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→Correlatives and Pro-Forms
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=== Correlatives and Pro-Forms === | === Correlatives and Pro-Forms === | ||
Most of the pro-forms in Maltcégj stem from combinations of common words, such as ‘this’ + ‘time’, meaning ‘now’, or ‘that’ + ‘thing’ meaning ‘that’. However, it is important to note some historical changes to the language to fully understand how the current forms came to be as they are. | |||
Maltcégj is a head-initial language, like modern Japanese, but the language family from which it is descended, Baraqesh, was head-final, like most modern Indo-European languages. That is to say that forms like ‘who’ (‘which person’) were originally in the order in which we use them in English today, but eventually reversed in the grammar (‘person which’). However, before this reversal occurred, many forms were contracted, particularly those with ''mlau'' ‘what’, so there is a duality of some seemingly unrelated forms. For example, ‘when’ (‘what’ + ‘time’) can be both ''ðláimlau'' (literally ‘time-what’) and ''mlai'', a contraction of an earlier ''*mlauðlai''. | |||
The deixes ''ja'', ''la'', and ''þa'' always preceed the noun they modify, even when they are used independently. (For more information on these, see Measurement of Time.) | |||
Still other forms have no relation to the base form, but are listed here for convenience. | |||
The most common correlatives can be found below. | |||
{| class="wikitable" | |||
|- | |||
! !! Interrogative !! Relative !! Negative !! Proximal !! Medial !! Distal | |||
|- | |||
| Base forms: || ''mlau'' || ''kalk'' || ''bleg'' || ''jála, úli'' || ''ðóra, úla'' || ''þa, ulót'' | |||
|- | |||
| '''''lað''''' ('person') || ''lað mlau, mlað'' ('who') || ''klað, kalk'' ('who') || ''lað bleg, blað'' ('no one') || ''lað úli, jlað'' ('this person') || ''lað úla, ðrað'' ('that person') || ''lað ulót, þlað'' ('the other person') | |||
|} | |||
== Nouns == | == Nouns == | ||