Rayne, a sentence is minimally a subject and a verb, but only the verb is absolutely obligatory. For example, the Latin

Quote:

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dormit [ dormi- sleep; -t he, she ] He/she is sleeping

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is a whole sentence. The -t tells us that someone's sleeping, but the subject doesn't need to be stated separately.

Styr�«¡sh word order, as far as I understand it from The Principles and can observe from the discussion in this thread, is

Quote:

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Verb - Subject - Object OR
Verb - Adverbial - Subject

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where the adverbial is an adverb (e.g. quickly) a prepositional phrase (e.g. in the house).

Question: What would the order of "[ The elves ] Subject [ are reading ] Verb [ books ] Object [ in the house ] Adverbial" be in Styr�«¡sh?

Dependent clauses usually follow the word they depend on. For instance, in

Quote:

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I retrieved [ the book [ under the chair ] ]

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"the book under the chair" is the direct object, but "under the chair" tells us something about the book. The sentence

Quote:

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Under the chair, I retrieved the book

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means something different since I now seem to be under the chair myself.   In other words, you can see how "under the chair" has to go with "book".

Same with relative clauses.

Quote:

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I retrieved [ the book [ which Rayne had knocked under the chair ] ]

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"The book which Rayne had knocked under the chair" is the object of "retrieved" and "which Rayne knocked under the chair" depends on "the book". (I do wish you'd take better care of your books     )

This is an interesting thread. I'm sorry I've been missing it.

Notes
1. There's currently no verb "to read" in Styr�«¡sh.
2. There's no word for "in" in the English-Styr�«¡sh word list. Or "into".
3. �«±s into isn't listed in the Styr�«¡sh-English word list, but even appears on the Styr�«¡sh Principles page.
4. There ought to be an indication in the word lists of what case each preposition takes.

Appendix
Here's the poem in a fairly literal translation into another conlang of mine.

Amhai �«±dei peiradh tor omena geile.
Loin' in-meredh hir henadh adh ene wen mith-ered.
Es�«¿ l�«Ñsai amatadh c�«¡ranen' �«¡rei
D�«Ñ hinda laisasil 'mhan tela c�«¡sa.

Rissardai auladh enn arda lai bainor
Ceth terei cidhatai in-na-m�«Ñdhui beimhei.
Waidhe ceremime d�«Ñ sarui s�«± t�«±a tor hette nidhata
Celno eudei emhan-cidhatai in-Foiros.

Lenn' ossai mandadh enn meredhe narnei.
Res selodh in-minn in-ass' enad ene c�«¡.
H�«±na l�«Ñs' amata c�«¡ranen' �«¡rei
D�«Ñ hinda laisasil 'mhan tela c�«¡sa.

Edited by: Anwulf at: 6/23/06 19:22

Alysse, I was hoping that I had the files with the edits that I made to your thread about Nybelmar, but I must've done them, and then copied and pasted the text to the board without saving the material afterwards. I'm not surprised you're well fed up after all the work you did on it.

As for anything else I've lent a hand with here, the writing will all be on the main Santharia website as far as I'm aware, although I've still got the notes to the piece Rayne wrote; I have a few notes on Thergerim, but I'm not sure they're of much use; I still have the web page I posted about Yffler for Wren here. Again, I'm not sure that's of much use.

I think after this that I'll be more diligent about saving files just in case.

I think I'm far from getting the hang of Styrásh, but this will help when it comes to the formation of new words.

I've thought of one other word

rigidity (n) inerá (f) — ín (adj) rigid

Also, I'd like to propose the suffix -(e)lán which would form verbs from adjectives, hence

activate (vb) soorelán
beautify (vb) avathelán
brighten (vb) enaellán
free (vb) enayelán
raise (vb) kailán
etc.

I won't go through a whole list.

I thought that the -e- would be omitted if

a.) the adjective ends in a vowel (e.g. melán (vb) to think highly of oneself < mé (adj) conceited) or
b.) the adjective ends in -l- (e.g. illán to enlarge < íl enormous)

This is in connection with the thread about noun affixes.

I went through the latest vocab lists I had, and created the following nouns from adjectives using the affixes listed in the grammar. This is all completely non-canonical, and I'm just inventing functions for each affix. I've put the source adjective in brackets after the entry. There are a couple of double entries where the same Styrásh word has been given two different, but related meanings in English.

