A Reference Grammar of Sajem Tan

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Re: A Reference Grammar of Sajem Tan

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Verb Phrases


Mood

Mood is marked by auxilliary verbs, which are placed immediately after the verb. In the case of coordinated verbs, such as in "He began to hear and speak.", the auxiliary occurs once after both of them ("vöjamfê kê tanfê sat ro." rather than "vöjamfê sat kê tanfê sat ro.").

Tense

Tense is primarily marked on auxiliary verbs. The final vowel of the basic form of an auxiliary verb is always either i or ö. Throughout this section, these will be referred to as i-auxiliaries and ö-auxiliaries, respectively. These vowels are changed to mark tense.

Regularily Marked Tenses

Nonpast

Nonpast is the default tense and is marked by not changing the vowel in the auxilliary. The time period is marks is just what is sounds like, not the past. Anything from the moment the sentence is uttered to the end of time would fall under nonpast. ( Assuming, of course, that the sentence is being uttered somewhen between the beginning and end of time.)

Distant past

The distant past is marked with ü for i-auxiliaries, and û for ö-auxiliaries. It expresses things that happened long ago.

Like the other past tenses, this is relative and could conceivably be used to refer to the events of yesterday (for example, if many things have happened or if they seemed to take forever), but it is generally reserved for myths and legends.

Mid/Intermediate past

The intermediate past is marked with a for i-auxiliaries, and y for ö-auxiliaries. Midpast is used for things that happened a while ago, but not so far as to be distant past, and not so recent as to be immediate past. It can also be used as a nonspecific past tense.

Immediate Past

The immediate past is marked with e for i-auxiliaries, and ë for ö-auxiliaries. It marks things that just happened, such as the event immediately preceding the present moment.

Irregularly Marked Tenses

Future

There is no way to mark specifically future tense on auxiliaries distinct from present tense. However, there is a noun suffix, -jot, which indicates the future state of something. "decekjot" is "the future state of the chicken", and "tanfê decekjot." could reasonably be translated "The chicken will speak.".
While technically this is indeed part of noun morphology rather than verb morphology, it seemed natural to place a section on it here since this is the section the average oblivious reader will most likely look for future tense conjugations in. (We won’t judge you if you did come here first. It is a pretty odd language feature.)

Aspect

Aspect is marked with a mandatory suffix directly after the verb.

That is to say, it occurs as the final morpheme of the verb or the penultimate* if there is a valency suffix.
* Which is objectively the best way to say "second-to-last".

Perfective aspect

The perfect aspect is used of actions that are viewed as either instantaneous or that have no perceived interior composition. It is marked with -dâ.
Technically any aspect can go onto any verb, but keep in mind that this one might not work in all cases.

Examples of verbs that follow this pattern in English would be things like pressing a key down on a keyboard, since it only requires one action, so it’s hard for it to have any process or composition to it.

Greeting someone may also be done in the perfective aspect.

Durative aspect

The durative aspect is marked with -fê, and expresses things that happen over a definite period of time, no matter how long.

(18) tanfê dac dê.
tan-fê dac dê
speak DUR IND=midPST 1S=NEUT

"I spoke."

(19) decek kygykfê dac dê.
decek kygyk-fê dac dê.
chicken eat DUR IND=midPST 1S=NEUT

"I ate the chicken."

Gnomic aspect
The gnomic aspect is marked with -um, and can express anything. It is commonly used to express things that are unchangingly true.

(20) decek zanum dê.
decek zan-um dê.
chicken be GNO 1S=NEUT

"I am a chicken."

But it can also be used if you just don’t want to mark aspect.

Habitual aspect

The habitual aspect is marked with -êt and expresses actions that are frequently repeated.

(21) decek kygykêt dê.
decek kygyk-êt dê.
chicken eat HAB 1S=NEUT

"I eat chicken."

Continuous aspect

The continuous aspect is marked with -šo and is frequently equivalent to the English "is doing". It is used to express actions that are ongoing.

(22) decek kygykšo dê.
decek kygyk-šo dê.
chicken eat CONT 1S=NEUT

"I am eating chicken."
(23) tanšo dac zê.
tan-šo dac zê.
speak CONT IND=midPST 3S=VEG

"He was speaking."
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Re: A Reference Grammar of Sajem Tan

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Valency Suffixes

Valency suffixes are a class of suffixes which may be placed after a verb’s aspect marker. At present there are two: -sun and -jâk.

