Conjunctions : Causation and Counting

At the moment, I haven't settled all the conjunction functions, but there's more than enough material to cover in one post for what I've come up with so far. Conjunctions are words that link two statements in various ways. For example, and, if, or, even though, but and so. The two types of conjunctions that I've designed for Eldawnian are the causation conjunctions and the counting conjunctions. These terms are not official linguistic vernacular, but it makes it easier for me to think about their functions at the moment.

The causation conjunctions are easy enough to explain. Their English equivalents are the words for and so. As a conjunction for expresses one clause as a reason behind another. Simply Drink water, for you are thirsty. You are thirsty is the reason why you should drink water. On the other hand, so expresses the relationship that one clause is a result of another. I was thirsty, so I drank the water. Thirst is the cause.

Presently, there are four types of causation conjunctions : Real, Essential, Relevant and Hypothetical.  They express various relationships between proposed causes and events. The conjunctions are place before the clauses they modify.

Real
cive - since - ci : real, ve - cause, cizhe - therefore - ci - real, zhe - result

Essential
isve - is a required cause of - iseyo : to compel, ve - cause, azhe - is a required result of - aseyo : to force, zhe - result

Relevant
iave - is part of the cause of - ia : link, ve - cause, iazhe - is part of the result of - ia : link, zhe - result

Hypothetical
lave - if - la : hypothetical, ve : cause, lazhe - then - la : hypothetical, zhe : result

For the example sentences, I'll use the verb 'ibeyo' meaning to help/aid, along with the simple pronouns 'rices', 'rites' and 'ripes', which are first, second and third person respectively.

'ricos ibeto rites cive rites ibepo ripos' I help you since you helped him.

It is generally preferred to have cause before effect, so the full default sentence would be :

'cive rites ibepo ripos cizhe ricos ibeco rites' Since you helped him, therefore I will help you.

The other categories of cause and effect conjunctions work in the same way.

'lave rites ibeto ripos lazhe ricos ibeco rites' If you help him, then I will help you.

Additionally, there are negative versions of the causal conjuctions. Once again, this is negated with the addition of the [-m] suffix.

Negative Real
civem - not since - ci : real, ve - cause, cizhem - not therefore - ci - real, zhe - result

Nonessential
isvem - not a required cause of -  iseyo : to compel, ve - cause, azhem - not a required result of - aseyo : to force, zhe - result

Irrelevant
iavem - is not part of the cause of - ia : link, ve - cause, iazhem - is not part of the result of - ia : link, zhe - result

Negative Hypothetical
lavem - not if - la : hypothetical, ve : cause, lazhem - then - la : hypothetical, zhe : result

These negative conjunctions do not mean not A then B, but rather A is not a cause of B. For the negative real conjunction, it would be akin to saying A was not the cause of B, and so on. The irrelevant case would be analogous to the expression A has nothing to do with B.

Next, the counting conjugations, of which there are six.

ab [conj] or (10/01), ot [conj] but not (10), ec [conj] and (11)

ip [conj] or (11/00), ud [conj] not but (01) , üg [conj] nor (00)

These conjunctions would be used in lists, for example, saying that I have a blue pen and a red pen but not a green pen. and other similar statements. The binary codes in parentheses refer to the positive or negative quality of the clauses. A few example sentences would probably make things clearer.

I advise him and her. 'ricos iveto ripos ec ripus'
I advise him but not her. 'ricos iveto ripos ot ripus'
I advise him or her. 'ricos iveto ripos ab ripus'
I advise him not, but her. 'ricos iveto ripos ud ripus'
I do not advise him nor her. 'ricos ivetom ripos üg ripus'
I advise both him and her or neither him nor her. 'ricos iveto ripos ip ripus'

'ip' isn't really a conjunction that has a clear translation in English. It could be viewed as an all or none statement, such that either both objects have the same action done to them, or neither will receive the action. It could also be used in a situation with more than two objects to make things clear. For example in the sentence I advise you, him or her. it is ambiguous whether you mean you and him are advised, or her, or whether only one of the three are advised. In contrast the Eldawnian construction system allows clearer constructions with 'ricos iveto rites ip ripos ab ripus' which indicates that the positive or negative states of you and him are bound together. The other sentence that would appear similar in English is 'ricos iveto rites, ripos ab ripus' where it is taken that the same conjunction applies to all three since one is omitted. Of course, for clarity, one could always say 'ricos iveto ab ripos ab ripus', just as we might way I advise you or him or her.

