overview | structure | prefixes | dim/aug | adjectives | locative | possession | case | number
sïaòyru s'raìða gīlru s'šedudi hrianneðen faìn šugalan a geàl sïaòyen utarha -- šagān |
the wind through my hair, the sun on my skin, the voices of nature, great wings and great winds - unity -- Shagaan |
The difference between nouns and all other Taruven parts of speech is that only the noun can be marked by the dual, the paucal/quintal or the generic plural. A Taruven bare noun is the bare noun stem without any affixes. The core noun is the noun stem with affixes. A noun phrase always contains at least one core noun.
Taruven nouns also has one of two genders: animate, or entity and inanimate, or item. Only entities can be unmarked for case or be marked for the beneficiary or the complemented agent. In general, all living things and thinking things (animals, plants, intelligent machines) are entities, all dead things (abstracts, natural phenomena, tools, things, non-intelligent machines) are items. The exact categorization has varied through history.
For the remainder of this text, the word vaer mountain will represent the items, while the word gav dog will represent the entities. When something differs between items and entities, both are shown, else only for items.
A noun is always marked for:
vaer | mountain | unmarked, agent | AGT |
vaeraþ | patient | PAT | |
gavið | for the dog | beneficiary | BEN |
gavel | complemented agent (items cannot be complemented agents) | EXP | |
vaeron | using the mountain | instrument | INS |
gavon | using the dog | entity used as an instrument | INS |
ÿvaer | Oh, mountain! | vocative | VOC |
vaer | (one) mountain | unmarked, general, singular | S |
aìvaer | no mountains | Z | |
vaeran | two mountains | dual | D |
vaerin | five/a few mountains | paucal, quinary | Q |
vaeren | many mountains | general plural | P |
And may be marked for diminutive/augmentative and have an adjective built in.
Furthermore, a noun may have, own or be owned, or otherwise be connected to another noun.
vaereð | somebody's mountain | items only | GEN |
te gav | somebody's dog | primarily entities | CON |
vaeres | the mountain has something | LOC | |
vaerru | something has the mountain |
It can be emphasized:
ïvaer | a MOUNTAIN | FOC |
Located somewhere or be the location of something:
vaerru | the mountain is at | is located | |
vaeres | at the mountain | location | LOC |
Generalized:
sïvaer | mountains in general | GEN |
Entities can be male or female:
dugav | a male dog | ||
kigav | a female dog |
Finally, a noun has existence and can be negated:
ëvaer | not a mountain, non-existent mountain | NEG |
The actual order of noun affixes depends on its role in a phrase or clause.
The suffix-groups that move about depending on the role of the noun is groups 3 (location in time and space) and 4 (possession). It is therefore thought that group 3 and 4 come from a different source than the other suffixes.
PREFIX - noun stem - 1 - 2 - ru - 4 - 5 - 6
PREFIX - noun stem - 1 - 2 - 4 - 5 - 3 - 6
PREFIX - noun stem - 1 - 2 - 3 - eð - 5 - 6
PREFIX - noun stem - 1 - 2 - 3 - 5 - (ev) - 6
emphasis | ï(ĵ)- | ||
vocative | ÿ- | ||
empty, none. ('zero number of', not 'doesn't exist') Compare with the pluralizers |
aì- | ||
negation ('doesn't exist', not 'zero number of') |
ë- | ||
generalizer [needs own page?] | sï- | ||
male | du- | ||
female | ki- |
The emphasis-marker becomes ïĵ before vowels.
-vun | diminutive |
-gal | augmentative |
A few adjectives have bound short forms:
-va | wild |
-o | tame |
-du | young |
-ša | old |
-hi- | light, bright |
-suh | dark |
-ma | good |
-age | evil |
-ven | beautiful |
-tsa | ugly |
-(i)ŋ | near, close, easy |
-hux | same |
-keì | other |
About to be moved to Location.
ru is the general locative. Adding -ru to a word indicates that the word is somewhere. Exactly where is not important.
<noun>ru
<noun> is somewhere (but I don't know, and/or
don't care to know, exactly where this
is)
The suffix -es (standalone form: re), approximately meaning location, place, can be used as a suffix, taking on the meaning of "located at":
<noun>ru
saìes
<noun> is located at/by a/the river
This says nothing on HOW the noun is placed relative to the river; if it is important to indicate exact placement, then one way of doing it is to replace the simple -es with a little something...