The suffix -sun puts the clause in the passive voice.

(24) decek kygykfê dec dê.
decek kygyk-fê dec dê
chicken eat DUR IND=nearPST 1S=NEUT

"I ate the chicken."

becomes

(25) kygykfêsun dec decek.
kygyk-fê-sun dec decek
eat DUR PASS IND=nearPST chicken

"The chicken was eaten."

There have been examples of the omitted subject being added back in the object position.

(26) dê kygykfêsun dec decek.
dê kygyk-fê-sun dec decek
1S=NEUT eat DUR PASS IND=nearPST chicken

"The chicken was eaten by me."

But there is usually no reason for this outside rhyming poetry and it is discouraged in normal speech. In the case of verbs that take an indirect object, such as "snam" ("to give"), the indirect object is moved to the subject position

(27) decek dê snamfêsun.
decek dê snam-fê-sun
chicken 1S=NEUT give DUR PASS

"I was given a chicken."

The other suffix, -jâk, is generally glossed "in order to". The clause it is used in may be placed after another clause as its goal.

(28) decek kygykfê dê dasnan dûdenfêjâk.
decek kygyk-fê dê dasnan dûden-fê-jâk.
chicken eat DUR 1S=NEUT universe distract DUR in-order-to

"I eat the chicken in order to distract the universe."

Adverbs

Adverbs are not a distinct class in Sajem Tan. They are instead merged with Adjectives to form a single class called Describers (Södyccesikâ).

When functioning as adverbs, they come immediately before the verb.

(29) decek zežöt kygykfê dê.
decek zežöt kygyk-fê dê.
chicken done-with-good-intentions eat DUR 1S=NEUT

"I ate the chicken with good intentions."
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Re: A Reference Grammar of Sajem Tan

Post by Davush »

I am enjoying reading through this read and browsing the reference grammar - not many languages posted seem to be this fleshed out! I do have to admit that the orthography makes it quite difficult to read the examples though, all those <y>s circumflexes!
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Re: A Reference Grammar of Sajem Tan

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Evidentiality

Evidentials can be summed up very quickly. All evidentials (there are eight roots at present) are marked as optional adverbs which come before the main verb (like all other adverbs.)

For example, "kic" means "known as a result of deep and protracted study." An example would be "Țnamök kic zanfê ro" or "It is known through study that he really is a pizza."

List of Evidentials

Since there are only nine evidential adverbs in total, not counting agglutinated evidentials, explaining all of them here couldn’t hurt.

Vön means "understood through the reversal of a previously held belief."

For example, the realization that planets orbit around the sun instead of around the Earth (zëvet smet dûganmêt vön žûžûmšo cadëkâ) or that Linux is actually better than Windows (Con Windows om con Linux om šittuum.).

Țmak means "deduced from context."

A situation in which this would be applicable is if you were digging up an Ancient Greek stone tablet, but you could not get the final corner, so you have to deduce what the document was trying to say with its last two lines. (If you ever do find yourself in this situation, then you have a lot cooler of a job than I do.)

This is especially needed in Sajem Tan because many words have a wide variety of definitions, so often the original intent of the words must be assumed in some cases.

Țec means "deduced from sensory evidence."

You might use țec if you were feeling your way around a dark room, and you feel something on the wall that feels like it might be made out of wood. In this case, you might describe your experience with (kanöt țec sežüfendâ dac sê.) "I found a door (at least, that’s what I assumed it to be, based on the sensory evidence.)"

Of course, it does not have to be touch; it can be any sense. Sight, smell, taste, hearing, touch, thermoception, proprioception, et cetera and et cetera, although this can be clarified by agglutination of words to the front of the adverb (See Evidential Agglutination)

Țök compliments țec.

While țec means "deduced from sensory evidence", țök means something closer to "known based on direct sensory evidence."

An example would be that you see a door with your own eyes and state to another person "I found a door" (kanöt țök sežüfendâ sê.) The only difference between țec and țök is that țök is more concrete.

Snat describes a situation where the information being stated has been learned from secondary/tertiary sources.

For example, if you expressing that you know that Sajem Tan has nouns because you read it in its reference grammar, you would say "snat fnecömâum Sajem Tan."

