Lesson 1: Optionality

There are a lot of optional bits and pieces in Taruven. Compared to English, it's one of the main differences. Therefore it is important to know when to use an optional feature, and when not to, which is why this lesson is all about optionality.

Optional inflections

Taruven has tons of inflections, and most of them are optional. For instance, when counting anything, it is better not to inflect for number, since the count itself carries the number. In English, you have to put an s behind the word, a plural marker, but in Taruven you should strive for low redundancy.

Marking plurality

1.  
   1. yélla means house
   2. kaìr yélla means 4 houses
   3. yéllaen means more than one house

The example above shows our first inflection, the suffix -en meaning plural. -en is an important suffix to remember, as only nouns can ever carry it. Secondly, if it is used, it is always the last suffix on a noun. All other noun-suffixes and derivational suffixes must go before the -en.

Big things, small things

2.  
   1. yélla means house
   2. yéras means home
   3. yéllavun is a small house, like a shed
   4. yérasvun is a small home, like a cottage, birdhouse or doghouse
   5. yéllagal is a large house, like a skyscraper
   6. yérasgal is a large home, like a large villa or mansion

In many other languages when you use a diminutive like -vun or an augmentative like -gal, the meaning is often much vaguer: cute or young or good in addition to small, old or ugly or bad in addition to big. This is never the case in Taruven. Notice also how a small home is still something to be lived in, not a miniature that pretends to be a home.

The last thing to be said about -vun and -gal is this: they always go closest to the noun itself.

Young or old, good or bad, wild or tame, bright or dark and beautiful or ugly

As mentioned previously, we can't use -vun or -gal for any of this. Luckily Taruven has other suffixes to do the job, the adjectival suffixes. These go after a -vun or a -gal, and you can only choose one of them.

You don't have to use any of these as they are very optional but you need to recognize them when you see them:

3. gavvundu is a small, young dog, maybe a puppy

If you can't remember the word for puppy, you can in fact use gavvundu, though you may drop the -vun in that case.

There are many more optional inflections for nouns but we'll come back to them later.

Optional words

Just like English, Taruven has verbs. In order to say anything that couldn't be said by just pointing (doggy! *points*) we need verbs.

In English, left of the verb we find the subject. To the right of the verb, there might be an object.

4.  
   1. I eat a banana. has an object
   2. I eat something. also has an object
   3. I eat. doesn't have an object
   4. I eat by the river. doesn't have an object either, it has an adjunct to the right because of the preposition by there.

The four examples above all have two words in common, I and eat. Taruven is different: if the subject is I, the first person singular, or we, the first person plural, it's generally optional.

5.  
   1. geìl gežaaþ means I/we eat a/the meal
   2. geìl oaþ means I/we eat something
   3. geìl means I/we eat something
   4. geìl saìes means I/we eat something by a/the river

Example 5 above shows that I, the first person subject pronoun, can be dropped. This phenomenon is called pro-drop, which can be thought of as an abbreviation of "pronoun drop".

Notice that I said that I can be dropped, not must be dropped. The real, visible word for I in Taruven is sā, but you won't see it like that often because it is rude, drawing attention to yourself like that.

If you look closer at 5b and 5c, you'll notice that the object pronoun can be dropped too: oaþ, the third person singular inanimate pronoun, similar to English it or something is also redundant. In this particular case, there is little difference in meaning, but if the object of the verb could only be animate (a person or living thing), 5b would not be possible.

Finally, you might wonder whether a/the in example 5 have been dropped too. Not so: a/the are articles, and Taruven has no articles what so ever.

Summary

In Taruven, many things are optional that are required in English: the plural marker -en, the first person subject pronoun sā, the third person inanimate object pronoun, oaþ and the weird diminutive (-vun), augmentative (-gal) and adjectival suffixes (-du).

You've also met several Taruven nouns: gav, yélla, yéras, one Taruven number: kaìr and one Taruven verb: geìl. While there were other nouns used in the lesson as well, those will be explained in the next lesson which is about grammatical cases.

It's not possible to cover everything that can or can't be optional in a single lesson, this was just a little snack. All other lessons will also mention when something is optional or not.

Exercises

To see an answer, hover over a word in the question.

New words used in the lesson

New words to play with

Translate the sentences to English:

1. heal
2. geìl gežaaþ
3. gen brenaþ
4. ommydh brenaþ
5. jehan geìl

How would you say: (tricky!)

1. The little car
2. John paints the big cars
3. I paint the house
4. John rests
5. John paints me

Questions to answer:

1. If the subject is I, can you drop it?
2. If the object is I, can you drop it?
3. If the object is it, can you drop it?
4. If the object is a car, can you drop it?
5. If the subject is John, can you drop it?