| Part Two Essentials of Delasoni Grammar In Delason, nouns are the only part of speech without a marked ending. While verbs, adjectives and other parts of speech have specific endings, nouns can end with any vowel or consonant that is not reserved for other parts of speech. Most delasoni nouns end with the vowel -a -a such as ceca ceca 'house' or ora ora 'happiness'. Names of countries and individuals usually end with the vowel -u -u such as fransu fransu 'France' or janu janu 'John'. Other endings have some semantic significance. For example, the suffix -on -on refers to the doer of an action as in soton soton 'singer' from sota sota 'singing' or fordon fordon 'driver' from forda forda 'car'. Another example is the suffix -in -in which refers to the object of an action as in sotin sotin 'song' or fordin fordin 'vehicle' from the same roots in the last example. In addition to simple nouns, Delason has compound nouns that are created by hyphenating two or more words. At least one of these words must be a noun. Other words can be particles or adverbs. In some cases, nouns drop their final vowel or their last syllable. For example,
Plurals are formed by dropping any final vowels and adding the suffix -o -o. If the noun ends with two vowels, only the second vowel is dropped. For example,
Nouns ending with the vowel -a -a, have an alternate form that is equivalent in meaning but drops the vocalic ending. For example, torita torita 'bird' and torit torit have the same meaning. This alternate form appears only in delasoni poetry. For some selected poems, see Part Four. There are three forms of verbs in Delason: indicative verbs, infinitive verbs, and imperative verbs. Indicative verbs end with -en -en and by default refer to the present tense. The past tense is obtained using the tense particle ha ha which precedes the verb. Similarly, the future tense is obtained by using the tense particle sa sa . Delasoni verbs do not change with number or person. For example,
The second Delasoni verb form is the infinitive form. It is similar to English infinitives and gerunds in that it refers to the action with no reference to time (past, present, or future). All infinitive verbs end with -ir -ir. For example,
The last Delasoni verb form is the imperative form. Commands are created by replacing the -en -en suffix with -ay -ay. For example,
To negate a verb, the negative qualifier le le is placed before that verb. Note that le le also precedes the tense particles sa sa and ha ha. For example,
Delasoni adjectives end with the suffix -i -i. They come after the nouns they modify and have one form only that does not change whether the nouns are plural or singular. For example,
There are two adjectives that are used a lot in Delason. These adjectives correspond to the English demonstrative articles this, these, that and those. These two adjectives are di di 'this or these' and zi zi 'that or those'. For example,
Delasoni adverbs end with the suffix -e -e. They come after the verbs the modify. Note that not all Delasoni adverbs correspond to adverbs in English. For example,
Qualifiers are words that precede nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs. The job of qualifiers is to modify the words they qualify. Qualifiers can be grouped into four types based on their relative position to each other and to the word they qualify. The following is a list of the different qualifiers and their relative positions:
The first five qualifiers, te te, me me, se se, pe pe and le le, are degree qualifiers. The specific meaning of these qualifiers depends on the part of speech of the word they qualify:
For example,
Verbs are qualified in terms of frequency or degree. For example,
The qualifier de de corresponds to the definite article the in English. It is not used with adverbs or verbs. There are no indefinite articles that correspond to the English a, an or some. For example,
The qualifier ke ke corresponds to the English word such. It is used with nouns, adjectives and adverbs. For example,
The qualifiers ine ine and ixe ixe correspond to the English indefinite articles any and each or every respectively. They are only used with nouns. For example,
The comparative qualifiers lece lece and mere mere correspond to the English less and more respectively. When used in conjunction with these qualifiers, the particle ki ki refers to the English then. If the definite qualifier de de is used with lece lece or mere mere, they would correspond to the least and the most. For example,
The qualifier otre otre refers to the English other or another. For example,
Number qualifiers are explained in section 2.7. The following are some examples where different qualifiers are used together: For example,
There are many pronouns in Delason. The following is a list of most of them: Personal Pronouns
There are no possessive pronouns in Delason. However, there are possessive adjectives:
For example,
Impersonal Pronoun
For example,
Relative Pronouns
For more information on relative pronouns' usage, see section 2.9. For example,
Reflexive Pronouns
For example,
Indefinite Pronouns
For example,
Temporal Pronouns
For example,
Spatial Pronouns
For example,
Demonstrative Pronouns
For example,