Šan means "known though hearsay via a living person" or "rumored."

If you heard from a friend that Hannah pilots helicopters in her spare time, you may state "kixikömâ šan katöcêt con Hannah om."

Let means "traditional knowledge or lore." This is usually used in reference to Sajem Tan mythology, but it applies to any mythology or lore.

For example, if, in reference to "The Coming of Wind", you state that you know that Bird invited Wind to the tribe, you might express that as "Țețat let zenfê düc Vițit."

Kic means "carefully discerned through practiced study".

Evidential Agglutination

Evidential adverbs compound much like just about everything else, with the canonical example being "femekțök", which is typically glossed "discovered via telepathy". ( Literally "mind-seen" or "mind-sensed".)

This is obviously from the fact that telepethy is done using the mind. Theoretically, putting any body part in front of țök or țec would be the sense involving that body part.

For example, vöjamțec might mean "deduced from something I heard."
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Re: A Reference Grammar of Sajem Tan

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Syntax

Sajem Tan is generally head-final, with modifiers nearly always preceding what the attach to.

Word order

The default word order is Object-Verb-Subject for transitive sentences and Verb-Subject for intransitive ones. Indirect objects are covered in Oblique Arguments.

(30) decek kygykfê ro.
decek kygyk-fê ro.
chicken eat DUR 3S=ANIM

"He ate the chicken."

However, if the subject of the verb is an experiencer or patient, it goes in front of the verb.

(31) decek ro nëmfê.
decek ro nëm-fê.
chicken 3S=ANIM see DUR

"He saw the chicken."

In (30) the subject is actively consuming the chicken, whereas in (31) he is just passively noticing the chicken.

If you changed the order and said "decek nëmfê ro." this would indicate that the subject is taking some sort of action and would probably be translated "He looked at the chicken.".

Verbs whose subjects are normally experiencers or patients are labeled as "experiencer" verbs in the Lexicon, however this designation is not absolute.

An example of an "experiencer" verb being having a non-experiencer subject was given above.

As an example of a verb that isn’t an "experiencer" verb being used with an experiencer subject, one could conceivably say "decek ro kygykfê." which would mean something like "He experienced eating the chicken." or could indicate that the person you’re talking about was completely numb at the time and was simply eating on autopilot.

The object of a transitive verb with an experiencer subject should generally appear in the focus case, so "decekžê ro nëmfê." rather than "decek ro nëmfê.", but this rule is frequently broken in casual speech. (The rule was broken in the examples in the preceding paragraphs to avoid the potential confusion of the addition of an unexplained case marking.)

The Copula

The copula "zan" is an exception to the rules of experiencer subjects and invariably places the subject after the verb, even though it would typically resemble an experiencer much more than an agent.

(32) gamyk zanum dasnan.
gamyk zan-um dasnan
tree be GNO universe

"The universe is a tree."

Rather than "gamykžê dasnan zanum." (The tribe does not necessarily support the idea of a world tree. This is purely for illustrative purposes.)

Interactions with Valency Suffixes

One would expect that the subject of a verb that been passivized with -sun would nearly always be an experiencer and thus appear before the verb. However, there has been little usage of this suffix so far, and in what little there has been the former object has always followed the verb.

It is possible that -sun causes the object to go where the subject would have gone – that is, its position depends on the role of the omitted subject rather than its own role – but this has not yet been determined with certainty.

At present, the only time a verb may be used without a subject is when it has the valency suffix -jâk, which is the only thing Sajem Tan has which resembles the use of the infinitive in other languages.

Oblique Arguments

Oblique arguments include indirect objects ("decekțot" – "to the chicken"), instrumentals ("cicgu" – "using cheese"), topics ("sülemžê" – "about nectar"), locations ("gamykâ vmat" – "among the trees"), various other postpositional phrases ("țefam tan" – "the rock said that"), and purpose clauses ("dûdențûfam xafömfêjâk" – "in order to attack the gold").

All of these typically appear before the main sentence body, except purpose clauses, which appear at the very end. Thus "I sang Let It Go among the trees in order to attack the Universe." would normally be "gamykâ vmat sesûtfê ¸tê dasnan xafömfêjâk.".

Obliques are emphasized by moving them from before the main sentence body to directly after it, though still before any purpose clauses.