Format: B is placed/moves relative to A, K is any of the noun suffixes except ru and the plurality-suffixes.
B-ru-K A-K-1-2-3-4
B-ru-K A-K-Other
1 describes how B is placed relative to the surface
of A
2 describes how B is placed relative to an imaginary
axis of A
3 describes how B moves relative to the surface of
A
4 describes whether B is inside or outside the surface
of A
3 covers concepts such as left(ward), right(ward), up(ward), down(ward), front + forward, back(ward), and should be translated as such. But: the native speakers of Taruven think 3D, and they think 3D relative to themselves, not the ground or any other reference object, perhaps because this is better suited to zero G environments. Translating up with top and down with bottom might be better.
Relative to: | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Surface: 1 |
3D: 2 |
Movement: 3 |
In/outside: 4 |
||||
B on the surface of A | di | ||||||
B stuck to the surface of A | de | ||||||
B not on the surface of A | da | ||||||
B in the surface of A, neither out- nor inside | du | ul | |||||
top (+z) | ur | ||||||
center (z = 0) | u | ||||||
bottom (-z) | uš | ||||||
front (+y) | ar | ||||||
center (y = 0) | a | ||||||
back (-y) | aš | ||||||
right (+x) | ir | ||||||
center (x = 0) | i | ||||||
left (-x) | iš | ||||||
B moving towards the surface of A | vu | ||||||
B moving away from the surface of A | ve | ||||||
B moving at a fixed distance (f.ex around, orbiting, along, on) from the surface of A | ny | ||||||
B outside A | il | ||||||
B inside A | al |
Others:
A somewhat more complex example:
Effects of negating with e: eil = al, eal = il, edi = da, eda = di, evu = ve, eve = vu
To translate some english prepositions:
Affixed to a noun that can only serve as a temporal 'anchor'.
If the temporal location is only valid for one sentence, the verb of that sentence is marked with [T]. If another noun(phrase) is temporally located, without affecting the situation, that noun is marked with [T].
-ar -vu |
before |
-aš -ve |
after |
-aìš | first |
-ris | last |
-aq | next |
-im | previous |
-ša | early |
-žy | late |
-dha | during |
-ga | during |
-guì | current |
Possession is covered in its own section, this serves as a quick overview.
Only items can be possessed/owned. Items can be owned by both entities and items. A possessed item is marked with the suffix -eð
Both items and entities can be connected to each other. In a connection it is wrong to talk about possessors or possessees, as a connection in no way implies ownership or control. Entities can neither be owned nor controlled and must always be connected and not marked for possession.
A connection is marked by placing the independent word te between the two statements.
Examples, connection and possesion:
Bodyparts are connected to the body, so we have:
Similarly, relatives are connected, not posessed:
A member is either connected to or possessed by a group, depending on the type of group:
te has a weak, implicit 1st person pronoun in the agentive, just like verbs; it is customary to set the te first in the connection when the pronoun is invoked, thus a) below is correct while b) is not.
As always, the rules are bent in poetry and a few other registers.
Finally, a small set of words can also be inalienably possessed.
0 | agent |
-el | complemented agent |
-aþ | patient |
-ið | benefactive/recipient/target |
-on | instrumental entity |
-on | instrument |
Agents are not marked. However, subjects are not necessarily agents. For instance, subjects of passive sentences are always marked as patients.
gav ekuirra
the dog died
gav hrann sïonnaþ
the/A dog broke the vase
but
gavaþ kruaálra
the dog was killed
The subjects of the verb-type complemented verbs are marked as complemented agents. Below is an incomplete list of complemented verbs.
ār | to think, assume |
kann | to force |
teì | to love (romantic love for an entity) |
Taruven does not have a complementizer, like that in English. Instead it has complemented verbs and verb-suffixes that converts an ordinary verb into a complemented one.
The pattern for a complemented statement is as follows:
<complemented agent>el <complemented verb> <X>
alternatively
<X> <complemented verb>
<complemented agent>el
<X> <complemented agent>el
<complemented verb>
Where <X> must be either a phrase marked for benefactive, or a clause.
