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Common thinks of itself as having the following parts of speech: | Common thinks of itself as having the following parts of speech: | ||
'''Terms (naz Jerekka)''': Concrete objects, concepts, actions and experiences. Corresponds to nouns and verbs. The Common word for 'term' is 'jerekka', 'that which ends'). | *'''Terms (naz Jerekka)''': Concrete objects, concepts, actions and experiences. Corresponds to nouns and verbs. The Common word for 'term' is 'jerekka', 'that which ends'). | ||
'''Modifiers (naz Keulca)''': Descriptions of objects, concepts or manners of action, and well as describing how arguments relate, in space or in motion. Modfiers are adjectives, adverbs, numbers, propositions and more. They have a property called 'binding' which determines how they are interpreted. The binding types are tight and loose binding, with loose being unmarked. The Common word for modifiers is 'keulca', 'that which makes a change'. | *'''Modifiers (naz Keulca)''': Descriptions of objects, concepts or manners of action, and well as describing how arguments relate, in space or in motion. Modfiers are adjectives, adverbs, numbers, propositions and more. They have a property called 'binding' which determines how they are interpreted. The binding types are tight and loose binding, with loose being unmarked. The Common word for modifiers is 'keulca', 'that which makes a change'. | ||
'''Determiners (nar Samorka)''': Determiners are phrase heads, and carry all of the grammatical information about how the phrase relates to other parts of a sentence, and a host of other grammatical distinctions. Determiners are articles and auxiliary verbs. Article determiners are also pronouns. Relative pronouns that allow a dependent clause to describe a noun or that allow a dependent clause to function as an argument to a verb also fall into this category, although they are arguably also modifiers. The Common word for determiners of all kinds is 'samorka', 'that which starts'. | *'''Determiners (nar Samorka)''': Determiners are phrase heads, and carry all of the grammatical information about how the phrase relates to other parts of a sentence, and a host of other grammatical distinctions. Determiners are articles and auxiliary verbs. Article determiners are also pronouns. Relative pronouns that allow a dependent clause to describe a noun or that allow a dependent clause to function as an argument to a verb also fall into this category, although they are arguably also modifiers. The Common word for determiners of all kinds is 'samorka', 'that which starts'. | ||
'''Conjunctions (naz Heratca)''': Words that connect articles and phrases, either logically or in terms of how one flows into the next. Conjunctions tend to have forms that are different inside and outside of phrases (internal and edge conjunctions, in Common terminology).The Common word for conjunctions is 'heratca', 'that which connects'. | *'''Conjunctions (naz Heratca)''': Words that connect articles and phrases, either logically or in terms of how one flows into the next. Conjunctions tend to have forms that are different inside and outside of phrases (internal and edge conjunctions, in Common terminology).The Common word for conjunctions is 'heratca', 'that which connects'. | ||
'''Interjections (naz Smokka)''': Words that serve some kind of purpose outside the framework of an explicit or implied sentence. Often these words have uses in the other categories.The Common word for interjections is 'smokka', 'that which is thrown'. | *'''Interjections (naz Smokka)''': Words that serve some kind of purpose outside the framework of an explicit or implied sentence. Often these words have uses in the other categories.The Common word for interjections is 'smokka', 'that which is thrown'. | ||
It is not at all that Common lacks a distinction between nouns and verbs, or between adjectives and adverbs, of course. Grammarians talk about Common verbs and nouns all the time. But what having these 'terms' and 'modifiers' whose function is determined by context does is make Common very friendly to zero derivation between parts of speech. There are plenty of examples of zero derivation in English. For example, you have the verb 'to stop' and the noun 'a stop' that are zero derived from each other (that is, the word changes part of speech and hence something important about its meaning without any explicit conversion like adding a suffix). Students of constructed languages who are familiar with Esperanto will note the contrast with that language's very explicit and mandatory marking of parts of speech, Common goes to an extreme the other way, at least within its self-recognized part-of-speech