(33)sesûtfê țê gamykâ vmat dasnan xafömfêjâk.
sesût-fê țê gamyk-â vmat dasnan xaföm-fê-jâk
sing-Let-It-Go DUR 1P=INAN tree PL among universe attack DUR in-order-to

"It was among the trees that I sang Let It Go in order to attack the Universe."

Questions

Polar questions are formed by adding the auxilliary verb "kök". They are typically answered with "lik" or "xen", "thumbs up, correct" and "thumbs down, incorrect" respectively.

More complex questions are formed with the interogative suffix "-ku", which is generally translated "which".

(34) țefam kygykfê decekku?
țefam kygyk-fê decek-ku
rock eat DUR chicken which

"Which chicken ate the rock?"

These questions may be answered either by repeating the question with the appropriate noun substituted for the one with the question marker.

(35) țefam kygykfê con Bob om.
țefam kygyk-fê con Bob om
rock eat DUR quote Bob unquote

"Bob ate the rock."

Or you can just state the changed noun phrase alone.
(36) con Jerald om.
quote Jerald unquote

"Jerald".

This latter strategy is not available when more than one word is questioned.

(37) țefamâku kygykfê decekâku?
țefam-â-ku kygyk-fê decek-â-ku
rock PL which eat DUR chicken PL which

"Which chickens ate which rocks?"

Note that this example is ambiguous as to whether the questioner wants to know which individual chicken ate which indiviual rock or whether the intention is to find out which group of chickens did the eating and which group of rocks was eaten.

If one were to use the collective suffix "-mon" rather than "-â", it would unambiguously be the latter, but there is currently no equally simple way to specify the former.

For longer questions, "möt" may be added as a redundant question marker. Word order does not change when asking a question.
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Re: A Reference Grammar of Sajem Tan

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Particles

Particles in Sajem Tan are basically anything that isn’t a root or a suffix. They describe things that are hard to express in English without making a long and confusing sentence about them. They can also act as containers for words and phoneme sequences.

Particles function in four main ways: they describe the sound/nature of an object or action, they declare what part of speech an object is, they provide a way to express concepts from other languages in Sajem Tan, and they mark the usage of intentionally archaic or incorrect words.

Word Creation

The most common and probably most important particle is cêk, which is used to define new words.
The standard form for word creation is "cêk word țom ’definition in English’."

For example, "cêk dasnan țom ’natural; cosmic’." would declare the coining of the word "dasnan". ( This particular sentence is useless because "dasnan" already exists and declaring already extant words is pointless and confusing. )

The partices "lâ" and "nuk" are used with the same format as cêk, but lâ adds definitions to a word that already exists, and nuk removes them.

So, for example, if you say "lâ țefam țom ’potato’.", the word "țefam" will then mean "potato" as well as "rock". To avoid anyone getting annoyed at you for such unhelpfulness, you can then say "nuk țefam țom ’potato’." to put things back the way they were.

Sound and Nature Descriptions

The particles "šên" and "tân" occur immediately before a noun and refer to the feeling and sound of that noun, respectively.

Thus, "simem" ("peace") becomes "šên simem" ("the feeling of peace") and "divöm" ("thunder") becomes "tân divöm" ("the sound of thunder"). Naturally, these can attach to each other to produce things like "tân šên tân tetanâ" ("the sound of the feeling of the sound of the Tetanâ."). (Because sometimes feelings make noises)

Part of Speech Declarations

The Parts of Speech particles can be placed before any word in a sentence to specify what part of speech they should be interpreted as.

There are four in total: "nê" declares the following word as an intransitive verb, "êm" declares the following word as a transitive verb, "kun" declares the following word as an adjective or an adverb, and "oc" declares it a noun.

For example, "I distracted the pasta-related conversational tangent" is "dûden dûden dûdenfê dê.", but if you wanted to be very clear about the structure of this dûden-filled sentence, you could also say "kun dûden oc dûden êm dûdenfê dê." which means exactly the same thing, but now can’t be mistaken for some other repeated string of the word dûden.

Transliterations

The particle "don" is used to mark onomatopoeia.

For example, the phrase "don zëzën" could be used to refer to the sound a bee makes.

The particle "kut" is essentially the same, expect it refers to feeling rather than actual sounds. So "kut xigëdifigëdit" (A transliteration of the English "higgledy piggledy") could mean "all over the place" or "disorganized".

