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11. Gaajan by Lars Finsen
Texts | Grammar | Lexicon | Abbreviations
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Gaajan Ka inisu. Asu os yra asat iju. Ande imisam udit iwane jat. Pas pogitam mjaju jaten wetu jat, ini jasu: "Jasjuk! Ara pad ari at!" Enikura sam jat: "Kau inijo liunji?" Ini ja: "Ju, inijo junji, inia wedala kuni lat!" Anen sam jat: "Suraetu senituinsi wetu lat?" Ini ja: "Wetuan ilta? 'Jut' ini iltai sini adatitaijo." Awajua ijut pad ini jaen, wai pas imisami ga jat. Waso arokake kan aben asen inisun ate. |
Smooth English "The Stone That Spoke" It was one day many years ago. I took a stroll down by the lake. As I kicked a rock on the lakeside, I heard it say to me: "Stop! I don't like that!" I picked it up and asked it: "Can stones talk?" It said: "Yes, they can talk, if only I remember to talk!" Then I asked it: "May I hear the story of your life?" It said: "Do you want to hear it? If you say 'yes', then I will tell it to you." I got angry as it said this, so I threw the rock into the lake. Since then no stone has ever spoken to me again. |
Grammar
In Gaajan, the unit of narration is the verb. A statement is made up of clauses of which each must contain one and only one verb. This verb though is most often composite, consisting of a main verb and an auxiliary following it. The main verb and the auxiliary always conclude the clause. However, if a string of clauses within a sentence all have the same auxiliary, the auxiliary will be dropped in all except the last clause. Auxiliaries are not used with direct imperative commands, nor in incomplete sentences without a defined agent or patient. Perfective werbs may also be found without an auxiliary, in which case they function as an adjectival or even adverbial attribute.
The main verb is marked only for mood and aspect, while the auxiliaries handle the tense and the main relationships between the verb and other constituents of the clause, as well as between the various clauses. All personal pronouns including implied ones also are contained in the auxiliary.
There are two auxiliaries, the transitive a and the intransitive ju. Their translation is 'be', 'do', 'have' or 'yes' depending on the content of the clause and the choice of auxiliary. An auxiliary with no verb, noun or adjective functions as a confirmation (if it isn't marked with modifying clause markers). The auxiliaries have a myriad forms depending on their functions. The vocabulary above contains the basic form of all the relevant ones for the current text.
In a sentence, attributes generally precede heads. Adjectives precede nouns and adverbs precede verbs. An adjective can follow a noun only when it plays an object role in a clause with an intransitive auxiliary and no main verb. Example: Keson il ju - the man is dead. Adverbs have some freedom of motion and if one is felt to be important to the whole clause it will often precede the rest of the clause. Otherwise they immediately precede the verb.
There are three moods, the indicative which is unmarked, the imperative which is marked with -k, or -ik after stops, and the antipassive, which is marked with -tu, or -itu after stops. If there is no main verb, any mood markers attach to the auxiliary.
There are several aspects, the most important being the imperfective and the perfective. The imperfective is unmarked, while the perfective is marked with a -sun affix in verbs with an final vowel and -un in others.
Tenses are past, present and future. The present is not marked, while the past is marked with an initial i- on the auxiliary and the future with a- or ad-. The perfect is no tense. It is expressed by having the verb in the perfective aspect and the auxiliary in the present tense, or past if you need to express the pluperfect. Even constructions with a perfective main verb and a future auxiliary are allowed.
There are several aspects of which the most relevant are as follows:
- The perfective -sun, or -un after consonants, is used to mark the completeness of an action. There is no perfect tense, and perfective statements are made with a perfective verb plus an auxiliary in the present tense. If there is no main verb, the perfective is marked on the auxiliary.
- The potential marker -jo, or -io after consonants, is used on an auxiliary to mark a dependent conditional clause, and on a main verb to denote the ability to perform an action.
- The conditional marker, l-, or il- before consonants, is used on an auxiliary to formulate a question or imposing a condition on another clause.
- The relative marker -su has three uses:
- on an auxiliary to mark a relative clause
- on a noun to mark the noun that something is being compared to, and
- on a main verb to function in place of a relative pronoun. The latter use also will give the agent of an active sentence or the patient of an antipassive sentence a certain definiteness.
- The adverbial/temporal marker -en is affixed to the auxiliary of the to mark a dependent clause that's concurrent to the main clause. Example: Ejemi an ijut sowajua ijuen - I went inside as it started to rain.
- The intentional marker -an is used to mark wish, intent or imminent actions.
- The repetitive marker as- is used for repeated, reversed or returning actions.
Nouns are marked for plural with -u after 'a' or a consonant and -we otherwise, except if any next formant begins with a consonant. Singular is unmarked. The plural marker is always the first if the nouns has more than one marker. The genitive marker is -in, or -n after i or e. The locative is -am, or m after a or e. The illative is -ami, or -mi after a or e. And I could go on (and on). But you have all that's relevant here. There is no gender, and the only marking for definiteness is the relative one as mentioned above.
The personal pronouns are ma (1s), si (2s), ni (3s), anani (1p), ti (2p), and wi (3p). They are rarely used alone, but when attached to the ends of nouns they functions as possessives. Pronouns always are the last morphemes on nouns.
Attributes are unmarked if they function as adjectives, and marked with the adverbial marker -en if they function as adverbs. Any noun can be made attributive to a verb by adding -en. This is for example useful when referring to time.
Lexicon
a (x) - it does to it
aben (av) - ever
ad- (p) - future
-am (p) - locative
-ami (p) - illative
-an (p) - intentional
ande (n) - walk, trip
anen (av) - then
ara, ar- (av) - no, not
ari (v) - like, enjoy, feel attracted
asat (av) - ago, since
asen (av) - again
asu (n) - day
at (x) - I do to it
ate (x) - it does to me
atitai (x) - I do to it for you
awajua (v) - get angry
-en (p) - adverbial and temporal particle
enikura (v) - pick up
ga (v) - throw
i-, j- (p) - past
imis (n) - lake, pool
ini (v) - speak, talk, say
inia (n) - talking, speech
iju (x) - it did
iu, ju (x) - it does, yes
iunji, junji (x) - they do, yes
iwane (v) - stroll, walk
jasju (v) - stop
-jo (p) - potential and conditional dependent
jut (x) - I do, yes
kuni (v) - remember
l-, il- (p) - conditional and interrogative particle
-k, -ik (p) - imperative
ka (n) - stone, rock
-ke (p) - ergative
mjaju (v) - kick
-n, -in (p) - genitive
oka (a) - one, 1
os (a) - many
pad (pn) - that, this
pas (n) - pebble, rock
pogit (n) - beach
sam (v) - ask, invite
senitu (n) - life, accomplishments
-si (p) - your
sini (v) - tell, mean
-su (p) - relative particle
-sun, -un (p) - perfective aspect
suraetu (n) - story
ta (x) - you do to it
tai (x) - you do for it
-u (p) - plural
udit (av) - down
wai (pn) - so, thus
waso (av) - since then, thereafter
wedala (av) - only
wetu (v) - hear, learn
yra (n) - year
Abbreviations
a - adjective
av - adverb
n - noun
p - particle
pn - pronoun
v - verb
x - auxiliary
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