For a simple example, I can calque “mi sona”. It makes
| sd |
sound |
en |
| mé fē dr. |
/m̥é ɸē dɤ̀/ |
I’m seeing it. |
“fē” is equivalent to toki pona’s “li” (no exception for mi and sina). “dr” is a general word for any kind of experience, whether from outside or from memory. And “me” refers not just to the first person, but the first person at the current time and place. For a more general first person, I use “jv me” /çœ́ mè/ [“the being that is currently me”]. This was so I could combine “mi” and “ni” into one word. To extract “ni”, I use “fv” /βœ̀/ [“to point at”], to get “v́fme” /œ́ɸm̥e̋/ [“the thing I’m pointing at”]. This change from “fv” to “vf” is passivisation. It reverses the direction of the relation, like writing “<” instead of “>”.
Applying it to “dr”, we get
| sd |
sound |
en |
| mé fē rd. |
/m̥é ɸē ɤ̀d/ |
I’m being seen. |
Negation is performed by “inverting” sounds. On my webpage I have charts that show what the opposite sounds are, but basicly every content word has a negative form of itself running around. For example,
| sd |
sound |
en |
| mé fē kv. |
/m̥é ɸē gœ̀/ |
I’m not seeing it. |
| mé fē vk. |
/m̥é ɸē œ̀g/ |
I’m being not seen. |
There’s a tonal distinction between the start of a noun and the start of a verb, which is reinforced by a voicing distinction on the consonant. To see it in action, I can swap the speaker (mé) and the experiencer (dr) in my example sentences:
| sd |
sound |
en |
| tŕ fē me. |
/tɤ́ ɸē mè/ |
The one seeing it is me. |
| ŕt fē me. |
/ɤ́t ɸē mè/ |
The one being seen is me. |
| kv́ fē me. |
/kœ́ ɸē mè/ |
The one not seeing it is me. |
| v́k fē me. |
/œ́k ɸē mè/ |
The one not being seen is me. |
You might notice that not all voicing distinctions are expressed in the orthography. This is OK, because voicing can be inferred from tones. Tones are not always written either. There is a default tonal contour for words (lo-hi-hi-hi-hi-…) and only variations need to be written.
Now back to “me”. It is actually defined as a transitive verb, meaning “to be the first person here and now as they are speaking to the second person.” This makes “ém” mean “you, where you are, as you are hearing this.”
| sd |
sound |
en |
| ém fē dr. |
/ém̥ ɸē dɤ̀/ |
You’re seeing it. |
At this stage, I think I’m ready to build a SVO sentence. A noun suffixed to a verb becomes its object, so it’ll be like this:
| sd |
sound |
en |
| ém fē drme. |
/ém̥ ɸē dɤ̀m̥é/ |
You’re seeing me. |
Objects can themselves take objects, forming chains:
| sd |
sound |
en |
| ém fē drtrme. |
/ém̥ ɸē dɤ̀tɤ́m̥e̋/ |
You’re seeing one that’s seeing me. |
Verbs with objects can be nominalised, forming agent nouns with objects:
| sd |
sound |
en |
| tŕem fē drme. |
/tɤ́e̋m̥ ɸē dɤ̀m̥é/ |
The one that’s seeing me is seeing you. |
Next, I’d like to mention the pre-verbs: “z” /z/ [“to be an act of doing O”] and “x” /ɣ/ [“to not be an act of doing O”]. That’s right, they are negations of each other.
| sd |
sound |
en |
| v́fme fē zdr |
/œ́ɸm̥e̋ ɸē z̀dɤ̏/ |
This is an experience. |
They can also be nominalised.
| sd |
sound |
en |
| sdr fē br |
/sdɤ̀ ɸē bɤ̀/ |
The experience is good. |
That’s all for now.
me fē do.
