Introducing Qutrussan

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Davush
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

Post by Davush »

Adjectives

Adjectives have always been my least favourite part of conlanging for some reason. Qutrussan is quite strictly head-final, so adjectives precede the noun.

Many derived adjectives end in -qa which was originally a suffix meaning 'possessing' or similar. This suffix is no longer productive.

lusamqa - beautiful (lusam: beauty)
falashqa - wealthy (falash: wealth, money)
durruqa - powerful, strong (durru: power)

lusamqa ména - a/the beautiful woman
falashqa thar - a/the strong man

Adjectives in -qa agree in number. -qa becomes -qó in the plural:
lusamqó ménú, falashqó tharú, etc.

Another group of adjectives nearly all end in -ai and are invariable.
rámai - big
tsinai - small
galai - beautiful, refined

rámai mur, rámai murú - a big house, big houses

In certain cases, the -ai might be dropped. This often produces a more idiomatic meaning, and they may be considered fossilised expressions. Rám- and Tsin- are used quite productively this way, often as a kind of augmentative/diminutive. (Not 100% sure on this yet, but I quite like the quirk it adds.)

Rám-thar - 'a big man' i.e. a leader
Tsin-mur - 'a small house' (used as an affectionate term for one's home)

Adjectives in general are quite boring. I was thinking of making them verbal like Japanese/Korean, but I think I prefer having a true class of adjectives. Following the noun seems more 'classical', but I think this way gives Qutrussan a bit of uniqueness, not just a relex of Latin/Greek.

The Present Copula
The copula appears in two forms. Which form a speaker uses is usually determined by dialect area, but they can also be described as being in free variation. The ya- copula is preferred in Qutrus proper.

1p: yan / dën
2p: yac / dëc
3p: yash / dësh
1pl: yún / dún
2pl: yúc / dúc
3pl: yúsh / dúsh

When the copula occurs immediately after an adjective, there is a tendency for the 3sg. form to elide to ~sh with lengthening of qa to qá.

Mur rámai yash / rámai'sh - The house is big
Ména durruqa yash / durruqá'sh - The woman is strong
Na thar yan - I am a man
Ca qazi yac - You are a child
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

Post by Davush »

[Edit: See newer posts for updated map]
Last edited by Davush on 06 Nov 2017 12:23, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

Post by Davush »

Demonstratives

tai: this
cai: that
qai: that over there

toa, coa, qoa: these, those, those

Cai ména qazil íthmësh
/kæi ˈme:næ qæ.ˈdzil ˈi:θ.mǝʃ/
That woman spoken to the child

Qoa murú rámai yúshë
/qo:ǝ muɾu: ɾɑ:mæ ju:ʃǝ/
Those houses are big

When used as pronouns they become:
taya, caya, qaya
tuyu, cuyu, quyu


These are strong men
Tuyu durruqó parú yúshë.
these strong man.PL cop.PRES.3pl

Numbers
Numbers 1-10 also have a short form, which is used in compound numbers.
1: yéca ~ yéc/yëc
2: mëtsa ~ mëts
3: thinna ~ thin
4: shóla ~ shól
5: tsuma ~ tsum
6: piruc ~ pir
7: sanuc ~ san
8: happu ~ hap
9: gúla ~ gúl
10: haica
100: hairón

11-19:
yëcrón, mëtsrón, thinrón, shóllón, tsumrón, pirrón, manrón, haprón, gúllón

20-90:
mëtsaica, sinaica, shólaica, tsumaica, piraica, sancaica, happaica, gúlaica

Add -vë before the digit:
21: mëtsaicavë-yéc
99: gúlaicavë-gúl
etc.

999: gúlhairón-gúlaicavë-gúl

The order of modifiers is nearly always: Demonstrative, Number, Adjective (s), head: qoa haica tsinai mandasú 'those 10 small temples'

Interrogative Mood
I am thinking of adding an interrogative mood for verbs. In the present, this might be simply -ai added to the verb with doubling of the final consonant.

thimic - you speak
thimiccai? - do you speak?

Gilga s-Qutrusa thimin, thimiccai? - I speak Qutrussan, do you?

yash - it is
yasshai - is it?

Taya mur sca yassh-ai?
this house 2.GEN COP.PRES-INT
Is this your house?

This would mean I can make fun sentences like:
Hoaccai? Are you OK?
Hoasshai? Is it OK?

This is a 'colloquial' way of asking:
Hauva yásshai?

