Nouns, Smarticles and Pronouns
PluralizationSagan nouns are not that hard to learn either. In difference to verbs and adjectives, nouns can end in any letter, except for -
a. There are no articles in Sagan, so you don't have to worry about that. There is not much more to say, so I'll just show you the pluralization:
noo --> nonoo
saami --> sasaamiRecognize this pattern? It's the same thing as with the passive voice; reapeat the first syllable of a noun and you get several of it. This does not work with mass nouns, obviously.
SmarticlesIn Sagan, there is a number of prefixes used instead of prepositions and word order. I've chosen to call them
smarticles, because they sometimes function as particles. They are similar to cases, but I prefer not to call them that, since I don't know how the entire case system works. This might be a little different from normal cases. So, the different smarticles are all without syllabic onsets, that is, they're vowels added in the beginning of words. Let's take a look:
i --> (subject/patient)
a --> (agent)
u --> (direction)
o --> (place)
eo --> (manner)
eu --> (time)I marks the
performer of an active verb or the
patient of a passive verb. Example:
Inoo kiibuha. - [ (subj)1st write ] - I write.Here's where the
i marks the subject of an active verb, i.e. the performer. In the following example, the
i marks the patient of a passive verb, i.e. the one upon whom the action is performed:
Iweoo kigiibuha. - [ (subj)script (pass)write ] - The script was written.Get it? Moving on!
A marks the
performer of a passive verb, and not the performer of an
active verb. It could be compared to the English word
by, as in "this was done
by him".
Iweoo anoo kigiibuha. - [ (subj)script (agt)I (pass)write ] - The script was written by me. / I wrote the script.People who know grammar well have told me this is an ergative language, so I guess we should rely on that then. I personally have no idea, but it might for sure be ergative, at least since there is no accusative, right? Oh well, on topic again. The four last smarticles share many similarities with the Japanese particles
ni and
de.
U,
o,
eo and
eu are used for telling direction, place, manner and time respectively.
Uxigaahi naalawa. - [ (dir)town go ] - (I) go to town.Iweoo umii kigiibuha. - [ (subj)script (dir)you (pass)write ] - The script was written for you.
Lol, I feel like I'm coding something when I write the part in the literal translation in the middle...As you can see,
u can be used both for geographical directions (to, from) and when you're doing something
for someone. I don't know if that's a geographical direction too, or if there is a geographical direction at all. But I just wanted to point out that
u had (at least) two counterparts in English. Anyway, next smarticle up is
o. It is used when telling the location of an action, hrm-hm:
Iweoo okoodu kigiibuha. - [ (subj)script (loc)forest (pass)write ] - The script was written in the forest.How mysterious, no? Not really, but it's functionable. Next one:
Inoo uxigaahi eowuloogeu naalawa. - [ (subj)1st (dir)town (man)bus go ] - I go to town by bus.The example above introduces us to the smarticle
eo. Use it when you wanna tell some one
how you did something, kinda. In English one would use
by or
with for this purpose. Whatever, last one now;
eu.
Eu is used for telling time or
when something happened. Example:
Eusaa diimo naalawa. - [(time)next day go ] - We'll go tomorrow.Yeah, I guess that's all I had to say about nouns and smarticles. Hope you learned something new!
biggrin PronounsOkay, a little different from the way pronouns usually work. There are no words for the third person (he, she, it, they), but the words for
I and
you exist;
noo and
mii respectively. When refering to the third person, nouns are used instead, commonly
xuu,
human, for people.
The closest to pronouns you get is the smarticle system. When they're words of their own instead of prefixes they kinda function as pronouns. Example:
Uxigaahi naalawa. Uu anoo luluuba. - [ (dir)town go. (dir.ref) (agt)I (pass)like ] - We're going to town. I like the town.Uu refers to the word with the smarticle
u in front of it, in this case
city. It does not mean
to the city. Another example:
Eonoo a Kevin imii mi sabiigo hahaawa. Aeoo uaa ixii xii sasaama. - [ (man)I (agt)Kevin (sub)you (poss) news (pass)hear. (agt)(man.ref) (dir)(agt.ref) (sub)thing (rep) say ] - Kevin heard about you from me. I tell him everything.Woah, two smarticle pronouns at the same time! But it's the same thing again;
aeoo represents
noo from the previous sentence (not
eonoo) and
uaa would be the same as
Kevin (and again, not
a Kevin). Both have of course new smarticles attached, since they are given different positions in the second sentence.
