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Actually, I've been trying to avoid prefixes (though I did use reserval up there, hmm...).

I'd go with "komprihes" from "comprehend." But I'm not making that official yet. From there, I could do "kampres" for "compress" and "komprais" for "comprise." But still, not making any of these official yet...


For now you can just say "Min has tin." ("I have it." like English "I got it!")


EDIT:
Actually, when I say "prefixes" I think I really mean "preposition prefixes" like "under" or "out" as in "understand" or "outgoing." I never liked how English relies so heavily on prepositions as parts of words and phrases where they really shouldn't be necessary or just have ambiguous meanings. Things like "throw up" or "pass out" and the afore-mentioned preposition prefixes.

I'm confusing myself with my use of "special adverbs" which work a lot like modal/auxiliary verbs except that they can be used with adjectives for a completely unrelated effect.


Any suggestions? I've got three special adverbs right now, one that mimics the "I am doing" form, one that mimics the "I have done" form, and one that mimics the "it is done (by me)" form. That third one specifically is causing me to second guess my own grammar, because it seems to make sense most of the time, but when I go and try to expand on the concepts, it gets confusing (to me, at least).

Actually, "morphemes" are just the smallest, uninflected forms of a word... basically a "meaningful unit." In the word "dogs" the morphemes are "dog" and "-s," for example.

And I think you're right, but for "tolsa" it would be "I have spoken..." but that's one of the things that's confusing me. It's really the English interpretations throwing me off, because English has sooo many modal/auxiliary verbs, and when using modals, the tense gets shifted to them rather than the regular verb.

As in, you don't say, "I have been spoke," you say, "I had been speaking."

Alright, I think I have it worked out now... My system seems to make sense, it's just confusing me on the English end. Also, I accidentally put "a" as the past tense suffix, but it should be "o" since adverbs use "a" already.

tals - to speak, to talk

Min tals. - I speak.
Min talsi. - I spoke.
Min talso. - I will speak.

Min hasa tals. - I am speaking.
Min hasa talsi. - I was speaking.
Min hasa talso. - I will be speaking.

Min tolsa tas. - I have spoken.
Min tolsa tasi. - I had spoken.
Min tolsa taso. - I will have spoken.

Min kisa tals. - I am spoken (to).
Min kisa talsi. - I was spoken (to).
Min kisa talso. - I will be spoken to.


enqas - to enjoy, to like

Min enqas. - I enjoy.
Min enqasi. - I enjoyed.
Min enqaso. - I will enjoy.

Min hasa enqas. - I am enjoying.
Min hasa enqasi. - I was enjoying.
Min hasa enqaso. - I will be enjoying.

Min tolsa enqas. - I have enjoyed.
Min tolsa enqasi. - I had enjoyed.
Min tolsa enqaso. - I will have enjoyed.

Min kisa enqas. - I am enjoyed.
Min kisa enqasi. - I was enjoyed.
Min kisa enqaso. - I will be enjoyed.


That last bit is a little funny, as far as connotations in English might go. Maybe, it would be more appropriate to interpret "enqas" as "to like" in this case. Thus an aspiring entertainer might proclaim, "Min kisa enqaso, ah!" as "I will be loved!" You know... dreams of glory and celebrity and whatnot.


Anyway, thanks for input, it's helped clear a few things up. I still need to make a few more special adverbs, and then clear it all up together. Then I can go and try making some complex sentences!


PS/BTW:

To say "thanks" you can use either common full form:
Min apres iun. - "I appreciate you."
Iun kisa apres. - "You are appreciated."

Or the abbreviated forms:
Apres iun. - "Thank you."
Apres, ah! - "Thanks!"



EDIT:

I forgot to try clarifying the verbal adjectives (ie when a verb is used as an adjective to describe something like "the eaten food" or "the appreciated man" or "the rising cost." This is also really confusing me, as English just reuses simple tense forms for the gerund (-ing form) and others.

I don't know ANY French whatsoever, and while I do appreciate its linguistic properties, I'm not really interested in it in any way, even if it's just for vocabulary "inspiration." "Apres" actually came from the English word "appreciate" similarly to my method for butchering, stealing, and manipulating English words to create "new" vocabulary for this language. I do like knowing, though, that vocabulary words I create are often homonymical (haha, is that a word?) with random foreign words (actually, there's a term for this, it's like "cognate" but just means they are spelled the same but completely unrelated). It gives me a feeling of validity, and that my words are more realistic.

As for verb adjectives, I don't have a problem coming up with ways to say "if you do it this way, this word becomes an adjective." My problem is... How do I keep the interpretations of the method both logical and consistent. For me, it's not enough to just say "this method makes this word into an adjective" because "adjectives" are very flexible. For example , in English, we have two types of verbal adjectives (at least two, maybe more)...

