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.

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