– SIAL –
An International Auxiliary Language

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SIAL Morphology

Note: Prefixes are often written with the hyphen included, but suffixes never are.

Lexical Classes

Although related, lexical classes are distinct from syntactical parts of speech. Factors involved in lexical classification include:

• whether the word is lexically a verb, a noun, or a particle
• whether the verb is Dynamic or Static
• whether the verb's subject is impossible (impersonal - U) or not (V)
• whether the verb's object is required (2), optional, or impossible (1)

Impersonal verbs lack subjects. Those that also lack objects are avalent, but those that don't are monovalent, albeit different from the other kind of monovalent.

Subject × Object	impossible	optional	required
impossible	avalent	impersonal	???
possible *	monovalent	divalent	defective

Inflectional Affixes

TAM Prefixes

Tense, aspect, and modality (TAM) are partly specified by prefixes, with the aspect marker following any other.

TAM Prefixes

Prefix	Tag	Description	Class	Kind
		aoristic	Dynamic	aspect
		stative	Static
zu-	Prg-	progressive	Dynamic
va-	Pro-	prospective
ge-	Ret-	retrospective
bi-	Hab-	habitual
le-	Opt-	optative		modality
ja- ?	Prs-	present		tense

Syntactically Relevent Affixes

Terminal Suffixes

The final vowel (if any) of a word specifies syntactically relevent information, both part-of-speech and valence.

Final Vowels

Suffix	Tag	Part-of-Speech	Valence
-a	-Div	verbal	divalent
-e	-Mon		monovalent
-i	-Voc	vocative
-o	-Nom	(all other) nominals
	.Nom	(some proper) nominals
		(some) conjunctions	avalent
(-u)		particle

Other Suffixes

Another syntactically relevent suffix is the passive (or inversion) suffix, which exchanges the role assignments of the subject and object. It's used in both derivation and inflection.

Other Suffixes

Suffix	Tag	Description	Kind
-az	-Inv	passive (or inverse)	argument structure

Other Prefixes

Another syntactically relevent prefix is the causative prefix. It can be applied in two cases:

1. On impersonal verbs, in which case an active subject is added.
2. On intransitive verbs, making the original passive subject an object and adds a new active subject. This application is more common.

Other Prefixes

Prefix	Tag	Name	Description
fa-	Cau-	Causative	dynamic-to-static, monovalent-to-divalent or impersonal-to-personal
fi-	Inc-	Inchoative	dynamic-to-static

Pronouns and Determiners

Pronouns

Tag	Description	Pron.	Poss.	Tag	Description	Pron.	Possess.
1S	1st person Singular	me	meo	1P	1st person Plural	nas	(nas mo)
2S	2nd person Singular	te	teo	2S	2nd person Plural	vas	(vas mo)
Rfx	Reflexive	se	seo	Rcp	Reciprocal	seso	(seso mo)
U	Impersonal	u		Prx	3rd person Proximative	to	(to mo)
				Obv	3rd person Obviative	lo	(lo mo)
Qu.A	Interrogative, Animate	ki	kio	Qu.I	Interrogative, Inanimate	ke	(ke mo)
IndA	Indefinite, Animate	u-ki	u-kio	IndI	Indefinite, Inanimate	u-ke	(u-ke mo)
NegA	Negative, Animate	ni-ki	ni-kio	NegI	Negative, Inanimate	ni-ke	(ni-ke mo)

Other Pronominals

Verb.	Dem.	Degree	Description	Det.	Degree	Description
ete	eto	eto ka ?	spatial, proximal	to	ta	discursive, proximative
ese	eso	eso ka ?	spatial, medial	so	sa	satisfactive
ele	elo	elo ka ?	spatial, distal	lo	la	discursive, obviative
eke	eko		spatial, interrogative	ko	ka	general, interrogative
uke	uko		spatial, indefinite	uko	u-ka	general, indefinite
nike	niko		spatial, negative	niko	ni-ka	general, negative

Derivation

page started: 2010.Jan.24 Sun
last modified: 2010.Mar.07 Sun
content and form originated by qiihoskeh

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