You have the gerund, which is the -ing type. For example, if you want to say "the cow that is eating" you can use "eating" as a gerund adjective and just say "the eating cow."

You also have the other form that is -en/-ed. For example, you can say "the cow that has been kicked" or just "the kicked cow." EDIT: I believe this form is often called "participle" but I'm not sure.

From here you can use less verbish forms, such as adding -able/-ible to verbs to make adjectives like "the kickable cow" or "the eatable cow" (eatable -> edible). Even then, this form could be reformed as "the cow which can be kicked" or "the cow which can be eaten" but in this form, you can't tell if "kicked" and "eaten" are verbs or adjectives!! Alternatively, different forms of verbs or adjectives are not ambiguous, as in "the cow which can be happy" (obvious adjective) or "the cow which can eat" (obvious verb).

With this stuff in mind, I'd like to have a unique special adverb for each regular verb usage (where English uses modals to change the verb's mood), with each special adverb having a closely related adjective uses.

Actually, I think I've got it working... For now at least.

Currently, if you want to make a gerund adjective out of a verb, you use the following format:

(article, etc) hasa (verb) + AL (noun)
An example of this could be "hasa holsal postu" which is equivalent to English "reserving post" in the same sense that the English one really means "the post (which is reserving)." The special adverb "hasa" is used because the verb's action is "done to" the noun, but the verb's action is only used in description, not actually the point of the sentence (which is left up to a regular verb).

You only use "hasa" to imply that the noun has the property of doing something! If you want to use the verb as a noun, you do NOT use this method. There will be a method later on for using verbs as nouns. If this doesn't make much sense, just think that if you can put the phrase "the act of" in front of the verb in the English translation, then it needs to be used as a noun. An example: "I like (the act of) cooking" where "cooking" is a verb used as a noun. Oppositely: "That (the act of) running man is tired" where "the act of" doesn't fit, "running" is used as an adjective and the "hasa" method is acceptable.

If you want to make a participle adjective (?) out of a verb, you use this format:

(article, etc)
An example of this could be "kisa holsal postu" which is equivalent to English "reserved post" in the same sense that the English one really means "the post (which is or has been reserved)." The special adverb "kisa" is used because the verb's action is "done to" the noun, but the verb's action is only used in description, not actually the point of the sentence (which is left up to a regular verb).

Similarly to above, you do NOT use this method to turn a verb into a noun. You would not use this form to translate the English "the frustrated often blame false causes" where "frustrated" is a noun formed from "to frustrate" meaning "those who are frustrated." You would have to say "frustrated people often blame..." and include the noun "people" while using "frustrated" in the "kisa" adjective form.


- - -
I don't want this conlang to have a lot of suffixes, so I figure I will make a few phrases or particles or something to explicitly state some things that English incorporates into suffixes. For example, you don't need a suffix meaning "able to" as in "this cleanable dish ...," you have to say "this dish can be cleaned."

On second thought, it might be easier to drop the whole phrase thing and go with more adverbs. So instead of "this dish can be cleaned" which maybe you could say for emphasis or clarity, you would say something like "this possibly cleanable dish ..." This sounds a little ambiguous in English since the adverb "possibly" indicates uncertainty, but there's no way to actually transliterate an adverb meaning "able to" in English. Hopefully you get the idea that the adverb meaning "able to" would mean just that, that the adjective it's modifying becomes "certainly able to be ___ed" within proper context.


EDIT!

Apparently I've been getting my terms confused... What I've been calling a gerund is actually the "active participle" and what I've been calling a participle is more specifically the "passive participle." A gerund is really just a verb used as a noun in the "-ing" form.

This is great, actually, because it helps me clarify that "hasa" is used when the noun has the property of doing something (ie actively), but "kisa" is used when the noun has the property of something done to it (ie passively). You might look up "passive" or "passive voice" or "passive mood" or related terms to get just what passive means in the grammatical sense, if I haven't made it clear enough.

Well I think I've got this down for the most part, though making a logical system for creating the equivalent of English's suffix adverbs (-able/-ible, etc) may be a little more confusing. And I still need to elaborate on the verbs and the special adverbs.

Hmm. I'm thinking "isa" for "yay." You'd say it like "Yiiiisa!"



Also: It's my birthday! I'm 20 years old now!


And now I can legitimately say, "You teenagers get off mah lawn!" XD

:geezer:

Thanks!

...Dang, I wonder if they make egg-proof heavy-duty paint... *grumble*

Oh Crap!


It's been more than a month... I can't let this conlang die!


*scrambles...*