categories, and usually gives you no visible way to determine the part of speech of a word other than to just learn it. | It is not at all that Common lacks a distinction between nouns and verbs, or between adjectives and adverbs, of course. Grammarians talk about Common verbs and nouns all the time. But what having these 'terms' and 'modifiers' whose function is determined by context does is make Common very friendly to zero derivation between parts of speech. There are plenty of examples of zero derivation in English. For example, you have the verb 'to stop' and the noun 'a stop' that are zero derived from each other (that is, the word changes part of speech and hence something important about its meaning without any explicit conversion like adding a suffix). Students of constructed languages who are familiar with Esperanto will note the contrast with that language's very explicit and mandatory marking of parts of speech, Common goes to an extreme the other way, at least within its self-recognized part-of-speech categories, and usually gives you no visible way to determine the part of speech of a word other than to just learn it. | ||
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Note that in terms of head structure, Common is a head-initial language for the most part, owing to the fact that phrase heads are always initial, but that it has head-final qualities as well, in particular in how compound words and phrases are constructed with a head term last. | Note that in terms of head structure, Common is a head-initial language for the most part, owing to the fact that phrase heads are always initial, but that it has head-final qualities as well, in particular in how compound words and phrases are constructed with a head term last. | ||
====Old Common Gender System==== | |||
The genders of Old Common used to be mediated through agreement between the determiners and the head terms. All terms had gender, regardless of whether they were used in a noun or verb context, and the determiner had to agree with the head term in gender, whether it was an article or a verbal auxiliary. This was done through a high-low vowel harmony - the stressed vowel of the determiner harmonized with the stressed vowel of the head term in height. This gender system broke down during the Global Collapse, and the high-low distinctions in determiners were repurposed to indicate definiteness in nouns and realis versus irrealis in verbs. | |||
===Word Order=== | ===Word Order=== | ||
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==Morphology== | ==Morphology== | ||
Common has a largely inflecting and isolating morphology, with some limited agglutination used in word building but a general preference to avoid complex derivations. All classes of word that can inflect are closed classes. All open class word are invariant other than for agglutinative derivational morphology and compounding. Nouns and verbs always exist as noun and verb phrases, with a determiner, the article in the case of nouns and the auxiliary in the case of verbs, being an absolutely mandatory introductory element and a head term containing the semantic freight being an optional right-most element - although if any modifiers are present, it is mandatory to use a dummy substitute head term ("yn" or a paradigm verb) if omitting the head. | |||
===Verbs=== | |||
Verbal auxiliaries inflect for tense, aspect and mood. The Common TAM system is simple, but it is mandatory to make a selection for each. | |||
Common also has mandatory valance pattern agreement. Every term used in a verbal context has a "base" valance - it belongs to a paradigm, with a paradigm verb that is thought to exemplify the class. There are five valance patterns. The following list summarizes the paradigms and TAM options. | |||
*'''Valence (na Kyrakkas Tret)'''. The valence categories are: | |||
**Avalent - AVAL (Zresu). Verbs that have no arguments. An example in English would be 'it rained', where the 'it' is just a grammatically required dummy subject. Common would not need the equivalent of 'it', and such verbs would use avalent agreement instead. In Common it is named for its paradigm verb 'zresu', to rain. | |||
**Intransitive - NTRN (Pali): Verb has one argument, the subject, in the absolutive case. An example in English of an intransitive verb would be 'to sleep'. In Common it is named for its paradigm verb 'pali', to stand. | |||
**Semitransitive - STRN (Noxaj): Verb has two arguments. One, the subject, is in the absolutive case, and the other, a recipient of the action that is not viewed as a patient affected by the action, is in the dative case. There is no good equivalent in English. Common uses this pattern for verbs of