None of the following words has any official status at the time of posting.

A
ability (n) arnerá (f) — (árn (adj) able)
activity soorál (m) — (soór (adj) active)
anger tanés (m) — (tán (adj) irate)
antiquity entinách (f) — (entiná (adj) ancient)
attraction gakkuá (f) — (gákk (adj) cute, little)

B
bulk ilár (f) — (íl (adj) enormous)

C
clarity leryráz (f) — (lerýr (adj) clear)

D
dark mohíl (m) — (móh (adj) dark)
depth morás (f) — (mór (adj) deep)

E
elegance vashenár (f) — (vashén (adj) graceful)

F
falsehood ishím (m) — (ísh (adj) false)
freedom enayái (f) — (enáy (adj) free)

G
glow enaelár (f) — (enáel (adj) bright)

H
height kaiól (m) — (kái (adj) high)

I
illusion deleró (f) — (dél magical)
isolation ylfferéth (m) — (ylffer (adj) alone, isolated)

L
liberty enayái (f) — (enáy (adj) free)

M
magic deleró (f) — (dél magical)

N
noise kreteníl (m) — (kretén (adj) loud)
novelty shenerá (f) — (shén (adj) new)

P
perfection ylfiaruá (f) — (ylfiár (adj) perfect)
protection eáj (f) — (eaá (adj) protective)
permanence inéf (f) — (ín (adj) permanent, rigid, stiff, fixed, unmoved)
piece linená (f) — (linén little, small)
purity raugierá (f) — (raugií (adj) pure)

S
saltiness puenér (m) — (púe-én (adj) salty)
silence salenár (f) — (salén (adj) quiet)
size unnáo (f) — (únn (adj) big, huge)
softness munér (m) — (mún (adj) soft)

T
talent shireníc (m) — (shirén (adj) clever)
tastiness shigenál — (shi-gén (adj) tasty)

V
vanity merá (f) < [[mé] erá] — (mé (adj) conceited, vain)

Edited by: Anwulf at: 6/5/06 14:23

I guess unless Artimidor says that Styrásh does something different, it'd be OK for you to use jhéhelli "revolting" as an adjective.

I know it's a bit late to make this observation, but "revolting" can also be an adjective as in "What a revolting smell!"

I can't remember the rule for this off the top of my head, but only certain types of verbs can be used as adjectives in their present participial form. Another couple of examples are "continuing" and "fascinating".

However, Styrásh won't necessarily form deverbal adjectives in the same way.

The following sorts of affixes would be useful for you. I've tried to give examples of different sorts of derivation in certain classes, or examples of the different suffixes used in English. Languages often have several means of deriving one word class from another.

There may also be gaps in the equation. The verbs I've given below as an example of verbs that remain verbs even although the prefix changes have the corresponding nouns deception, conception, and reception, but the verb corresponding to exception is except, not *exceive. If you throw in the occasional exception, it makes the language seem more natural.

Nouns —» Adjectives (e.g. fun (n) — funn-y (adj); wonder (n) — wonder-ful (adj); Dane (n) — Dan-ish (adj); origin (n) — origin-al (adj))
Nouns —» Verbs (e.g. critic (n) — critic-ise (vb))
Nouns —» Nouns (e.g. science (n) — scient-ist (n))

Adjectives —» Nouns (e.g. sad (adj) — sad-ness (vb); brutal (adj) — brutal-ity (n); ignorant (adj) — ignorance (n))
Adjectives —» Verbs (e.g. strong (adj) — strength-en (vb))
Adjectives —» Adverbs (e.g. strong (adj) — strong-ly (adv))
Adjectives —» Adjectives (e.g. small (adj) — small-ish (adj))

Verbs —» Nouns (e.g. establish (vb) — establish-ment (n); contract (vb) — contract-ion (n); run (vb) — runn-er (n))
Verbs —» Adjectives (e.g. rely (vb) — reli-able (adj); respond (vb) — respons-ive (adj))
Verbs —» Verbs (e.g. con-ceive, de-ceive, re-ceive)

Yes, you ought to be able to do that.