The most commonly used transliteration particle is "con", which indicates that whatever follows it is text from a foreign language. So to refer to someone named Daniel, you would just say "con Daniel" (or, more commonly, "con Daniel om" - see next section) and use it like a normal noun.

(The transliteration can, in theory, be used as any part of speech, but in practice the result is nearly always a noun.)

In speech what follows "con" can be anything from "potato" to a record scratch. In writing it can be Hangul, Hieroglyphics, or a map of Greenland.

Conjugation Carrier

The conjugation particle, "om", is used in conjunction with both the Descriptions and the Transliterations. Any conjugations that are not
affected by the initial particle are placed on "om".

Thus "tân vițitâ" is "the sound of birds", while "tân vițit omâ" is "the sounds of a bird".

With transliterations, it is usually included even when there is no conjugation to mark where the transliteration ends.

Usage of Archaic and Incorrect Words

The particle "xo" is placed in front of words that have been invalidated due to clarifications of the phonotactics, such as "viț" (now "vițit"), "țef (now "țec"), and "tâ" (now "tan").

So "sesûtšo xo viț." ("The bird is singing.") is essentially identical to "sesûtšo vi¸tit.". This particle can similarly be used with any other word that is in some sense incorrect, such as slang usage or words where "nuk" has been applied.
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Re: A Reference Grammar of Sajem Tan

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Discourse and Pragmatics

Quotation

Quotations made using postpositions are generally taken as indirect speech.

"Ro tan gamyk zanum sê." would generally be taken as "He said that I’m a tree." or "He called me a tree." as opposed to the person in question calling themself a tree, which would likely be "Ro tan
gamyk zanum ro." or possibly "ro tan gamyk zanum žo.".

Direct speech, on the other hand, would be indicated with verbs. " 'gamyk zanum sê' tanfê ro." would unambiguously communicate the idea of the person in question calling themself a tree.

Tense

In normal usage, tense is not marked, and must be inferred.

When telling a story, the tense is assumed to be indefinite or distant past.

In conversation it is typically inferred as either immediate past or present. Explicit marking of tense is only used when extreme clarity is desired (which is quite rare), when mood is being indicated, for emphasis, or to fulfill Rain’s taboo of always marking everything for tense.

Derivation and the Lexicon

The morphemes of Sajem Tan are divided into 2 phonotactic classes: roots and particles.

Phonotactic particles either serve as particles, affixes, or sometimes postpositions. Phonotactic roots can serve as nouns, verb, postpositions, auxilliary verbs, or describers.

While each morpheme has a standard part of speech, they can also be used as other parts of speech, and often are.

For instance, sit ("begin") is typically listed as an auxilliary verb, but it also occasionally serves as a noun ("sit" or "oc sit", "beginning") or a verb ("kê tidyn du sitfê du", "And so it begins." Literally "And like this it begins.").

In addition, nearly any set of morphemes can be compounded together to form more complex words, with the last root contributing the primary meaning.

For example, "danec" is "borrowed", "țek" is "to scribble", and "noc" indicates the end product of an action.

Compounding these 3 gives "danecțeknoc" - "the borrowed scribbling result", which is the name of the Romanization system. ( If a distiction between the 2 Romanization systems was desired, the original might be "dümdanecțeknoc" or "gödendanecțeknoc", while the reformed could be "jamdanecțeknoc" or "dözecdanecțeknoc".

While concatenation is the most common and systematic form of derivation, there are 2 other forms: triconsonantal roots and mergecompounding.

Sometimes a word is desired and there is a somewhat similar term already in existence. In such cases, if the word is 2 syllables long, it is common to coin the new word with the same consonants but different vowels, though the process is in no way systematic or consistent.

Merge-compounding, meanwhile, only applies in a few specific domains, such as colors and geometric shapes. In these cases, the end the first root and the beginning of the second are dropped to create a new word that still resembles the originals but is phonotactically a single root. The details of the process vary from one domain to another and so will be discussed there.

Derivational Suffixes

Plurals

The most common plural suffix is -â, which simply means "more than one thing". However, there are several other, more specific plurals available.

-mon indicates a collection of something. A flock of chickens could be called a "decekmon".

-nâ is the partive plural, indicating some, but not all. So if you had 8 pizzas (țnamökâ) and 3 of them were pepperoni, then those would be "țnamöknâ".

