Lesson 3: Locations and being somewhere

Remember the last of the translation-exercises of the previous lesson, how you would say He brings it to the house in Taruven. Couldn't figure out how to do it? You'll learn how in this lesson, and a lot about to be and how words like black, strong and salty work in Taruven.

Going places

In English we say I go to the house, but the words after to are not an indirect object, it's a place. In Taruven we'd say ševa yéllaes for I go to the house and just ševa for I go somewhere. So, places you go to can be marked with -es. -es has a rather vague meaning though, compare the examples below:

1.  
   1. I go to the river ševa saìes
   2. I go along the river ševa saìes
   3. I go over the river ševa saìes
   4. I go across the river ševa saìes
   5. I go into the river ševa saìes
   6. I go away from the river ševa saìes
   7. I come from the river ševa saìes

Basically, you can use -es for just about any preposition like to, from, on, onto, in, into, out, out of, over, under, above, beneath, across, along, by, via, and a lot more. This doesn't mean that there's no way to say, for instance, that you're going into a house, it means that when you use Taruven, you should aim to be vague and imprecise unless it is very important to be exact. We'll look at how to be precise later.

Also, notice that ševa means both go and come.

Being someplace

How do you think you would say It's in the car in Taruven? It probably involves -es somehow, but what about the 's? In English, this particular 's is short for the verb is, and is is a strange verb indeed. Other forms of is is am, are, was, were, be and being and the name of the verb is just be. Unfortunately, Taruven doesn't have a verb for to be.

Instead of a verb be, there's yet another suffix on the noun, -ru. (You didn't think we had covered all the noun-suffixes, did you?) -ru doesn't mean be though, it means be somewhere, so you can only use it with places. Now, finally, we're ready to translate!

2.  
   1. It's in the car is oru brenes
   2. It's in the river is oru saìes
   3. I'm in the river is sāru saìes
   4. The house is by the river is yéllaru saìes
   5. The river is by the house is saìru yéllaes

Notice example c: since -ru is not a verb, we can't drop sā. -ru, like all suffixes, cannot stand alone.

Bringing something somewhere

To translate the tricky sentence we began with, we need to use -es. But, šege bring, rī give and the other ditransitive verbs can't take a noun with -es directly because they are not verbs of movement like ševa go, come. Just putting a word with -es in there would change the meaning. So, we need to use -ru in addition to -es somehow:

3.  
   1. ī šege oruaþ yéllaes means He/she brings it to the house
   2. šege oruaþ ī yéllaes also means He/she brings it to the house
   3. ... as does yéllaes šege ī oruaþ and any other order you can think of

Notice how you still have to mark the object, and that -ru goes before -aþ. It might be easier to think of example 3) to mean He/she brings it, it is now in the house.

What happens if you don't have the -ru?

4. ī šege oaþ yéllaes means He/she brings it, walking about/being in the house

Ergo, without the -ru it's the action itself that is placed somewhere, not the object. Also, as usual with -es you can substitute most any preposition for in above.

What if there are more than one word marked with -ru? See below (Brackets, [ and ], have been used to show which words go together in these examples):

5.  
   1. jehan saìes ommydh brenaþ [John paints the car] by the river
   2. jehanru saìes ommydh brenaþ [John by the river] paints the car.
   3. jehan saìes ommydh brenruaþ John paints [the car by the river].
   4. jehanru saìes ommydh brenruaþ [John by the river] paints [the car by the river].
   5. jehanru saìes ommydh brenruaþ yéllaaþes [John by the river] paints [the car by the house].
   6. brenaþ rī ūruið yéllaiðes I give the car to you, who're in the house.

Only example 5a) says anything explicit about where the painting took place. Notice example d): a word marked with -es can be shared by several words marked with -ru, and the meaning is that all the -ru-words were at the same place at some time. Finally, examples e and f shows that words with -es may agree in case with a word marked with -ru, as with brenruaþ yéllaaþes and ūruið yéllaiðes above, showing the object form and the indirect object form of -es, respectively. Also notice that the agreement marker goes before the marker that shows what the word is doing in the sentence: in e) brenruaþ is the object and yéllaaþes a location that agrees with the object.

Summary

To show where something happened, we mark the place with -es. To show where we're going or coming from, we also mark the place with -es, and unless we use a movement-verb like ševa we must also mark the something going somewhere, with -ru.

Using -ru we don't really need a verb at all since it means be somewhere and going somewhere all by itself. Also, we need to use both -ru and -es if we have a ditransitive verb with an inanimate indirect object: -ru on the object and just -es on the indirect object.

Next, we'll look at adjectives other than the adjectival suffixes in Taruven.

Exercises

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

New words used in the lesson

New words to play with

Words seen before

-aþ, bren, -du, -en, fō, gen, geìl, geža, heal, ī, -ið, jehan, kaìr, o, ommydh, rī, saì, sen, sā, sō, suì, ša, šege, ū, -vun, yélla, yéras, zigh

Translate the sentences to English:

1. ū ševa šiar yéllaes
2. brenru yéllaes
3. fōru yéllaes
4. jehan rī fōruaþ yéllaoes
5. jehanva

How would you say: (tricky!)

1. He gives the cool cups to me.
2. I'm at home.
3. A salty meal
4. I brought the cup in the car by the river to the house.
5. The meal is salty.

Questions to answer:

1. If sā is marked with -ru (sāru), can you drop it?
2. If ī or o are marked with -ru (īru or oru, can you drop it?
3. Can you put the -ru before the case marker?
4. Can you put the -es after the case marker?
5. Can a noun be marked with both -ru and -es at the same time?