentence. When asking for clarification or validation of one part of a sentence, word order is identical to indicative sentences. The question-word's stressed vowel lowers via an ablaut process, which is written as a dieresis.

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Lexicon

¨ Q. (interrogative)
aejírev v. throw
-aj prsn. (annoying person)
alun- mi. [see grammar guide]
anyá n. some; pl. = many
arishav v. answer
arov v. walk
-as prsn. everyone
ashav v. tell
chiduna n. month
chipal adj. half, partial, incipient
chiruman n. lake
dasshaln n. life story
direv v. take
dirshav v. ask
do- conj. (embedded phrase) [see grammar guide]
-e epen. (no meaning)
-ec prsn. 3rd person singular, no gender
edh adj. this
eg mi. [see grammar guide]
énillev v. feel
en'iv v. hear
geduna n. year
gghechiv v. kick
ghya adj. (focus on following word)
-ich prsn. (mean person)
-im pl. (plural marker)
-ith adj. (adjectivizer)
-j- part. able
jai interj. grr!
jhe interj. right
jhi interj. yes
jhiye mi. then
kek adv. (closing adverb for "vek")
kénillev v. see
keyanu n. (temporal deixis) [see grammar guide]
kre adj. no, not
kren n. none
-l- part. (precedes direct object)
lokeili n. stone
migrá adj. angry
ml-ml poss. (intangible possession)
ne art. [see grammar guide]
neira n. how (ie, how to do something)
-ni prsn. (self)
no n. it
-o epen. (no meaning)
ojo q. (precedes a yes/no question)
-on n. (verb nominalizer)
-p- tns. (past tense)
pas tns. (past tense)
pashen n. past
pashith adj. pertaining to the past; ago
-sa mi. [see grammar guide]
sayúl n. rock
shav v. speak
sholdav v. want
-sóte prsn. (refers to a stranger)
sshak quo. (precedes direct quotation)
sshav v. say
sshiriv v. remember
sun adv. upward; "sun direv" = to lift, to raise
te conj. and
uvajen n. shore
vae adv. where
vek adv. when
vek'vedá adv. since
veni...grelle phr. I like ...
ves adv. while ("t'ves" = conjunction of sentences)
vesik adv. then
vet adv. therefore, thus
vir adv. how much
yet conj. if
-yi mood. possibly, maybe

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