motion, analogous with 'to go' - the absolutive subject is the thing moving, and the dative indirect object is the destination. This is an example of the Common dative being used as a lative case. This pattern is also often used for verbs of emotion or desire. In Common it is named for its paradigm verb 'noxaj', to go. | |||
**Transitive - TRN (Skurun): Verb has an actor, the subject, in the ergative case and a patient, the object, in the absolutive case. An example in English would be 'to hit' .In Common it is named for its paradigm verb 'skurun', to hit. | |||
**Ditransitive - DTRN (Happat): Verb has an actor, the subject, in the ergative case, a patient, the direct object, in the absolutive case, and a recipient, the indirect object, in the dative case. And example in English would be 'to give'. In Common it is named for its paradigm verb 'happat', to give. | |||
*'''Tense (na Celysyn)'''. The time the speaker is referencing. There are two tenses: | |||
**Past - PST (Kiles): Actions that took place before the present. They might possibly be ongoing in the present, but the focus of attention is the past action. | |||
**Non-past - NPST (Panas): Present and future actions or focus. | |||
*'''Aspect (na Trijustep)''': The manner in which the action of the verb is performed. There are two aspects: | |||
**Perfect - PRF: The action of the verb is complete. Combined with the nonpast tense this still implies a past action, but the focus is on the present. | |||
**Imperfect - NPRF: Ongoing or habitual actions. | |||
*'''Mood (na Puesyn)'''. There are two grammatical moods: | |||
**Realis (na zra puesyn): The action is real and concrete. | |||
**Irrealis (na sihys puesyn): The action is somehow hypothetical or potentially counterfactual. The reason why the moods are called "realis" and "irrealis" rather than "indicative" and "subjunctive," which arguably is what they actually are since they are mediated by inflection, is because the irrealis used to be indicated by an affix in Old Common. During the breakdown of the gender system, the abstract gender agreement form of the auxiliary was repurposed to indicate the irrealis, but the terminology used to refer to it was not updated. | |||
The most important of these categories is valance. There are actually five verbal auxiliaries - one for each valance pattern. Each auxiliary then inflects for tense, aspect and mood in a separate conjugational paradigm. | |||
Each verb in Common belongs to a family which has a "paradigm verb" (na utólys hultan) which is an ordinary verb which is considered to represent the family. There are five paradigm verbs, corresponding to the five valence patterns. When a verb belongs to a certain paradigm, that paradigm determines which verbal auxiliary you must use with the verb, and what the semantic impact of instead using a different auxiliary is. The paradigm verb has a grammatical function as well, as any verb can be substituted with its paradigm verb if you want to avoid saying the verb itself or if you can't think of exactly the right word. The particle 'yn' can also be used for this purpose, but the advantage the paradigm verb gives is that it disambiguates whether the auxiliary is the default or valence shifted, and if valence shifted, the meaning of the valence shift. | |||
In rare cases, a verb may have two usages, where it can belong to more and one paradigm, and you have to infer the paradigm intended from context - an example is 'fella', 'fog'. Usually, however, verbs belong to a single paradigm, and this can narrow the possible usage of the verb. | |||
====Nonfinite Verbs and Verb Chaining==== | |||
Common does not have any nonfinite verbs (verb forms that do not require a subject but may take an object, like an infinitive or gerund) per se. The verbal auxiliaries below are always finite. A modifying term used in a verb phrase is essentially like a nonfinite verb, however, functioning like an infinitive, and verbal terms may be chained in a verb phase. The last term is the head term, and its paradigm is the paradigm of the verb phrase overall. This is a common way to create modal expressions. Otherwise, Common uses noun phrases and relative clauses for a number of idioms where another language might use an infinitive, participle or gerund. | |||
This topic will be an article in its own right, this note is just to explain that the reason why nonfinite forms may appear to be missing from this discussion is not due to an ommission. Basically they don't exist, and Common speakers manage these types of forms in different ways. | |||
===Nouns=== | |||
===Modifiers=== | |||
====Prepositions==== | |||
===Conjunctions=== | |||
===Dependent Clauses=== | |||
==Example | ==Example Text== | ||