With the adjective hauva 'ok, good, fine' becoming a verb hoa- 'to be ok'. Some speakers may even use simply 'oa'. This is frowned upon by purists as very few words begin with a vowel.
Oaccai? Oan.
Are you OK? Yeah (I am).

This is considered very non-standard, but is common usage, especially among younger speakers in Qutrus Province.

The Neo-Genitive
I am also thinking of having an alternative genitive form which probably originates from a preposition/participle type construction.
The possessee is marked by the prefix s-

The man's house
Parrë mur (Traditional Genitive)
Mur s-par (Neo genitive)

The Language of Qutrus: Gilga s-Qutrus or Qutrussë Gilga

In the spoken language, it is especially common with pronouns:
sna, sca, sa, snu, scu, su compared to the traditional genitives: nën, cën, shën, nuvnu, cuvnu, shuvnu

This could lead to interesting alternatives like:

Paryón mur - The house of the men - men.GEN.PL house
Mur s-parú - house GEN.man-PL (I actually don't know if this should be marked as GEN?)

But the s- prefix could trigger redundant genitive marking so:
Mur s-paryón
Last edited by Davush on 28 Aug 2017 14:32, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

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Davush wrote: Interrogative Mood
I am thinking of adding an interrogative mood for verbs. In the present, this might be simply -ai added to the verb with doubling of the final consonant.

thimic - you speak
thimiccai? - do you speak?

Gilga s-Qutrusa thimin, thimiccai? - I speak Qutrussan, do you?

yash - it is
yasshai - is it?

Taya mur sca yassh-ai?
this house 2.GEN COP.PRES-INT
Is this your house?

This would mean I can make fun sentences like:
Hoaccai? Are you OK?
Hoasshai? Is it OK?

This is a 'colloquial' way of asking:
Hauva yásshai?

With the adjective hauva 'ok, good, fine' becoming a verb hoa- 'to be ok'. Some speakers may even use simply 'oa'. This is frowned upon by purists as very few words begin with a vowel.
Oaccai? Oan.
Are you OK? Yeah (I am).

This is considered very non-standard, but is common usage, especially among younger speakers in Qutrus Province.
Yay, for morphological gemination. I also like the look of your exaple sentences.

Davush wrote:The Neo-Genitive
I am also thinking of having an alternative genitive form which probably originates from a preposition/participle type construction.
The possessee is marked by the prefix s-

The man's house
Parrë mur (Traditional Genitive)
Mur s-par (Neo genitive)

The Language of Qutrus: Gilga s-Qutrus or Qutrussë Gilga

In the spoken language, it is especially common with pronouns:
sna, sca, sa, snu, scu, su compared to the traditional genitives: nën, cën, shën, nuvnu, cuvnu, shuvnu

This could lead to interesting alternatives like:

Paryón mur - The house of the men - men.GEN.PL house
Mur s-parú
- house GEN.man-PL (I actually don't know if this should be marked as GEN?)

But the s- prefix could trigger redundant genitive marking so:
Mur s-paryón
Yay, for having more than one way to express something. Also the s-prefix looks kind of cool, especially because some other affixes are suffixes.


But I have to say, that your demonstratives look almost too regular IMO. Somewhat Esperanto-esque
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

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Creyeditor wrote:
But I have to say, that your demonstratives look almost too regular IMO. Somewhat Esperanto-esque
I am always torn between fully 'symmetrical' and more naturalistic looking sets...perhaps I will try to make it slightly more irregular. These were my initial ideas which I was likely to change anyway. [:D]
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

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Worked on some more demonstrative type stuff - by far my least favourite aspect of conlanging. These words are very high frequency, so I want to make sure they sound and look nice, but also not too regular. My first ideas were indeed too robotic. I think I might allow a few more initial clusters, especially for high frequency 'function' words. They rarely appear in nouns or verbs, however.

ha - this
csa - that
hác - that there
ru, csu, húc - these, those, those there

hatra - here
hacsa - there

By lengthening the final vowel, these become more emphatic:
hatrá - right here
hacsá - over there

Interrogative pronouns
za? - what? (nom acc: za, gen: zan, dat: zal, loc: zam)
zai? - who? (nom: zai, acc: zaya, gen: zaina, dat: zail, loc: zaim)
zatra? - where? (dat: zatral, loc: zatram)
zalla? - why?

seom? - when? (I am thinking of adding the diphthongs /eo oe/)
súr? - how?