Anyway, language construction is getting a little exhausting at the moment, I intend to return to the main purpose of the language, which was to set up the names of my proper nouns consistently. Now that most of the rules of grammar and phonology are in place, I think I'll come up with names and get back to working in English as soon as possible. Just a final post on how to ask questions, and this series on linguistics will be frozen until necessity or interest calls for its thaw.

Pronouns : Attempted Regularity

I realise that I have used a couple of Eldawnian pronouns in my earlier linguistic posts without explaining how they work. There is a rather straightforward method to their construction. To begin with - personal pronouns. In English, they are words like I, me, you, they and them. Like the rest of the human related nouns, they end with a default [-s] and the noun before [-s] is dependent on the gender of the person or people being referred to. [-e-] is neutral, [-o-] is masculine and [-u-] is feminine. There are three persons, first, second and third, which doesn't beg much explanation. The persons are indicated by [c-], [t-] and [p-] respectively. Altogether, there are nine personal pronouns : 'ces, cos, cus, tes, tos, tus, pes, pos and pus'.

In formal settings, the prefix [ri-] is added. Another significant prefix is [be-], which is used to indicate respect. There are no plural declensions for the pronouns, as with all Eldawnian nouns. Instead, the particle 'üt' added before the noun.

The second series of pronouns that have been set are the demonstrative pronouns, which are words like this, that, these and those. Demonstratives are used to point out specific objects. There are three "persons" or distances rather. Close would be the first distance, indicating things on your own person, or that belong to yourself. Near would be the second, indicating things that are in the immediate area. Far would be the third, indicating things that are distant from both the speaker and the listener. The first, second and third positions are indicated with [g-], [d-] and [b-] respectively. The final letter is [-n], and the vowels follow the same paradigm for gender, including [-i-] for the locative gender. This yields twelve demonstrative pronouns : 'gen, gon, gun, gin, den, don, dun, din, ben, bon, bun and bin'.

Both the personal and demonstrative pronouns can be declined for each of the four cases, Ablative [-dz], Dative [-rets], Possessive [-ch] and Instrumental [-rej].

The final class of nouns I'll deal with for now are the reflexive pronouns, which in English is indicated with myself, yourself and themselves. This class of pronouns is indicated with the infix [-r-]. This applies to the personal pronouns more clearly, resulting in : 'cres, cros, crus, tres, tros, trus, pres, pros and prus'. These nouns are used when the object of a verb is also the subject of the verb. For example, in the sentence : I'll help myself. In Eldawnian, this would be 'cos ibeco cros'.

One set of pronouns that I have not yet dealt with are the indefinite pronouns, such as anyone, everyone, someone and nobody. These will probably be tied to the numeral system and number words, which I have yet to codify.

Auxiliary Verbs : Reduced to Disuse

Auxiliary verbs, as far as I understand them, are verbs that modify other verbs. In English, they are verbs like can, should, will, must, and so on. They change the meaning of the statement they are in to express things like possibility and intention. From the simple statement : I run. We get more complex statements like I can run, I will run and I should run. Syntactically, the subject comes first, then the auxiliary verb, then the main verb, and lastly the object if there is one.

In Eldawnian, auxiliary verbs will precede their subjects. One series of such verbs is the possibility family. Many of the abstract verbs have been classified by the qualities of the ether Spirits they are associated with, by the means of their opening vowel. Perhaps it will be clearer as I give examples. 'se' is a syllable I'm using to indicate movement and action. In combination with the abstract verb ending, it forms the possibility verb stem.

'seyo' : to make possible (can)
'aseyo' : to command/force (have to)
'oseyo' : to allow/permit (may)
'eseyo' : to be able/make ready (can)
'iseyo' : to compel/motivate (must)
'useyo' : to obligate (should/ought to)
'üseyo' : to decide/resolve (will/want to)

If I was to employ English syntax, I would simply construct sentences with auxiliary verbs as such : Subject - Auxiliary Verb - Verb - Object. I can run to Eleris would work out to 'ricos seto asüdiyo Elerirets'. I don't find this suitable for some reason, I'd like to maintain a strict SVO except for poetry, although I'm not much of a poet myself so it's unlikely that there'll be much Eldawnian verse.

It is now incumbent on me to introduce the noun 'vezhen'. It's a combination of the syllables 've' and 'zhe', which mean cause and effect respectively. Agglutinated, they mean the situation/circumstance. This word serves as the subject to the object of the possibility verb. The full formal sentence structure for something like I can run to Eleris would be 'vezhen seto ricos asüdiyo Elerirets'. Literally translated, this works out to something like The situation makes it possible for me to run to Eleris. Because of this, you could say that there are no auxiliary verbs as there are in English.

