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.

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.

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"

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.

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"

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.

Kareyku verbs, Direct/inverse voice

Recently I've decided to lean towards a direct/inverse voice in Kareyku. This would allow for potentially better structures and leads to new options in expression. I've decided the flow should follow a hierarchy, so with this new plan the transitions would be:

1. 1st > someone, -ka
2. 2nd > someone (3rd, 3rd.a), -da
3. 3rd > someone (3rd.a), -ta

This would go for the direct voice, the inverse voice would reverse the flow, so, with the inverse you would have:

1. 1st < someone, -talka
2. 2nd < someone, -talda
3. 3rd < someone, -talta

So in this new plan there is more clarity but at the same time I've managed to preserve the ambiguities. And the infix only reverts the hierarchical flow in 1 step. So a sentence would look like:

qorikas, qoritalkas?

I love you, do you love me?

With the proper evidentials. It is worth noting that the inverse could be taken as "do you love me" or even "am I loved?" if you decide to use the 3rd person, you get a kind of impersonal or passive construction.

qoritaltan

Someone loves him, I hear.

If clarity is needed, pronouns should be used. Maybe pen toritalkas? would appear clearer to avoid confusion, although context may make them unnecessary, as Kareyku is a pro-drop language with a lot of contextual information needed.

The Conditional

Kareyku has a Conditional mood used for polite asking and suppositions as well. Actually this and the Future Tense actually stem from a quite particular development in Kareyku grammar. It is believed that Old Kareyku actually only distinguished between Realis and Irrealis moods. Part of this can be seen in that the "pure" verbal themes seem to be the Present Simple for the Realis mood and the Future/Conditional for the Irrealis which split into two early in Kareyku's history. The distinction originally was that of "what really happens" and what "didn't really happen".

The first development of Kareyku grammar seems to be the Past Tense, which stems from the Present (note that both use the same particles) plus a Reportative Evidential, that is to say the -n. This seems to point to the origin of Past as a reporting of the Present, "they say this happened". For the Irrealis "that has not really happened" it split into two from the same root, the "has not happened yet", i.e. the Future and the "has not happened but could", i.e. what would evolve to the Conditional. Interestingly enough they come from an Old K. *-kœː- for the positive and *-kœːi- with i-umlaut for the negative, which extended its root thus; *-kœː- > *-kœːʲœ-; and *-kœːʲœi- with expected turns towards o-coloring and e-coloring for positive and negative.

Thusly we arrive to the Conditional:

1. expressed by infix -ko-
2. expressed by infix -do-
3. expressed by infix -to-



For the positive and:


1. expressed by infix -keye-
2. expressed by infix -deye-
3. expressed by infix -teye-


For the negative. Whence specialists believe that the original sequence -ko/-ki was positive Conditional, Irrealis, or Theoretical mood, and negative Future. In Classic and Archaic poetry the positive conditional is often employed as a refined positive future, with the sense "this could come to happen". All this is in agreement with the fact that Kareyku culture considers certainty as undesirable or otherwise impolite, so you can say for instance that "the stars will not fall" but "the Sun could always rise", asserting a truth unchecked in the positive is irrespectful to both humans and nature alike.

The Future Tense

Under the new development of Kareyku we would only have 3 transitions according to hierarchy. The Future Tense would be expressed then:

1. expressed by infix -keyo-
2. expressed by infix -deyo-
3. expressed by infix -teyo-

Pretty simple, this would get us such constructions as:

qappakeyo I will eat
tokiteyo He will protect

Further developed with evidentials:

qappakeyo-s  I will eat (fact)
oshan tokiteyo-n I hear he will protect them
tanadeyo-ch You will speak to him (I assume)

As for their negative forms:

1. expressed by infix -ki-

2. expressed by infix -di-

3. expressed by infix -ti-

pile qappakis I will not eat fish

oshan tanakilcha I will obviously not talk to them

Relative clitic

The equivalent of a relative clause is dealt in Kareyku with a Relative clitic. The clitic is attached as a normal suffix at the end of the noun and the declension if any. The clitic is -ja and such examples exist as:

vineru-ja       kevire       qappa-ta-l     pile

person-REL    never       eat-4T-EVD     fish

"A person who is known to never eat fish"

The clitic is highly productive and somewhat related to the topic marker, -ejen.

Karey-ja            tan-ey-ta          poko-lyo

Kareyku-REL     speak-IMP-4T    house-LOC

"The Kareyku spoken at home" or "The Kareyku as spoken at home"

Impersonal infix

Kareyku has an impersonal infix -ey- attached to the verb. So for example, in sentences:

     tan-ey-te               odanu          poko-lyo

speak-IMP-4T.NEG   you-POSS       house-LOC

This can be translated into "He doesn't speak at your house" or "One doesn't speak at your home". In addition the -ey- infix can be used to make a kind of irrealis construction approximate to subjunctive.

shin          ikejen         tyasa      tan-ey-te

3RD.SG     I-TOP        prefer     speak-IMP-4T.NEG

I prefer he didn't speak

Pretty simple, but it can be used in so many constructions and variations, also compounded with the evidentials and others.

