Gz^rod|in (Questions & Possession)

! ! !

No, no, no! Put the letter 'v' back in! I've just
remembered that my word for "of" is _ov_, which
means that I've already used both _f_ and _v_
more than I thought I had. Cancel, cancel, cancel,
I've decided I need both of them after all.

! ! !

Questions utilise the -c suffix on the nominative
article. 'Tonoc ya hyn?' means, 'Do you want
something?'. Yes is _say_ and no is _nay_. To form
questions that ask the addressee to fill in some
data, one either substitutes _$em^_ [1] for the
missing data or else inserts it after a word that
indicates the type of data required. Hence, "What
do you want?" is "Tonoc ya hyn $em^?", where the
_hyn_ is optional [2]. The word placed before the
_$em^_ may be used to suggest an answer.

[1] where $ is phi, pronounced as unvoiced L.
    Also, remember that ^ represents lambda, and
    is a vowel.

[2] Typing 'optional', I got my fingers
    disaligned and actually typed _iotuibak_.
    Which looks quite pretty as a word (but not
    for this language).

There are two main ways to indicate possession,
just as there are in English. Where there are
two noun phrases in a row, the article of the
second being compuslory, the item on the left
possesses the item on the right. Hence:

 "Moniu ya ton ron hwwd|" = "I want your dog".
 (borrowing _hwwd|_ from the German)

The word for "of" is simply _ov_, so:

 "Moniu ya hwwd| ov ton" = "I want dog of yours".

The subject should be kept reasonably close to
the beginning of the sentence, so "The breakfast
of my neighbours cat" is preferred over "My
neighbour's cat's breakfast".

One can actually write, "He who has the dog" by
attaching the long article to "he" instead of
"dog" - R^niu ron hwwd|. This is the
RETROPOSSESSIVE form. If retropossession occurs
in the accusative, then both the nominative noun
and the possessive noun carry a long article [3].
Hence:

"M^no yara reqno flyk^ rot| hwwd|"
     = "I desire the girl with the dogs".
       (borrowing _flyk^ from the Swedish)

The word for God, _Ro$y_, is a contraction of
Roniu $on yy (Master of Time).

[3] In the latter case, the article only
restates tense, not mood.

Adrian.

P.S. The only grammar I have left to describe
now is: equivalence, converting verbs to
abstract nouns, conjunctions, and some
preliminary thoughts on relative clauses.
We are now four fifths of the way though my
notes.
--
http://www.netyp.com/member/dragon
http://www.flinders.edu.au