The main verb of the sentence becomes the possibility verb, and this can be in the three temporal tenses of past present and future. The second action verb of the sentence relating the object to the indirect object and will be in the infinitive conjugation. Well technically indirect object isn't the correct term... but I'd say it's acceptable since I'm making up my own grammatical structure. Then again I'm sure there must already be a formal name for what I'm trying to define... Oh who knows, I'm not Tolkien.

It is increasingly clear to me that the sentences we speak colloquially do not necessarily have to be complete to convey meaning. As such, I intend to reserve full sentences for indicating formality and politeness. I'll write a separate post on that, but the sentence could be reduced from 'vezhen seto ricos asüdiyo Elerirets' to 'seto cos asüdiyo Elerirets'.

Of course, the negative conjugations for the possibility verbs simply indicate that it is not possible, or not allowed and so on. When I introduce conjugations, it will be possible to construct sentences like I would help you, but I cannot. and so on. In fact it would probably be clearer than English because we have rather fuzzy, context sensitive meanings for words like may, would, could, should and will.

The reason why I have decided to remove auxiliary verbs is partly so I can remove the auxiliary copula as well. There is also no passive conjugation system for the verbs at the moment, nor am I inclined to introduce one. Verbs can, for now, remain as simple links between subjects and objects.

Trinitarian Revelations

I've recently attended a series of talks on the nature of the Holy Trinity, the Christian God. In light of the lessons I have gleaned, a re-think of Eleyon and the mythology of Eldawn is in order. My original intention was that Eleyon should be as similar to Yahweh as possible, but clearly this is not possible and my ideas for Eleyon already diverge from Yahweh's existence.

Yahweh exists as a Trinity for all of eternity past, present and future. He has always existed in a perfect relationship of the Father loving the Son. The Spirit and community of that relationship is the third Person of the Trinity, the Spirit of God. Together, three persons as one God direct all the events of this world. Yahweh is a God who knows community and relationships very intimately. He has been in a flawless harmony between His three persons for all time. He is love, it is fundamental to His very being. His character is unchanging because it has no need to change. He is self sufficient and omnipotent.

If I were to write a story about Yahweh, His very nature prevents the story from being any different from our history. The only way that Eleyon can be consistent with Yahweh is if He acts, loves, treasures and judges in exactly the same way. This clone of God would have to repeat all the actions of the true God, or I place myself above my Creator in supposing that He would have acted any other way. Therefore, the only non-sacrilegious option is to distance my concept of Eleyon from the concept of Yahweh.

Eleyon is therefore, not Yahweh. The difference will be as such, Eleyon will have existed as a single person for an indefinite period of time before coming into Trinitarian unity. This changes his fundamental nature, away from one of love, to one of suffering.

I have recently been puzzling over whether it is possible for perfection to arise from the ether. Once again, Eleyon is not Yahweh. Yahweh existed in perfection for all eternity. Eleyon however, has an origin as a lonely spirit in the ether. He was utterly alone. In that solitude, he would have experienced the pain of complete isolation, the emptiness of his existence, and he would have to make sense of it. The reason why Eleyon is concerned with relationships is not because he is love as Yahweh is, from time immemorial, but because Eleyon is the only being to have felt the acute pain of loneliness.

As humans, we seem cursed to appreciate what we do not have, or what we lose. For better or worse, our losses and lacks shape us, if we let them, to greater understanding, appreciation and maturity. When everything is provided for us, we become spoilt, demanding more and more. When we have always had something, we never understand its true value because we take it as though it is our assured right to possess what treasures we have. Whether this is material, like food, clothes, a home and clean water, or something more abstract and perhaps infinitely more valuable, like a close friend, a parent or a sibling. It is only when we have not had that we can have when something is given to us.

So the reason why Eleyon attains perfection, is not because he was perfect to begin with, but because he alone had absolutely nothing. Suffering in his isolation, he formulated and analysed the necessary requirements of justice, mercy, love and trust. So when he created the first truly independent beings, he could love them with the agape-exceeding love that is unique to the divine.

Each period of pain can be used to hone our souls closer to perfection. Yahweh's suffering on the cross does not change Him because He is already perfect, he is the sole exception to this rule. However Eleyon has perfection in my mythos because he experienced absolute suffering. Taking nothing for granted, he would truly understand the value of his creation. Once Eleyon attains this perfection, he becomes unchanging, but until that point, he would have matured in understanding and knowledge to reach its zenith.