Trying out different orthographies:
Ména seom csa mandasli úcrësh?
Mēna sēom ksa mandasli ūkrĕš?
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

Post by DesEsseintes »

Davush wrote:Trying out different orthographies:
Ména seom csa mandasli úcrësh?
Mēna sēom ksa mandasli ūkrĕš?
My suggestion:

Ména seom csa mandasli úcrăsh

I really like the acutes in Qutrussan, so I wouldn't want to see those go. Personally, I find a breve nicer than e diaeresis, and I love that you used sh, so yeah.

It goes without saying that this is purely a matter of taste. [:)]
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

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I really like the new demonstratives better than the old ones [:)] Much less robotic and much more nature-alistic.
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

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Prepositional phrases which function as an adjective will have an additional suffix -qqV. I think this has a name but I'm not sure what to call it.

murmi - in the house
murmiqqi par - the man (who is) in the house

csádam - in the field
csádamaqqa qazi - the child (who is) in the field

Verbal Nouns and Participles
I am still working this out, but my idea is to have some kind of initial reduplication, which may have eroded somewhat.

cur- 'to go'
cúcŭr 'going, departure'

bars- 'to work'
bábărsă - 'work'

The verbal nouns can also be used as a kind of infinitive (tbc):

bábărsa hónun - I want to work

For the present participle, I am torn between a few choices. Initially I was going to make it the same as the prepositional -qqV. I don't want the language to look too full of -qq- however. So some other alternatives were -svă, -vdă,-rqă or -ssă:

curuqqu ména - the woman who is going
barsaqqa par - the man who is working

curuqqu/curusvă/curuvdă/cururqă/curussă

The past participle will have the same ending applied to the past stem, or I may just have a completely separate ending.

Present: cur- curuqqu
Past: úcrŭ- úcrŭqqu

Any thoughts on how realistic it would be to have completely separate endings for these quite closely related forms would be useful!
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

Post by Iyionaku »

Are the demonstrative and interrogative pronouns inflectable to your five cases as well or are they mainly particles?
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

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When used as modifiers they don't inflect but attach to the head noun like particles:

Hap-par barsash - This man works

When used as independent pronouns, they will be fully inflectable. I haven't 100% decided on the independent forms yet, though.
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

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Davush wrote:Prepositional phrases which function as an adjective will have an additional suffix -qqV. I think this has a name but I'm not sure what to call it.
Maybe just Adjectivizer? Or relativizer (since it acts almost like a relative clause)
Davush wrote:murmi - in the house
murmiqqi par - the man (who is) in the house

csádam - in the field
csádamaqqa qazi - the child (who is) in the field
Looks nice [:)]
Davush wrote:Verbal Nouns and Participles
I am still working this out, but my idea is to have some kind of initial reduplication, which may have eroded somewhat.

cur- 'to go'
cúcŭr 'going, departure'

bars- 'to work'
bábărsă - 'work'

The verbal nouns can also be used as a kind of infinitive (tbc):

bábărsa hónun - I want to work
A big YES for partial reduplication. As an infinitive marker, this looks really good. Was there inspiration by some natlang?
Davush wrote:For the present participle, I am torn between a few choices. Initially I was going to make it the same as the prepositional -qqV. I don't want the language to look too full of -qq- however. So some other alternatives were -svă, -vdă,-rqă or -ssă:
curuqqu ména - the woman who is going
barsaqqa par - the man who is working

curuqqu/curusvă/curuvdă/cururqă/curussă
I actually like -qq a lot. This would also justify calling it relativizer or relative clause suffix.
Davush wrote:The past participle will have the same ending applied to the past stem, or I may just have a completely separate ending.

Present: cur- curuqqu
Past: úcrŭ- úcrŭqqu

Any thoughts on how realistic it would be to have completely separate endings for these quite closely related forms would be useful!
I think both would be realistic. Past participle endings are in many SAE languages completely unrelated to present participle languages. This is exactly why I like the idea of them being related.
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

Post by Davush »

Thanks! Having the -qq ending as a generalised relativiser could be a nice way of doing it.

The partial reduplication for the gerund/infinitive wasn't inspired by any particular language, but I like how certain IE languages showed traces of it and I also wanted some kind of non-concatentative forms, but not to the same extent as Semitic languages.

The Passive

The passive appears in the present (or non-past) and past, like other forms.