The Topic Marker

Kareyku employs what is called a Topic Marker. This marker varies greatly depending on the language, in the case of Kareyku it not only serves to mark the topic of a statement, but also can be translated as "in regards to" or "talking about...", so for instance you can use it in a sentence like

mas-ejen    qappa-ka-l        pilé

food-TOP   eat-2TR-EVD    fish

Regarding food, I'm known to eat fish

It can also mean "I prefer fish" or "I like fish the most". The topic marker being -ejen and replacing any final vowels, it can also be used with pronouns, in which case they have some different kind of forms, so ikan '1st sg.' would turn into ikejen and pen '2nd sg.' would be pejen. So, as can be seen it is used to specify.

kar-ejen       tana-ka-ch        Karey-qa

speech-TOP   speak-2TR-EVD   Kareyku-INSTR

As regards to languages, I speak Kareyku

This last one uses the suffix -qa which means 'by means of' and is used in such constructions. Note that the name Kareyku will be rendered Karey- when any suffixes are used. It can also be used in other senses, for example with the question adverb to specify the subject of the question

Cham-ejen   tana-da-s?

what-TOP      speak-3EV-EVD?

What are you talking about?

And this would be answered of course using the topic marker, so

pok-ejen

about a house/houses

Always remembering that it can refer to a single house previously mentioned or maybe to houses in general, depending on the context.

Declarative particles

As Kareyku lacks a copular verb it relies in declarative particles. This particles are used to express a state or mood, there are three declarative particles in Kareyku. The first particle is la which mean a 'state or mood in which the subject is feeling or being', so, for example, to express such a construction as 'I'm happy' would be realized in Kareyku as

wilé la
happiness DECL
I'm happy or I feel like happiness

In this particular case the person feeling happy is gathered from context. If I express it, or declare it, I am the one who must be happy. The second particle is ku which means 'to be in a stance for' barely.

tanaka ku
speak-1T DECL
I'm ready to speak to you

To express you are ready to engage some activity. It also depends on the context, but in this case the one who is ready is the same as the subject of the verb. There is a subtle difference between the two of the above expressed declarative particles. For example to express to different things about one verb

qappaka la
eat-2T DECL
I feel like eating or I'm hungry/I want to eat

compare to

qappaka ku
eat-2T DECL
I'm ready to eat

The first could be understood to mean 'I'm hungry' or 'I'm in the mood to eat (something)' this relies heavily in context, while the second can be said when you take your sit at the table and want the feast to commence, or maybe when you want someone to start serving the food. You can always add evidentials to these. The last declarative particle is shu this is not really a particle in the same sense as the others, but Kareyku grammarians still do group it as a declarative particle. It means completion of an action or to do something until the end. This is mostly used when ordering something to be carried through.

qappada shu!
eat-3T DECL
Eat up! or eat it all!

You can hear a mother say to her child. Needless to say it has some other uses, such as if someone wants to tell you something but takes a lot to finally say what he means to say, you can always snarl

ikan tanada shu!
1st say-3T DECL
Tell me already!

In this sentence the meaning is the same as the translation, and you can thus see how important context is in Kareyku specially in relation to the declarative particles which are widely used. This is the same kind of particle you use in the respectful greeting pendibeki wilé ladome, the evidential always attached to the declarative particle.

About ambiguity in Kareyku

As you may have noticed in previous posts, the transitions do not cover all the who-to-whom possibilities in Kareyku. While you have transitions which clearly state from 1st person to both 2nd and 3rd person independently, you don't have this from 2nd and 3rd person subjects. Thus -da can either mean you-to-me or you-to-him/her/it, and the same goes for -ta, which can mean either 3rd-to-me, 3rd-to-you or even 3rd-to-3rd (a different 3rd person that is, since you have a reflexive).

Tokida you protect me/he/she/it
Tokita he/she/it protects me/you/him/her/it

So, how can you clearly mark the object or patient in this sentences? Well, Kareyku relies in these cases in context. But even when context is not clear enough you can always use the independent pronouns to mark it. In those cases where you mark the pronoun, the subject will always be understood to be the subject of the transition.

Shin tokida you protect him (you are protecting him)
Odan tokita he protects you (he's protecting you)

Pretty simple. To this, of course many additions can be made. For example the use of prepositions or even evidentials.

ikani odan tokitas.
1st-ADD 2nd protect-4T-EV
He is protecting you with me

I thought this was worth mentioning. Needless to say, the object or patient of the transition can be either omitted or expressed. In those cases where the patient is a pronoun to over express it will have an emphatic sense, otherwise it's just correct.

tokikal ikanu lani
protect-2T-EV 1st-GEN heart
I am known for protecting my heart

Evidentials focus

As mentioned before, the evidentials can be affixed to verbs, nouns or adjectives with different results. In fact in a sentence the place where one affixes the evidentials makes subtle changes in the sense of the sentence. For example, if we go back to our sample sentence: qappaka pile.