Eleyon then develops himself into trinity, establishing the dynamic of the Parent and the Child, with the Spirit personifying their loving relationship. In the process, Eleyon becomes a god who is capable of understanding both the pain of loneliness and the comfort of companionship personally. All this happens before he creates Alora and Iyvase, and so by the time creation is in full swing, Eleyon is already perfected in character.

This brings me to my next point, which is to ask : Is it possible for a person who has always been among caring friends and relations truly understand the pain of loneliness? Is it possible for them to feel the bite of the uncaring night pierce through an empty soul? Can Yahweh really understand that, being united in Trinity for all time? I should refute that now, with the point that the Son was truly forsaken when the weight of our transgressions was placed upon his being. The Father poured his wrath onto the Son, and Yahweh must have understood the pain of being alone. But when it comes to people, normal humans, perhaps my postulate holds true.

Another major question I'm trying to tackle is with regards to self-sufficiency. Eleyon creates, not out of his self-sufficiency, but out of his lack. A self-sufficient being who emerged from the ether would not be compelled to find means of creation. Once again though, Yahweh is different from Eleyon. Yahweh creates out of His desire to extend the fold of the loving relationship between Father and Son to other beings, undeserving as we might be.

I wonder at length concerning the nature of both Yahweh and my character who is Eleyon. Both of them share many common characteristics, but they arrive at them by different means. All the same, this separation of Eleyon and Yahweh makes me feel much more at ease when I craft my imaginary scenarios. I no longer have to surmount the impossible task of comprehending the mind of God, but the rather more manageable task of understanding the mind of Eleyon.

Confusion Causing Copulas

English is terribly disorganised in the way that I employs the verb to be. It is found so pervasively that it drove me to frustration trying to sort out its equivalents. Thankfully, Mandarin has more clearly demarcated words for the functions of the English copula; that helped me think a little more clearly.

To begin with, I'll list the numerous functions of this versatile, illogical verb.
1. Literal : When we use to be to mean to exist - There is a sun.
2. To name objects - This spherical globe of weak nuclear reactions is a sun.
3. To classify objects - The sun is a star.
4. To locate objects - The sun is in space.
5. An auxiliary - The sun is shining.
6. As a preposition - The sun is bright.

I spent an inordinate amount of time deciding how to deal with this grammatical swiss army knife and this is what I've come up with. I haven't eliminated the copula entirely, I still think it is useful to have, just that it could be more specific, similar to the Mandarin words 在 and 是 which both serve as copulas in their respective domains.

Proceeding function by function :
1. Literal
This was clear enough for me, come up with a verb which means to be, but reserve its use for stating the existence of various nouns. The word I've picked is 'eweyo'. So simply put, 'saton eweto' means the sun exists/there is a sun.

2. To name objects
This was a little more confusing. I ended up using a similar mechanic for both functions 2 and 3, have a verb in the sentence. In this case, the verb is 'areyo' meaning to name. Instead of saying - This is the sun - it would be expressed along the lines of - We name that as the sun. The final sentence looks like this : 'üt ricos areto ripen ao saton'. 'üt' is a plural marker, 'ricos' is the first person pronoun, 'ripen' is the third person demonstrative and 'ao' is a copula for naming and categorising.

3. To classify objects
The mechanic for this is similar to function 2. The verb to use is 'oreyo' meaning to classify and the sentence structure works the same way. We classify the sun as a star. The sentence comes across as 'üt ricos oreto saton ao xatun'. This would also be the function that clauses like This is the reason come under.

4. To locate objects

The Eldawnian mechanic for locating nouns uses the verb 'idiyo', meaning to find. It works in a similar way as points 2 and 3, but uses the distinct copula 'id'. I don't have a word for space yet, since it wouldn't make sense in a society that doesn't have a concept of outer space, so the sentence that will be translated is We find the sun in the sky. This turns into 'üt ricos idito saton id ben'

5. An auxiliary
This was already settled in the previous post, where the continuous tense is already indicated by the tense marker 'set'. The sentence - The sun is shining, would be analogous to 'saton set ateto'.

6. As a preposition
This would employ the verb 'ureyo to describe' and works in a similar sense to the other verb substitutions seen for earlier functions, but requires no copula whatsoever. The sentence - The sun is bright - would be 'ureto saton atecu'.

These are the formalised standard ways that these various types of sentences would be structured. However, in colloquial speech, it would be normal to drop parts of the sentence and to contract words. This will, I suppose, be incorporated into the degree of formality depending on the social context of the conversation or speech, something which I have yet to examine in detail.