-no is very similar to -nâ, except that it is singular. Whereas "țnamöknâ" would refer to a few pizzas on a table of several pizzas, "țnamökno" would indicate some quantity of pizza, as in "țnamökno kygykšo dê." ( "I am eating some pizza.")

-ââ indicates an infinite quantity of something. "Dațnycfêsun šik semetââ.", "An infinite number of numbers can be encountered."

Quantity

-xêt means "lacking" and sometimes serves as a negative, along with -uk. The word "țnamökxêt", if used as a noun might be translated "the lack of pizzas", and as a describer would be "without pizzas" or "pizzaless".

-mêt is the inverse of -xêt and is traditionally defined as "having a surfeit or plentitude of something". So "țnamökmêt" is "the plentitude of pizza", "having plenty of pizza", or "pizzaful". It is also sometimes
used as a general describer-forming suffix, akin to the English "-y", hence the most common translation of "stony" is "țefammêt" rather than simply "țefam".

-mun denotes the most intense form of something; oftentimes it is transcribed as "maximum". Originally a term like "dûtmun" would have meant something like "unfathomably large", and some other
term would have to be found for simply "very large". But, as is normal for such things, the meaning has weakened over time and "dûtmun" can now be used in either case.

-uk is the counterpart of -xêt, denoting otherness rather than lack. While "țnamökxêt" denotes a lack of pizza, "țnamökuk" refers to something that is not pizza.

-ukmun is a compound of -uk and -mun and thus means "maximally other than". It is the most common negative and is usually the best translation of the English "anti-". While "jëkuk" and "jëkukmun" both
mean "not full", the former could refer to something that is half-full, while the latter only refers to things that are empty.

Other

-fun : small, cute; Example: ¸tefamfun – a pebble

-țnu : the act of; Example: xögakțnu – the act of being courageous (Wind's Note: I thought that we decided that thnu is basically gerund, didn’t we?)

-tuc : part of, Example: jëkëmtuc - a part of a book (page, cover, binding)

-so : having-one; an entity having the thing referred to by the stem, Example: söm žimanso – the swift feathered one (3 Due to Bee’s taboo, this is how he typically refers to Bird.)

-žum : pet; Example: țefamžum – a pet rock

-žut : cause to be; Example: țefamžut – to turn to stone ( This is probably a good term for the activities of Medusa and the White Witch. )

-mâk : improver; Example: țnamökmâk – marinara sauce (Pizza with red sauce being, of course, objectively better than pizza with white sauce. Usually used as an opinion statement, for obvious reasons.)

-noc : the end state or product of an action, Example: tețnymnoc – a child

-nun : marker of affection (Similar to Esperanto's "-cj") ; Example: tețnymnocnun – your child

-kâ : energetic; coffee; Example: tețnymnocnunkâ – your toddler

-ok : horrendous; excedingly awful, Example: tețnymnocnunkâok – your toddler who has just done something very frustrating

Auxiliary Verbs

dic : indicative

dit : reaffirm (Often rendered "indeed".)

göm : be obligated to; must

gön : try to; attempt

göt : stop; (noun) limit; boundary; termination point; end

ximic : continue

jöm : should

jit : must; vital; necessary

fmök : irrealis mood; counter-factual

fnit : to be willing to

sin : imperative

sit : begin; start

šnön : it is possible that; may; maybe

šik : be able to

möt : no; not; negative verb (Similar to the Finnish "ei".)

kök : polar interrogative; yes-no question
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Re: A Reference Grammar of Sajem Tan

Post by shanoxilt »

That's most of the grammar, sans the vocabulary section and the translation of North Wind and the Sun.

Does anyone have any questions or comments?
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shanoxilt
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Re: A Reference Grammar of Sajem Tan

Post by shanoxilt »

Jam Fmüžik Daţnycfê Sin!
/jæm fmʊ.ʒik da.θnyt͡s.fɛ sin/
Let the New Year be encountered!

It is Year 3 in the Common Honey calendar.
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shanoxilt
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Re: A Reference Grammar of Sajem Tan

Post by shanoxilt »

Since we were established in November of 2015, today marks our third Tanniversary.

We have expanded our resources beyond Frathwiki to include our page on Miraheze. Feel free to give feedback as to how we can improve our lessons.
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