Learn TIAL

Chapter 2: Very Simple Sentences

TIAL morphemes and examples
Eng English glosses
dfn terms defined in this chapter
ref terms defined in other chapters
Tag interlinear tags

2.1 Parts of Speech

TIAL has two basic types of words: inflected words, which vary in form according to their usage and meaning, and uninflected words, which don't. The two major kinds of inflected words are nouns, denoting entities or kinds of entities, and verbs, denoting situations or kinds of situations. The major kinds of uninflected words are pronouns and particles.

The two kinds of nouns are proper nouns (such as personal names) and common nouns. In TIAL, nouns do not distinguish singular and plural.

Verbs, which include adjectives and prepositions, are also divided into classes.

2.2 Subject and Predicate

Nouns are often used as subjects and verbs as predicates. In this case, the noun ends in o and the verb in e; these forms of the words are known as o-forms and e-forms, respectively. This is a good place to note that nouns are listed in the vocabulary in their o-forms and many verbs are listed in their e-forms. We now can have sentences of the form

Subject(o) Verb(e).

such as

cikko kurre.   "The child ran."
Tomaso dorme.   "Thomas is sleeping."
Janno felice.   "John is happy."

The first example could also be translated as "The children ran.".

2.3 Referentiality

You'll have noticed in the example

cikko kurre.
"The child ran." or "The children ran."

there's a definite article ("the") in the English translation but not in the TIAL sentence. This is because definite articles don't exist in TIAL -- a noun with no article in front of it is already definite. There is, however, an indefinite article yo. Unlike the indefinite article in some languages, yo doesn't distinguish number:

yo cikko kurre.
"A child ran." or "Some children ran."

2.4 Tense

In TIAL, unlike in many languages, verbs aren't marked for tense, i.e. they don't change form to agree with past, present, or future contexts. There are adverbs that indicate time, but these are used only when needed. This means that the translation of a sentence out of context might use past, future, or present arbitrarily.

Janno kurre.
"John ran." or "John will run."

Mario felice.
"Mary is happy." or "Mary was happy." or "Mary will be happy."

cikko dorme.
"The child is sleeping." or "The child was sleeping." or "The child will be sleeping."


Vocabulary
bayle dance felice happy
cikko child kante sing
damo woman kurre run
dorme sleep viro man


Exercises

Translate into English:
1. damo dorme.
2. yo viro kurre.
3. cikko felice.

Translate into TIAL:
1. The men sang.
2. Some women danced.
3. A child will run.


page started: 2010.Jun.26 Sat
current date: 2012.May.07 Mon
content and form originated by qiihoskeh

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