Only entities can be complemented agents, to use the above verbs with an item as subject, the second verb, if any, must be put in the passive:
The patient is the victim or target of the
verb.
Examples:
The passive beneficiary of an action.
An instrumental entity is the someone who is made to
do something by an agent.
Examples:
The instrument is whatever item is being used to
accomplish the verbing.
Examples:
0 | general/singular |
-an | dual |
-in | quinary/paucal |
-en | generic plural |
-ðe | complete plural/false partitive |
-ti | true partitive |
The noun is unmarked for number whenever the actual number is known, irrelevant or singular.
gav
gav
dog
a dog, some dog, one dog
saššara gavaþ
saššara gav -aþ
I.heard dog -PAT
I heard a dog/I heard some dog or other/I heard one dog
The dual is used whenever there are two of something, to such a degree that the number two is rarely used. In some dialects, if a number is divisible by two, the noun will agree by being marked with the dual, as in example b) below.
gavan
gav -an
dog -2
two dogs, a couple of dogs
kaìr gavan
kaìr gav -an
4 dog -2
four dogs
The quintal started life as the number five, hence the name. It denotes small groups, countable indivdual items and entities and natural amounts.
gavin
gav -in
dog -paucal
five dogs, a group of dogs, a few dogs, a handful dogs
runin
run -in
finger -paucal
five fingers, all the fingers of a hand
gaven
gav -en
dog -many
many dogs, countless dogs
The number-markers are generally not used if there is an explicit number in the noun-phrase, with the exceptions noted in the examples below. Explicit number plus explicit number-marking changes the meaning of the number-marking. This also means that only the dual and the paucal is ever used together with an explicit number.
kaìr gav
kaìr gav
4 dog
four dogs
kaìr gaven
kaìr gav -en
4 dog -PL
??
kaìr gavan
kaìr gav -an
4 dog -DUAL
four pairs of dogs, eight dogs
kaìr gavin
kaìr gav -in
4 dog -PAUCAL
four groups of dogs, more than eight dogs
This can best be translated with all of, the whole of, full, as in the following examples:
gavðe šyra
gav -ðe šy -ra
dog -all follow -PAST
all of the dogs followed
brenaþðe hrannra ī
bren -aþ -ðe hrann -ra ī
car -PAT -whole break -PAST 3s
he/she broke the entire car
mir briðe
mir bri -ðe
sky cloud -full
the overclouded sky, the sky was/is/will be full of clouds, it was/is/will be overclouded
Note example c), where the -ðe-marked word functions as sort of partitive, with the preceding noun mir containing clouds, in this case so many that the color of the mir itself was probably not visible.
To complicate matters, -ðe inflects almost like a stative, as shown in the next example. It is believed that -ðe probably started life as a regular stative.
gavðe
gav -ðe
dog -all
all of the dogs
gavðeì
gav -ðeì
dog -almost.all
almost all of the dogs
gavðer
gav -ðer
dog -few
a few of the dogs, some of the dogs
gavðeìrinn
gav -ðerinn
dog -too.few
too few of the dogs
gavðan
gav -ðan
dog -too.many
too many of the dogs
There is no equivalent of -a or -arre for -ðe.
Using -ðe for the meaning of "all" is not proper when the group of things is not complete or the number of items/members is unknown. If that is the case, one uses -in if it is possible to take in the number at a glance, -en if too many and the true partitive in cases like mir briðe.
The true partitive differs from the rest of the number markers in that it always connects two nouns, just like -ðe does in example 19c) above.
The partitive is used when a noun:
briti mir
bri -ti mir
cloud -PART sky
a cloudy sky
falti saì
fal -ti saì
water -PART river
a river of water
tani mānti
tani mān -ti
tower stone -PART
a tower made of stone
mān pyalti
mān pyal -ti
stone grain -PART
a grain-sized stone
In all the four examples above, the partitive modifies the noun, which can manage perfectly without having the partitive along. The measure-meaning in example d) is only in effect for a few nouns that double as measures: pyal for something small but still visible, kīr for something that can easily be held in the palm of a hand, like a tennis ball or a cup, or other handfulls, urū, head-size, for something that properly takes two hands to hold, like a football or large melon.