From the list you've got, most of these look like verbal prefixes with the following exceptions:

dis is like English un- which is typically used with adjectives.

ko looks pejorative rather than negative, per se.

un forms adjectives from nouns by the looks of it, since UnSthommErons could also mean "(the) stony (ones)".

yeh forms action nouns from the place where an activity occurs. If the word is "school" the action noun would be "schooling" or "teaching".

ek and il for the comparative and superlative of adjectives.

-yim clearly forms agent nouns.

It should be useful for anyone engaged in this exercise.

I know from long experience that when it comes to creating conlangs that it's useful to have a framework. Random accretions can result in messiness later on when you're trying to work out which morpheme does what.

Styrásh already has a whole bunch of suffixes

Typical endings of nouns
Masculine endings:
-aér, -aín, -ál, -ála, -ásh, -én, -ér, -és, -éth, -éy, -íc, -íl, -ím, -ín, -ír, -óc, -óg, -ól, -ón, -ór, ós

Feminine endings:
-á, -ách, -aí, -áj, -án, -aó, -ár, -ás, -áz, -áth, -éf, -él, -erá, -eró, -eú, -euá, -ía, -iár, -ly, -só, -thán, -uá, -ýr

but their functions need to be classified. Which ones are deadjectival? Which ones are deverbal? Which ones are denominal?

Art, you already have a whole bunch of suffixes in the grammar, but they appear to be unclassified with regard to their function.

Also, I know this is going to sound like me nagging  , but it would help if you had a clear idea of the general categories of derivation, viz.

a. denominal verbs
b. denominal adjectives
c. pejoratives
d. diminutives
e. denominal agent nouns
f. augmentatives

(Added augmentatives. This covers things like the super- of supermarket.)

There are some other categories I can think of, but that's where things start getting complicated.

a. and b. involve a change in word class. The remaining three are just different forms of nouns.

Many languages distinguish between agent nouns from verbs (e.g. run, runner) and agent nouns from other nouns (e.g. science, scientist; music, musician).

That, of course, doesn't really cover the full range of possible derivations from one word class to another (e.g. nouns from adjectives; verbs from adjectives etc.).

As for orthography, I know that the principle with compounds in Styrásh is to indicate morpheme boundaries with apostrophes, but derivational morphemes are all bound (that is, cannot occur independently of a stem), so I'd recommend writing the stem + morpheme as a single unit (which is the norm in every written language I'm aware of).

All right, that's enough trouble-making from me for the moment, but it should give you an idea of the sort of thigs you need to be thinking about.

Edited by: Anwulf at: 6/3/06 4:00

Mina, you could be right. Your English may well influence your Mandarin, perhaps in a way that wouldn't happen here on the mainland. I must have a look at my Chinese grammars and see if they have anything insightful to say.

It may depend on the variety, but you can pro-drop in Mandarin. Perhaps you have to say, "so long as the context is known". In other words, if you know I'm the speaker, then I don't have to say &#25105; "wo". The impression I get is that Chinese drops subject pronouns more readily than English. However, I won't argue with a native speaker.

Japanese is similar because although the verb lacks personal endings, the subject may be left as understood.

In Italian, on the other hand, you can pro-drop quite freely because the endings of the verb tell you who's saying what.

That varies from language to language. Some languages are called pro-drop languages, because they don't require subject pronouns. Italian is an example of a pro-drop language. In that case, the ending tells me which person is speaking (just as it does in Styrásh). Chinese is also a pro-drop language, but the context is important because the verb lacks personal endings.

English belongs to the other camp. In English, an overt subject is required even when the verb has an inflectional ending. I have to say, He sees a cat. I can't say *Sees a cat. But just because a language has a high degree of verbal inflection probably doesn't mean that it's automatically a pro-drop language.

There are exceptions in English in certain styles of writing such as diaries where it's not unusual to drop the subject (e.g. Got up just after 10am. Went to town this afternoon etc.). You know that the missing pronoun is "I".

Art, when you do update the Styrásh grammar pages, it'd be a good idea to change the verb to an actual verb (e.g. speak, see, love, hate etc.), since ánci-á iú "I am silent" is a stative verb.

As Mina's post reveals, the form seems to be a source of confusion.

Mina, the verb is "be silent". The final -á is the 1st person singular inflection and agrees with the subject iú (which looks just like the Sicilian pronoun iu "I").

Clearly shocked Santharians are demanding an explanation.

Don't worry, Coren. I'm sure everything will be all right.