If you managed the tricky translations from English to Taruven in the previous lesson you'll already know how to mark an object: by putting -aþ on the end of the noun. -aþ is a case, and this lesson will be about the cases of Taruven, and about different kinds of verbs.
English doesn't change a noun in any way to show that it is an object, so why does Taruven need to? Simple: have a look at the example below:
Notice: All six mean the exact same thing! While English prefers to go subject, verb, object, Taruven is a lot less picky: almost anything goes! The reason why this is possible is due to cases, in the case above because fō cup is marked with -aþ.
Furthermore, the case marker always goes before the plural marker and after any diminutive/augmentative or adjectival suffix.
While all verbs in Taruven needs a subject (and if you drop it, it means that the subject can be any of sā I, sō we, ša we two and suì we few,) not all verbs need an object. Those verbs that can take an object are called transitive verbs, and we've seen several of these already: gen, geìl, ommydh and sen hold. Those verbs that can never take an object are called intransitive verbs, and we've seen one such already: heal.
Also, if the object of a transitive verb like gen is the third person singular pronoun, oaþ it if it is inanimate and īaþ he/she/it if it is animate, it can be dropped.
Give, bring, buy and many other verbs are called ditransitive verbs. These verbs don't just take an object, they may in addition also take an indirect object. In English, the indirect object is put after to like in example a or b below, or for like in example c, or before the regular object like in example d.
In Taruven, the indirect object is marked with -ið. As usual, an object that is third person (oaþ or īaþ) is optional, and an indirect object that is third person animate, like ī, is also optional.
-ið does more than just being an indirect object however. It can be used with any verb, and marks the benefactor of the act, like in example e above. So, I sleep for your case is heal ūið (or ūið heal since word order doesn't matter).
Finally, only animate things can ever be marked by -ið. Only people and living things are animate, so if you're planning on sending something to a place instead of a person, you can't use -ið on the place. However, o and ī share plurals: fen they, fa the two of them, they two and fin they few, so you can't tell just by looking at the word whether it's animate or not. For objects, you can drop any third person pronoun, but dropping indirect objects always implies that the indirect object is animate.
In this lesson we've looked at word order in Taruven. The word order is basically free (though we'll learn about several exceptions later), and cases are used instead of word order.
We've also looked at different types of verbs: intransitive like heal, transitive like sen which may take an object and ditransitive like rī, šege and zigh which may take both an object and an indirect object. Furthermore all verbs take a subject and if you can't find any subject in the sentence, that means that the subject is one of the first person pronouns.
Finally we looked at cases: subject-case has no marker, object-case -aþ we had seen earlier but indirect object-case -ið was new. All verbs, even intransitives can take indirect objects, to show who benefits from the action. When the indirect object is with a ditransitive verb however, it is a recipient.
Next, we'll look at locations, how to say that something is somewhere or going places.
To see an answer, hover over a word in the question.
From now on, a word that is different from another word only because of a suffix will not be listed.
| -aþ | object suffix |
| fō | a cup |
| ī | he/she/it, third person singular animate (subject) |
| -ið | indirect object suffix |
| rī | to give |
| sen | to hold |
| sō | we, first person plural (subject) |
| suì | we few, first person paucal (subject) |
| ša | we two, first person dual (subject) |
| šege | to bring |
| zigh | to buy |
| ū | you, second person singular (indirect object) |
bren, -du, -en, kaìr, -gal, gen, geìl, geža, heal, jehan, o, ommydh, sā, saì, -vun, yélla, yéras