The present is formed by adding the suffix: -aya, -iya, -uya (depending on stem vowel), and the final consonant is often lengthened.
The past is formed by adding the prefix: áya- éyi- úvu- (depending on stem vowel), and the stem vowel is reduced/deleted as is usual in the past stem.

zal- 'to eat'
zallaya- 'is eaten'
áyazălla- 'was eaten'

sup- 'to drink'
suppuya- 'is drank'
úvuspa- 'was drank'

mabba húvuspaḥ 'the water has been drank'

The initial h- here is to prevent a vowel hiatus, which Qutrussan tries to avoid. This is going to be a general feature, not just on passives. I don't know whether to indicate this in the orthography or not. The <sh> typical of 3rd person forms is now going to alternate with <h> - <sh> will be used when further suffixes are added, or maybe in free variation. I am thinking of changing the 2nd person <c> (thimic - you speak) to <r> (thimir). Not sure yet.

I'm not sure how to mark the agent and the patient yet. The patient will be NOM in passive clauses, as is usual in IE languages. I might used the dative or locative case for the agent, but both feel strange somehow. Do any natlangs use a dative or locative type case to indicate the agent?

daqs- 'to hit'
qótuv ména-l áya-dăqs-aḥ 'the cat was hit by the woman'
cat.NOM woman.DAT PASS.PAST-hit-3P

I am thinking of adding a '4th person' which is more of a generalised passive that doesn't involve direct physical action or the likes, used in sentences like 'Qutrussan is spoken here', 'This food is loved', etc. Perhaps using -r. There is a name for this, but I can't think what it is right now.

Hatram Galaithíma thimir - Here the 'Beautiful Speech' is spoken

Root Extensions
I'm not sure if this is actually a root 'extension' or just some kind of derivational process, but I think the following might be added.
Many verb roots will appear in an augmented form with -yV: infixed. At the minute, I am thinking of making this a kind of intensive form of a verb, although it is no longer productive and some meanings may be more idiomatic than others.

cur- 'to go'
cuyúr- 'to walk around'
cúcyur 'a walk, a stroll'

zal- ' to eat'
zayál- 'to eat a lot'
zázyal 'a feast'

A few test sentences:

Ména vă par mandasli úcrush. Shuvnu qazi úcrăppaḥ. Tsógurli úcrahanda rammai naicala útsŭnha. Shammai mábba úspaḥ. Tsógurmi barsaqqa pár útsŭnhanda shirram íthmish. Par shil zál áhăttash. Qazi ăsh ázăllahanda murli úcraḥ.

Fairly narrow IPA:
/ˈme:.næ vɨ pær ˈmæn.dæs.li ˈju:.krʊʃ. ˈʃʊv.nu ˈqæ.dzi ˈju:k.rǝp.pæh. ˈtso:.gʊr.li ˈju:k.rǝ.ħæn.dæ ˈræm.mæi ˈnæi.kæ.læ ˈhu:.tsɯn.hæ. ˈʃæm.mæi ˈmɑ:b.bæ ˈhu:s.pæh. ˈtso:.gʊ.rniˈ bær.sæq.qæ pɑ:r ˈu:.tsɯn.hæn.dæ ˈʃir.ræm ˈi:θ.mɪʃ. pær ʃɪl ˈɑ:.ħǝt.tæʃ. ˈqæ.dzi ǝʃ ˈɑ:.dzǝl.læ.ħæn.dæ ˈmʊr.li ˈju:k.ræh/

woman and man temple-DAT PAST-go. 3PL.GEN child PAST-go-NEG.3. mountain-DAT PAST-go-and big lake-ACC PAST-see-3. it-from water.ACC PAST-drink-3. mountain-LOC work.PRES-REL man.ACC PAST-see-3-and him-with PAST-speak-3. man 3-DAT food.ACC PAST-give-3. child 3-ACC PAST-eat-3-and house-DAT PAST-go-3

The woman and the man went to the temple. Their child did not go. He went to the mountain and saw a big lake. He drank water from it. He saw a man working in the mountain and spoke to him. The man gave him some food. The child ate it and went home.
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

Post by Iyionaku »

Davush wrote:
Root Extensions
I'm not sure if this is actually a root 'extension' or just some kind of derivational process, but I think the following might be added.
Many verb roots will appear in an augmented form with -yV: infixed. At the minute, I am thinking of making this a kind of intensive form of a verb, although it is no longer productive and some meanings may be more idiomatic than others.

cur- 'to go'
cuyúr- 'to walk around'
cúcyur 'a walk, a stroll'

zal- ' to eat'
zayál- 'to eat a lot'
zázyal 'a feast'
I like that a lot. Realistic derivation is a big weakness of mine. You seem to have a very systematic and productive and - just my opinion - also very beautiful modus operandi there.
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

Post by DesEsseintes »

I may have overlooked it, but have you settled on past tense forms for your copulae?
If not: psst, make them irregular!

