Admonitive mood

The Admonitive is a rare mood I must confess, it is a somewhat cousin to the Imperative but asking for someone to grant permission to do something. In any case it implies the meaning of "letting someone do something", instead of complete commanding of something. As it adds an argument it stands quite differently from the imperative, it does not have a particular transition all to itself, but rather uses a suffix attached to a transition. Let's get a look at it:

If I can say:

tanakas, I speak

You can use the imperative: tananma, speak!

Or the admonitive: tanakabin, let me speak!

You could also add a pronoun, so you would get:

shiran tanakebin, don't let me speak to him!

And you can take it a step further:

yaran tanatebinsi, don't let him speak to me! (Using the factual evidential)

Historically one might argue that the suffix started off as a particle that quickly got fossilized into the verb. This particular mood is mostly used to ask any kind of permission and also in very polite contexts to allow for the recipient to grant a good wish upon the speaker. More on that soon.

Numerals, part 2

We've seen numerals in Kareyku before up to the number 10. And this is the important part, because after that numerals become very predictable. To get the number following the 10, you just join 10 + number, so, if we continue with this logic we get:

haru-tiri, haru-kana, haru-hatiri, haru-hakana, haru-soka, haru-nawa, haru-hasoka, haru-hanawa, haru-naka.

The list might make this more simple:

Number	Kareyku
11	haru-tiri
12	haru-kana
13	haru-hatiri
14	haru-hakana
15	haru-soka
16	haru-nawa
17	haru-hasoka
18	haru-hanawa
19	haru-naka
20	kana-haru

From this point forward the numerals will repeat themselves in the same pattern, reverting the order for the tens. Finally we should note that the number 100 is not haru-haru, but qayo.

Imperative mood

The imperative mood has a particular form in Kareyku. In essence it only works for the second person and it's the same whether it is singular or plural. The form it uses is somewhat strange due to historical changes which I will not discuss here (but may in the future). The form is: -nma, and it is inflected just like any other well-born transition has been inflected up to this point.

ikan tokinma!, protect me!

qappanma shu!, eat up!

You may ask yourself if one can use it in the passive, well yes you can. The form would be then;

tokeyma!, be protected!

I'm imagining it would be used as a kind of farewell or good wish. Note how the -n- drops but the infix remains the same. Now you may be wondering if the detransitive suffix will cause any problems, since it is essentially an -l- and it creates quite a pickle there. The answer is, the -nma applies for both transitive and intransitive verbs alike:

marinma!, come!

tinma!, do it!

tananma!, speak!

And so, the imperative can be used in all the tenses, but this would be very hard for me to explain without resorting to Ancient Greek. I will expand on this delicate item later on.

How to Present a Verb?

After looking at all the different tenses and moods one might justly ask, how then do I enunciate a verb in Kareyku? Or what's the equivalent to an infinitive/gerund in Kareyku? As it happens, there is such a form. In Kareyku the intransitive form in the third person is used to convey what other languages do by way of the infinitive or a noun gerund form.

qappalta, to eat/the eating

tokilta, to defend/the defending

Or to make a sentence;

qappalta pile gade, "eating fish is good"

So in this case it's a general statement that eating fish is something good or healthy. It can also be used as purpose constructions such as English "to eat", example:

marinma tokilta odanu inwa, "come to defend your son"

Numerals, part 1

The Kareyku numeric system is very odd. Not because of the names of the numerals, which are quite regular and in accordance to the language constraints, but because the counting defies any formal explanation, or at least, for all of them but the last too. The system is mainly decimal, and a historical analysis points towards the hands having been used at some point. The numerals are as follows:

Number	Kareyku
1	tiri
2	kana
3	hatiri
4	hakana
5	soka
6	nawa
7	hasoka
8	hanawa
9	naka
10	haru

So, as can be seen here we have a clear sequence of groups of 2 or 4, that is tiri, kana, and then hatiri and hakana, which mean roughly "other 1" and "other 2" respectively. The last two number I have said had explanations in that 9 is clearly the word naka, "close, almost", and number 10 is haru "complete, perfect". One could consider this to be evidence of an older 4-based or 8-based system supplemented with a newer decimal system, but it nonetheless strikes as quite weird.

The numerals are used preceding the noun or object they modify:

naka vineru, nine men

hakana taro, four fathers

hasoka nakem, seven trees

And present no irregularities or variabilities.