Using the "hear-say evidential" we can get qappakan pile or qappaka pilen. The first one means "I've heard I eat fish", while the second would be closer in meaning to "Fish is what I've heard I eat". The difference is very subtle, but can be used for rhetorical purposes.

In fact qappakach pile means "I assume I eat fish", but qappaka pilech means "I assume that what I eat is fish". That's why a sentence like qappaka piles sounds a lot like "What I'm eating IS fish". Depending where the evidential is placed the focus shifts.

Evidentials usage

To clear up some doubts about evidentials I will clarify some with examples. For instance, how the "obvious evidential" is used. It is the equivalent to the usage we give to tone in this context, "duh!" and the like.

In a given dialogue:

- Chaman koy?
- pilelcha!

This can be translated into:

- What is this?
- Duh! It's a fish! or It's a fish, don't you see it?

Hence the interpretation as a rude or very informal referential. The "fact evidential" is really more neutral, but still informal. While it is common in normal speech, it can be rude using it to someone you don't know or an elder, or someone who deserves respect altogether.

Now the "infamous evidential" always marks someone for something his famous for abusing. For instance if you say qappatal can mean "he is famous for eating" as in "he enjoys it very much". But saying qappatalya will yield the sense "he is famous for eating" as in "he can't stop eating" or "he's a fat-ass". This ending used to be the much more formal, much older form of -l, used about people like the king "his majesty is most famous for defeating his enemies" and over time through popular usage it came to be pejorative but in a sense of excess.

Even if between friends you would tend to use -s the "fact evidential" it would be good to remind that when facing someone's father, for instance, it'd probably be better to use -sha "I believe". Even in the same example as before:

- Chaman koy?
- What is this?
- pilesha.
- I believe it is fish.

While you could answer pile or piles to a friend or acquaintance.

odanibeki las wile.
I'm happy for being with you.

Evidentials

Evidentials are used in Kareyku to mark how evident one statement is or the source of said statement. Only one evidential marker can be used each time, and they can be used either with verbs, adjectives or nouns. There are seven evidentials in Kareyku:

-s, -si Determines that the statement is fact either empiric or to the speaker.
-n, -ni Determines that the speaker heard about the statement.
-ch, -chi Determines that the speaker assumes the statement to be true.
-l, -li Determines that the thing being referred is famous for doing what is stated.

-sha Determines that the speaker "believes" the statement to be true.
-lya Determines that the thing being referred is infamous for doing what is stated.
-lcha Determines that the statement is obvious.

So for instance, if we have the previous example sentence: qappaka pile 'I eat fish'. We can further develop it into:

qappakas pile. I eat fish (it's a fact, I'm doing it).
qappakan pile. I eat fish (I have heard, I don't remember).
qappakach pile. I eat fish (I assume, because I'm eating it).
qappakal pile. I eat fish! (I'm famous for that!)

qappakasha pile. I believe I eat fish.
qappakalya pile. I eat fish (I'm infamous for it, because I eat too much or I don't finish them).
qappakalcha pile. I eat fish (duh! It's obvious!)

Evidentials have an active role in formality and informality contrast and in politeness vs. rudeness. For instance, it is considered in Kareyku culture that you should not always be sure of things you say, even when talking about yourself the continuous use of the "fact evidential" can result in rudeness. The rudest of them all, of course, is the "obvious evidential" which is considered very aggressive and rude, you should never point out to others they don't know something, even when you are right or even if the fact is really obvious.

The case with the "infamous evidential" is interesting. It used to be a respectful or augmentative equivalent of the "famous evidential" but as time passed it started to be felt pompous and so developed as a satirical comment, thus infamity for doing something too much.

Transitions

Kareyku doesn't use pronominal affixes per se. Although it does have independent pronouns the verb is inflected with what are called "transitions". The transitions indicate the "who to whom" character of the verb. There are 3 main transitions:

From 1st person to someone else
From 2nd person to someone else
From 3rd person to someone else

In the last two cases independent pronouns are provided to avoid confusion when needed. The logic for Kareyku speakers behind this is that you can only know your intentions. When someone has a present only the giver can know if you are going to give the present to me or to him, hence, the most complete transitions are from the first person, the one I'm sure.

Transition 1 is expressed by infix -ka
Transition 2 is expressed by infix -da
Transition 3 is expressed by infix -ta

This transitions are only for the Present tense. Kareyku doesn't use a negative particle, there are two different conjugations, positive and negative, for each tense. The negatives being:

Transition 1 is expressed by infix -ke
Transition 2 is expressed by infix -de
Transition 3 is expressed by infix -te

So, if you have the verb qappa 'to eat', qappaka means 'I eat (it)'. If you use pilé meaning 'fish' then you get qappaka pilé 'I eat fish' and the negative would be qappake pilé 'I don't eat fish'. The transitions are needed even when there is a subject present, and intransitive verbs take a transition as a subject but regardless the object. Thus, qappaka, can mean 'I eat (it)' as well as 'I am eating'.