We want moar Qutrussan. [:D]
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

Post by Davush »

Thank you all for the comments and help so far! They are much appreciated. [<3]

@DesEsseintes: I haven't made the past copulae yet, but I certainly did intend for it to be irregular! [:D]

The Causative
Oh no...I always find this is where things start to get messy (and often where I give up the language).

Qutrussan doesn't have a morphological causative, but uses a periphrastic construction, mostly with the matrix verb qan- which probably originally meant 'to push, to put', but is now only used for 'to cause'. The object of qan- (but subject of the dependent clause) is usually in the accusative and the verb is usually turned into a gerund, so 'I made him eat' would be 'I caused him eating'. The standard language prefers the gerund to be in the dative to avoid a double accusative, but both forms can be seen.

(na) ăsh zázăl-li áqănna
(1) 3-ACC eat.GER-DAT PAST-cause-1
I made him eat

If the dependent clause has an object of its own, it is usually construed as a genitive phrase with the gerund. 'I made him eat the meat' > 'I caused to-him the eating of the meat'. It can also be in the accusative.

(na) ăsh duhma-n zázăl-li áqănna
(1) 3-ACC meat-GEN eat.GER-DAT PAST-cause-1
I made him eat the meat

Another way to form causatives which is more common in the spoken language is by using the 'connective' suffix -anda, which is typically used to connect two clauses/verbs. Both clauses are construed as normal active-voice clauses. I'm not sure if this will make it into the final form of Qutrussan (if there ever is one), but it could be an interesting alternative.

'Normal' connective:
duhmá zalahanda mábba supuhanda - he eats meat and drinks water

Causative connective:
(Sha) duhmá zalahanda áqănna
(3) meat-ACC eat-3-CON PAST-cause-1
I made him eat the meat (he eats the meat, and I caused (it) )

With type I adjectives (those ending in a long vowel), the -ai form is used with qan:

rammá - big
rammai qan- - to make big

tsiní - small
tsinai qan - to make small

With other adjectives, they are placed in the dative:

durruqa - powerful
durruqal qan - to make powerful

Duhmá zázăl qazya durruqal áqănash.
meat-ACC eat.GER man.ACC powerful-DAT PAST-cause-3
Eating meat made the child strong

In summary, it looks like Causer remains as NOM, the Causee becomes ACC, and the original object may be ACC or GEN, with the gerund in DAT. Is this a realistic set up? I need to decide whether gerunds will allow accusative marking, or if it must be genitive, i.e. 'eating meat' vs 'the eating of meat' (or both).

Phew! Hopefully I don't run into too many syntactic/morphological tangles with these causative constructions. (If anybody spots any inconsistencies between words and inflections from previous posts, it's probably because I am just trying out different options. [:D] )
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

Post by DesEsseintes »

OP wrote:I am thinking of changing the 2nd person <c> (thimic - you speak) to <r> (thimir). Not sure yet.

Just a random thought: How about having the 2SG end in -r, which shifts to -ccai in the interrogative and possibly in whatever other longer forms you have? Just adds a bit of colour. [:)]

Every time I make a change like that in my conlangs, I try to leave a trace of the old form to add to the allomorphy of the language. It works for me but may not be for everyone.
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

Post by Davush »

DesEsseintes wrote: Just a random thought: How about having the 2SG end in -r, which shifts to -ccai in the interrogative and possibly in whatever other longer forms you have? Just adds a bit of colour. [:)]

Every time I make a change like that in my conlangs, I try to leave a trace of the old form to add to the allomorphy of the language. It works for me but may not be for everyone.
That's a nice idea, I think I will try it out!