Vignette : Reinquire

When do we stop asking why? And perhaps more importantly, why do we stop asking why and how?

All children are naturally curious, but over the course of mass produced education, we learn answers to questions we aren't interested in, and the questions about what we are interested in are silenced. Slowly, students come to understand that curiousity is counterproductive to results. Our own hobbies become idle pursuits that detract from time that could be spent on academic practice. Not many emerge from the smog with the flame of curiousity still burning. Relentless standardisation erodes the innate desire to understand. Curricula deem certain knowledge essential and other interests as superfluous.

A teacher should teach how to learn rather than what to learn. If a teacher has no spark of childlike curiousity within, how can they possibly foster that essential pursuit of understanding? Part of learning is imitation; so teachers should demonstrate the process of learning and inquiry in the way that they teach.

A teacher fails when all a student learns is factual. A teacher should strive to kindle the flame, to strengthen a spirit of learning. But they cannot do so freely, constrained as they are by bullet points that earn ticks on a page. We are boxed in, teacher and student, to look at answer keys and be blind to all else that moves. Instead of asking questions, we can only answer them.

So if you truly wish to break free from the tyranny of the academic system, ask, relentlessly, until all the imposed boundaries of what to know and what not to know dissolve to reveal the vast and varied world of knowledge that exists around us. Retreating into a shell of neither asking nor answering questions is to lose to the system, to have it drain the life out of us. Reach out, past the constructed barriers and walls, pursue the intriguing unknowns on the horizon, and take the initiative in the dance that we have with our education.

Inflectional Advantages : Verbs

The final major category of words are the verbs. This makes my language rather traditional I suppose, but oh well, most languages have a similar triumvirate. The verb inflections for Eldawn will by based on three tenses, an infinitive and their negative equivalents. I've divided verbs into two categories, the abstract verbs and the material verbs. Material verbs end with [-iyo] and refer to actions like : to cut, to eat, to carry, to hold, to walk, to breathe and to talk. Abstract verbs end with [-eyo] and refer to actions like : to love, to think, to imagine, to plan and to remember.

The three temporal inflections are simply past, present and future tenses. To take 'oveyo to think' as an example :

oveyo [Infinitive] to think
ovepo [Past] did think
oveto [Present] do think 
oveco [Future] will think

A similar mechanic with the adjectives negates the verbs, namely, the addition of a [-m] as a suffix.

oveyom [N. Infinitive] not to think
ovepom [N. Past] did not think
ovetom [N. Present] do not think 
ovecom [N. Future] will not think 

A point to note is that, like the adjectives, the negative verbs do not indicate that the action performed is the exact opposite of the positive verb, but merely its absence. For example, 'eveyo to love' has the negative 'eveyom not to love' but eveyom is not the same as 'üveyo to hate'.

At the moment, the continuous tenses and perfect tenses are indicated with separate words, similar to Mandarin Chinese. The continuous marker is 'set' and is positioned before the verb. The perfect marker is 'züca'. This is also positioned before the verb. Syntactically, the verb component of a sentence would be 'perfect/continuous marker - verb - adverb'. Adverbs follow verbs the same way that adjectives follow nouns.

I'd like to go into detail for each of the tenses, for my own sake as well as yours; language construction is debilitating in the way it makes me wonder what in the world I mean when I use words. I'll put this in a simple sentence to make things clearer. 'Rices' is the first person pronoun while 'rites' is the second person pronoun. 'Iveyo' is the verb which means to advise.

Rices ivepo rites : I advised you

Rices iveto rites : I advise you

Rices iveco rites : I will advise you

Rices ivepom rites : I did not advise you

Rices ivetom rites : I do not advise you

Rices ivecom rites : I will not advise you

Rices set ivepo rites : I was advising you (I was in the midst of advising you)

Rices set iveto rites : I am advising you

Rices set iveco rites : I will be advising you (at some point in the future)

Rices züca ivepo rites : I had advised you (I advised you at some point in the past and have stopped advising you)

Rices züca iveto rites : I have advised you (I have finished advising you at the present moment)

Rices züca iveco rites : I will have advised you (by some point in the future)

I'll leave the perfect and continuous negatives to you to extrapolate. By the way, this list might help to demonstrate the advantages of inflections. Meaning can be clearly distinguished by subtle changes and can be more concisely expressed. This is all I've got for verbs in this post. I'll deal with the positively dreadful copula in the next, and the auxiliary verb in a subsequent post. 'Is' is horrible in its versatility. E-prime advocates - I hear you.