There are three types of numbers in Delason: counting numbers, cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers. Counting numbers are used for counting only (one, two, three ...). They have no vocalic endings and are the roots used to form the other two types of numbers. For example,
Cardinal numbers are similar in meaning to counting numbers except that they are not used in counting. There are three forms of cardinal numbers all of which are formed by adding some vocalic ending to the counting numbers. First, cardinal numbers can be qualifiers (ending with -e -e) that come before the noun. With this form of cardinal numbers, nouns stay singular regardless of the qualifying number. Second, cardinal numbers can be adjectives (ending with -i -i) that come after the noun which can be singular or plural. Finally, cardinal numbers can be nouns (ending with -u -u). For example,
As for ordinal numbers (first, second, third ... ), they are formed by adding the suffix -ini -ini to the counting number. They can only be used as adjectives. For example,
For more information on numbers, see the list of counting numbers in section 3.3 in the phrase book. There are three types of prepositions in Delason: simple prepositions, postpositions, and compound prepositions. Preposition phrases can modify nouns or complement verbs just like in English. There are only five simple prepositions:
For example,
Postpositions in Delason are hyphenated particles that follow the noun which is their object. The hyphen is optional only if the postpositions are used with pronouns. There are only five postpositions each of which corresponds to one of the five simple prepositions.
For example,
Compound prepositions are the largest set of prepositions in Delason. Every preposition in this set is a hyphenated compound of some adverb and the particle et et. But they can be used without the hyphenated particle, too. The following is a list of some of these prepositions:
For example,
Delason has one relative particle and several relative pronouns. The Delasoni relative particle is ki ki, which corresponds to all English relative pronouns. It is used in combination with other prepositions and pronouns to give a specific meaning such as who, which, that, whom, when, where, etc. If the noun modified by the relative clause is the subject of that clause, ki ki is followed by the pronoun o o, which is used as the subject of the relative clause. This corresponds to the English relative pronouns who, which and that. Note that it does not make any difference whether the subject is a person or a thing. For example,
If the noun modified by the relative clause is the object of that clause, ki ki is followed by the pronoun eto eto, which is used as the object of the relative clause. This corresponds to the English relative pronouns whom, which and that. For example,
If the noun modified by the relative clause is the possessor of another noun in that clause, then the possessed noun is followed by ce o ce o or oci oci. This corresponds to the English relative pronoun whose. For example
Similar to the last example where the noun modified by the relative clause is referred to in the clause as the object of the preposition ce ce, other prepositions can be used in relative clause. This can correspond to where, when, with whom, from where, to where, etc. For example
Relative pronouns in Delason provide an alternative to using the relative particle ki ki. They are much closer in usage to their English counterparts. The following is a list of these pronouns:
Note the similarity between the relative pronoun ki ki and the relative particle ki ki. The only difference is that the pronoun o o is not used the relative pronoun ki ki since it is itself the pronoun. For example,
Most interrogative words in Delason are interrogative pronouns. However, there are one interrogative particle, one interrogative qualifier, one interrogative adjective, and one interrogative postposition. Interrogative pronouns are usually placed at the beginning of the sentence without changing its word order. For more information on word order see section 2.12. The following is a list of Delasoni interrogative pronouns:
For example,
The only interrogative particle in Delason is es es which changes any sentence to a question when placed at the beginning or end of that sentence. The type of question resulting from using es es is a yes/no question. For example,
The interrogative qualifier komse komse corresponds with the English interrogative articles how many and how much. It precedes the noun it qualifies. For example,
The interrogative adjective cesi cesi 'whose' follows the noun whose possessor is demanded. For example,
The last interrogative word is the interrogative postposition -si -si, which corresponds to the English interrogative articles what or which. This postposition is hyphenated to the noun in question. For example,
Delasoni conjunctions are used to combine different phrases or clauses together. The following is a list of some of these conjunctions:
For example,
The Delasoni word order is quite free except for the following constraints:
Note that questions and declarative statements share the same word order. This freedom of word order provides great flexibility for poem-writing. Some pieces of poetry are provided in Part Four. However, the general tendencies for word order in Delason are as follows:
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