Detransitive suffix

You've read right, I meant a suffix that "detransitivizes" the verb if that has any sense at all. Bear with me, what I mean is that all Kareyku verbs are naturally transitive or ditransitive, but what if you need an intransitive verb? Well, you would use this crafty suffix to reduce the arguments to zero. The suffix, of course, takes all evidentials (and it will) and transitions, its form is an -l- inserted before the corresponding transition and we can see some examples:

We have our always useful verb qappa- "eat", normally we would use a transition;

qappata, he eats

But this actually means literally "he eats (something)", it implies that he's eating something, like a fish, meat, vegetables (yeah, right!) or something. When we use this suffix, though, we get;

qappalta, he eats

In this other case I'm just stating that he eats. It can mean "he eats (everyday)" or "he eats" (i.e. "he can eat"), it means all the other uses that are intransitive. So for example;

kolto marilta, he comes here

Of course we can inflect it for time, so one would treat the -ta as a normal transition, thus;

kolto marilten, he didn't come here

pokolto marilteyos, he shall come home

We can even further inflect it for the desiderative form:

taro mariltaltech, "father doesn't want to come"

Let's leave the entry with a final weird sentence:

pole nakem lau lopalkas, "I live on top of a great tree"

Familial terms, part 2

Now it's the turn of the parents. We have two main terms for the parents, respectively taro and kami for father and mother. The history of the term "kami" seems to have come from an older root "kam-" of uncertain origins, which has been relegated to other compounds related to the "mother". For instance the word for the maternal grandfather is "kemu"while the maternal grandmother is "hanta". The word for grandmother "hanta" also seems to use some kind of old productive compounding, since the word incorporates a suffix similar to that of the mother-in-law, kata.

The term for both parents is okomi, which means the pair of the mother and father. Again as it so happens in Kareyku the more idiomatic term for the father is "oko" almost as "papa", which in turn might be related to the term "sekko" which is the paternal grandfather.

Another term with which a father may refer to his son is awo, "blood", and many other similar expressions remarking the bond of blood that a father and offspring share.

odan, inwa, ikanu awo
"you, my son, are my blood"

Suffixes revisited: The Desiderative Suffix

The Desiderative is properly a mood, not a tense, in Kareyku it is an infix that's attached to the verb and precedes the transition. This suffix is a reworking of a previous suffix I've mentioned, I'll make sure to straighten the whole thing up. In any case, the suffix is -tal- and we have some examples:

qappaka, I eat

qappatalka, I want to eat

This is how the Desiderative form works, pretty simple. If you want to negate the verb, you simply apply the negative transitions and you are done:

qappatalke, I don't want to eat

yeppatalke, I don't want to serve

This applies for all transitions and evidentials, of course;

inech yeppatalken, "yesterday I didn't want to attend you"

And we can even further apply other moods or voices, such as the passive;

kolla tokeytaltas, "the country wants to be protected"

Having set free this infix, I thought of reworking it into something much more useful such as this Desiderative form. In this way, nothing has been lost but a useful tool has been created to form such sentences as;

kollakume tokeytaltach, "for the sake of the country he wants to be protected"

Passive revisited

Now to clear up the passive voice in Kareyku. The passive uses the impersonal suffix -ey, but adds onto it the corresponding transition which, therefore, will have a passive meaning. This is the more idiomatic way of conveying a reversal of the normal flow of the transition, some examples:

awi chaqqeytas, "the field is plowed"

To which we can add;

awi odanqa chaqqeytas, "the field is plowed by you"

kukun taroqa weneytanchi, "a bird was bought by my father", "my father bought a bird", lit. "acquired"

Talking about this being a more idiomatic way to reverse the natural flow of transitions, I give you these examples (remember Kareyku very often leaves pronouns out, specially in conversations):

qorikas, qoreykas?, "I care for you, do you care for me?" lit. "am I cared (by you)?"

This absence of pronouns will depend on context, since Kareyku is context-dependent. However, they are marked when they are needed or when you want to indicate an action was done for someone else, let's see an example of this last situation:

waka taroqa yaran weneytansi, "my father got me a wife"

By this last sentence I don't mean, as in the previous example, that the wife was "bought" but was rather "acquired" as in an arranged marriage. This, by the way, was a very common practice of some Kareyku speakers.

Familial terms, part 1

Today I'll talk about some familial terms, words used to refer to different members of the family. This entry in particular will deal with the terms used for the offsprings. In Kareyku we have two different terms for this, on the one hand we have ile, which means literally "son", its feminine counterpart is ali, "daughter". But there is a more common term that's used, inwa, which is pretty neutral and means "child, offspring".