The Copula (and other verbs)
The copula ya-/dă- along with several other common verbs have irregular past tense forms. They are characterised by -ss- or -s- in the stem, and also they conjugate as if they were present (so no lengthened vowel).

ya-: copula (present stem)
yŭss-: copula (past stem): yŭssŭn, yŭssŭr, yŭssŭḥ, yŭssúnă, yŭssúcă, yŭssúshă

cur- ~ cuss-: to go
dah- ~ dass-: to come
qan- ~ qăss-: to cause (maybe)
yar- ~ yass-: to do
hón- ~ hóss-: to want
hătt- ~ hăss-: to give

With hón- the -ss- past is used as a kind of conditional marker - 'I would have...', but the regular past is used as expected 'I wanted...'

/ǝ/ will now lengthen into either é or ó when lengthening is required. This hints that it was originally *ɛ and *ɔ which have merged into a central vowel. Also, when vowel harmony/echoing/reduction is required, é and ó have /ǝ/. This also makes it more logical to spell /ǝ/ as ĭ/ŭ depending on etymology.

Quantifiers

Quantifiers come before the noun. If a quantity indicates a plural number, the noun is no longer required to take a plural suffix. In the standard language, there is debate surrounding this. If the quantifier ends in -u, then the plural suffix is generally not used. Numbers do not usually require a plural suffix.

qsúmu hitsal(u) - many flowers
psíru bulbul(u) - few birds
mŭtsa hitsal(u) - two flowers

Some quantifier constructions used the plural genitive:

hitsalyón tŭllai - all of the flowers
hitsalyón payar - none of the flowers

The genitive can also be used a kind of partitive:
histalyón qsúmu - many of the flowers

I think I will also change the nom/acc forms slightly. The nom. plural will be -u with a short vowel, while the acc. will be with a long vowel. The acc. is generally marked by a long vowel or vowel lengthening. may alternate with -au as an archaic/dialectal form.
Davush
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

Post by Davush »

The -anda suffix

This suffix has a few uses. I'm not too sure if they actually fit together or if they should be derived from the same morpheme(s) etymologically.

The first is simply to connect two verbs in an 'and' type clause. The subject of both verbs can be different.

zalananda supun 'I eat and drink'
na mandasli curunanda, sha csádal curuḥ 'I go to the temple and s/he goes to the field'

It can be suffixed to both verbs to add a greater sense of simultaneity:

zalananda supunanda 'I am both eating and drinking'

The second use is to mark a complement clause:

dunn- 'to know'

par murmi yash-anda dunnun
man in.house be-COMP know.1p
I know that the man is in the house (the man is in the house-and I know)

Sha zatral cussush-anda dunnuccai?
3P to.where go-PAST.3P-COMP know-2P-Q
Do you know where she went?

Thai
Thai can be placed before a verb to indicate future tense. It is not as common as in English, and is usually only used emphatically. Perhaps it should be treated as an adverb. Then it could be used to emphasise past action as well:

thai curun - 'I will (surely) go'
thai cussun - I surely went

To have to do something
This is formed by using the verb 'hassaya' (to be needed) with the infinitive/verbal noun. The subject is placed in the dative. So literally: xxx is needed to (me).

nil zázăla hassayaḥ
1p.DAT eat-ACC need.PASS.3p
I have to/need to eat

Imperative
The imperative is formed by adding to the verb stem:
zalé! eat!
tsuné! look!
thimé! speak!

The plural is formed with -uyé:
zaluyé! eat! (pl.)

A more polite way of requesting somebody to do something is placing the particle 'rai' after the 2P present. Note the 2P present uses the -c form here.

Zalac rai - You should eat, Please eat, etc.

The negative imperative has two forms. One is based on the present negative form + -é. Rai may also be used with a negative present:

thimihca - you don't speak
thimihcé - don't speak!
thimihca rai - Please don't speak

And one with -ppa / -ppú. This form is considered more blunt.
thimippa! / thimippú! (pl.) - don't speak!

To Want
To want is hón- and it generally appears with infinitives.

zázăla hónŭn - I want to eat (eat.INF-ACC want-1p)

Sentences of the type 'I want you to go' may use the complement suffix -anda, or an infinitive:
Curuccanda hónŭn
or
Ca cúcra hónŭn


I still haven't decided whether infinitive constructions will use a genitive construction i.e. 'I want your going' or a nom-acc construction: 'I want you (nom) going (acc)'.
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Creyeditor
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Re: Introducing Qutrussan

Post by Creyeditor »

Wait, what was the general topic of your last post? Mood and Modality? Embedding? Clause connectors?
And concerning -anda. Is it only used for simultaneous action or can you use it for sentences like 'I got up and took a shower.'?
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