The Dailies. October 6
Did you work on your language today? Create any new rules of grammar or syntax? New progress on a script? New words in your lexicon?
On the other hand, do any excavating or reading or enjoying stuff you’ve already created? Do you have any favorites to share?
How did you conlang today?
0
2 thoughts on “The Dailies. October 6”
Beldreeni: I wanted a way to express warnings/alarm like for English “Watch out!” and “Watch it!” Or Swedish “Akta!”, German “Achtung!”, French “Attention!”, etc.
I decided to go with a new verbal root: hok, with the basic meaning ‘takes care, is careful [of something]’, much like Swedish “akta”. As usual, the citation form hok is the present tense in neutral style. The formal style is hokya and hoki, the familiar style hoko. In addition, hoki is also a common alternate form of the neutral style, not restricted to just one region – but still a little less widespread than hok.
It’s been a while since I showed the Beldreeni verbal conjugations, so bear with me. This goes in the order formal-neutral-familiar for each instance:
Simple past (preterite): hokyas/hokis, hokis, hokos
Imperfect: hokyati, hoketi, hokoti
Future: hokidde, hokadde, hokadda
Subjunctive present/optative: hokamya, hokame, hokamo
Subjunctive past: hokamyas, hokames, hokamos
Gerund: hokiso
Infinitive: hokyan
Imperative: (THE REASON FOR THIS WHOLE THING!) hokitan, hokitan, hokotang – Note that the imperative form in general often avoids stress on the penultimate syllable, which is the case here: for all three styles, it’s the first syllable /hok/ that gets the stress. In addition, hokitan is often pronounced Hok’tan! when used as a one-word cry of warning.
Negative present: hokin/hok’n, hoken, hokonu
Negative simple past: hokyans, hokens, hokonsu
Negative imperfect: hokyanti, hokenti, hokonti
Negative future: hokidden, hokadden, hokaddanu
Negative subjunctive present: hokamenda, hokamen, hokamanu
Negative subjunctive past: hokamendas, hokamens, hokamansu
Negative imperative: hokintan, hokintan/hokentan, hokonutang
Passive, present tense: hokezai, hokezu, hokezu
Passive, simple past: hokezais, hokezus, hokezus
Passive imperfect: hokezeti, hokezuti, hokezuti
Passive future: hokezedde, hokezudde, hokezudda
Passive subj. past: hokezaimyas, hokezumes, hokezumas
Negative passive present: hokezain, hokezuën, hokezu’onu
Negative passive simple past: hokezains, hokezuëns, hokezu’onsu
etc.
If you use hok with the all-purpose reflexive suke, the meaning changes to roughly ‘behave’.
Hokotang! Watch out!
Suke hokotang! Behave yourself!
And used with the postposition o (means “to” and is also the dative marker), the meaning changes to “respect” (v).
Tule hokyan sese katta. You [pl.] must be more careful (familiar style).
Tule hokyan suke sese katta. You [pl] must behave yourselves better (familiar).
Miki o nai pana hokya. I respect you (formal). [Lit: This person respects you]
Kejo leikainos o baen hoko. I do respect your father.
Kejo leinos lö suke baen hoko. I behave myself around your father.
hokim (adj.) cautious, careful, watchful
kohokya, kohoki (n) carefulness, caution, watchfulness (there’s a pre-existing synonym for this meaning: sosabi)
kohoki (n) also often means ‘respect’, especially in East Beldreeni
mihasa (n) respect, esp. in West Beldreeni. A loanword from Lumina
The adverb nii’o means “too” in the sense “too [much of something]”: nii’o hāra ‘too hot’; nii’o zēha ‘too cold’, etc*. Combined with hok, you get nii’ohok (stress on first syllable), or the common alternate form nii’ohoki (stress on penultimate syllable as usual). This means “suspects”.
nii’ohokim (adj) suspicious, in the sense of ‘harbouring suspicions’; ‘easily suspects other people’
nii’ohokö (adj) suspicious, in the sense of ‘behaves suspiciously, suspect’. The perfect participle form of nii’ohok(i)
nii’ohokiira (v) arouse suspicions in someone (with the -iira causative suffix)
Gulka o gulmin di nii’ohoki suspect someone of something
To illustrate, I will borrow two characters from literature. Keep in mind that the infix -dē- is used similarly to titles, like French “Monsieur” but gender-neutral.
Madeledēne di Javert nii’ohokyati. Javert suspected M. Madeleine. (Formal style)
Javert di Madeledēne nii’ohokiryati. M. Madeleine aroused Javert’s suspicions.
Min nii’ohokaikim Javert sati wai. Javert was certainly a suspicious person.
Min yazö lādri o so wai to, Madeledēne di Javert nii’ohokyati. Javert suspected M. Madeleine of being an old prisoner. (Though I’m not fully positive of the syntax.)
Ane Madeledēne di Javert nii’ohokyati adi, aso nii’ohokyati. M. Madeleine suspected that Javert suspected him.
Uga Jean Valkaijean Madeledēne sati wai. M. Madeleine truly was Jean Valjean.
And of course this phrase that’s so common in manga and anime:
Min nii’ohodzhekö wai!
I am not a suspicious person! (Formal style)
To which someone might reply:
Kero min nii’ohokaikö ru! Gul min gul kero di nii’ohokames!
You are too a suspicious person! Anyone would suspect you! (Neutral style)
*Nii’o also has another meaning not relevant here: to reply positively to a negatively worded question, like French sí, German doch and Swedish jo.
Ooooh! These are fun! And I love how you derived the lexemes for suspicion.