As of usage, the first term is mostly used in a formal context or a neutral context. The second term, inwa, is the more idiomatic and also it's highly employed as a vocative and term of endearment for both genders. As a result, one may speak of one's son and daughter, but address them as "child". A derived term from this is for example alile, which means "son and daughter".

ikanu alile yori seya, "my son and daughter are very young"

Also of note is that in Kareyku one does not say "I have X children", but rather "I live with X children", so for instance a person with a son and a daughter would say:

alileni lopalkas, "I have a son and a daughter"
literally: "I live with a son and a daughter"

And of course the famous phrase of respect for your in-laws:

ikanu waka odanu ali, shinu toru odanu ile
"my wife is your daughter, her husband is your son"

Suffixes revisited: Impersonal Suffix

Today I'm going to start a series of posts revising suffixes I've mentioned and straightening up their final forms and usages. I will start with the impersonal suffix used with verbs. The impersonal verbs are more commonly referred in English as the weather verbs, because they are mainly used in this regard. In some other languages, including Kareyku, the "impersonality" can be further extended to almost any verb to mean not a particular person. Some languages, like English, use a dummy pronoun (in this case "it") or like French with "on".

The impersonal suffix is -ey, and we can apply it to any verb, for example qappa- "to eat", giving:

Qappey, "one eats"

To exemplify its usage in a sentence:

ko-lyo save qapp-ey, "one eats well here"

It could just as well have been translated as "you can eat well here", or "one does eat well here". You can further apply adverbs like "always" or the like to imply different meanings. The suffix is quite productive and can be used with any other verb:

ikan ke odanu kemu taney, "it is said that I'm not your friend"

And of course, be used with evidentials;

ikan ke odanu kemu taney-n, "I heard it being said that I'm not your friend"

In expressions it often gives an idiomatic feel;

kopey shu?, "is it understood?" > "got it?"

And of course it can be used for all the weather verbs:

narey, "it rains"

Usage: particle shu

The perfective particle "shu" has an ample usage in everyday Kareyku. It's main function, as has been pointed out, is that of marking the perfective. It is mainly used with the past, but it can also be used with other tenses to give the idea that the action has been done entirely or has been done as a single complete event.

Also it can be used in composition with "yori" meaning "much, a lot" and in this case it has the meaning of "too much" and indicates that the grade of the adjective is excessive. In this case it denotes insatisfaction on the part of the speaker. As in these examples:

1. uwa yaran yori kolom shu.
[u.'wa ja.'ran yo.'ri ko.'lom ʃu]
"you are too phony for me"

It can even be used with some nouns, specially when talking about weather phenomena.

2. pokolyo yori are shu!
[po.ko.'ljo yo.'ri a.'re ʃu]
"It's too hot at home!"

The use of the many evidentials and particles may add different shades to the sentence, as in the case of the intensive particle "ya".

Particle wan

Today's entry is about the particle wan which means "it is needed, it is necessary". This particle is used in Kareyku in a similar way as the English construction "it must needs", but with some differences due to Kareyku's own grammar phenomena.

It is an invariable particle which precedes the verb it modifies. So for example the following sentence:

pile qappakas
[pi.'le qa.ppa.'kas]
I eat fish.

Turns to:

pile wan qappakas
[pi.'le waŋ qa.ppa.'kas]
I need to eat fish.

Just as easy. The question now is how to create a sentence of the likes of "I need you to eat fish", in this case we would change the flow of the verb (the suffix) but include a pronoun with topic marker preceding the particle. So:

pile ikejen wan qappadas

[pi.'le i.'ke.jen waŋ qa.ppa.'das]
I need you to eat fish.

The meaning here that it is one's need that the other person do the action, note that the flow is quite simple "you eat fish", and the pronoun would be modifying the particle, the needing of something. So it is my needing that you eat it, or "to my mind it is needed that you eat it".

arejen wan osha tanakash

[a.'ɾe.jen wan o.'ʃa ta.na.'kaʃ]
I think he needs me to speak to them.

This one is more complicated, but the analyses is the same. It is his need / I speak (to) them. The transition of the verb marks a flow from a 1st person singular to some other person, which is being explicitly marked by the pronoun "osha" (they) in this case.

A simple lesson for today and one more particle to get to know.