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• Nombre de lectures: 15
• Langue: English

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nÌ 3bÌs  3dÌd3 3t3m  Ì The Language of the Ebisedi A Beginner’s Guide

H. S. Teoh September 16, 2003

Contents 1 Introduction 2 1.1 Orthography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2 The Alphabet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2.1 IPA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2.2 Vowels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2.3 Consonants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.3 Punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2 Basic Concepts 5 2.1 Noun cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.1.1 The Originative and the Receptive . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.1.2 The Conveyant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.1.3 The Instrumental . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.1.4 The Locative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2.1.5 Characteristic vowels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2.2 Stative sentences (1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2.2.1 Conveyant with Locative: containment . . . . . . . . . 11 2.2.2 Originative with conveyant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2.2.3 Receptive with conveyant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2.2.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 2.3 Relative clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

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2.4 Word Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2.5 Nominator sentences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 2.5.1 Titles & Headings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.5.2 The Topic-Comment Construct . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.5.3 The back-referencing particle,kÌlÌ. . . . . . . 18. . . . . 2.5.4 Some Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2.6 Correlatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 2.7 Conjunctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 3 All about Verbs 22 3.1 Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 3.1.1 Aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 3.1.2 Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 3.1.3 Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 3.1.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 3.2 Gerunds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 3.2.1 Forming gerunds from verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 3.2.2 Participles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 4 Interrogatives 32 4.1 ‘What’ Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 4.2 Confirmative Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 5 Subordinate Passages; tÌand tÌmÌ34 5.1 Quoted Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

1 Introduction This is a beginner’s guide to nÌ 3bÌs  3dÌd3 3t3m  Ì,the language of the Ebisedi, also known as “Ebisedian”. It is intended as a gentle introduction to the lan- guage for beginners who may find the reference grammar a bit too daunting.

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1.1 Orthography Ebisedian has its own writing system, called thesanok  Ì. 1 However, in this tutorial we will employ instead anorthography, written using letters from the Roman alphabet and formatted in familiar, English-like conventions. (The sanok  Ìuses only ligatures to mark word breaks and other punctuation—we feel that is too difficult to deal with for a beginner.) 1.2 The Alphabet 1.2.1 IPA In discussing the Ebisedian alphabet, we will use theInternational Phonetic Alphabet, also known asIPA, to describe the corresponding pronunciations. In tables and figures, we will use IPA symbols as-is. Within running text, we will enclose IPA with [square brackets] to avoid confusion with orthographic text. For example,nÌ 3bÌs  3dÌd3 3t3m   Ìis pronounced [d:disi9´inb99 9t9mıˇ:]. 2 1.2.2 Vowels Ebisedian has 9 vowels and 27 consonants. Table 1 shows the nine vowels with the closest IPA representation(s) for them. The top symbol in each cell, inbold, is the orthographic symbol for the vowel; the symbol(s) on the bottom is the IPA equivalent(s). uřy u8,0y o3 Ì o9,@i ø a e Aa æ,E

Table 1: Vowels 1 In fact, it has more than one writing system. writing system is the Anotherkøromok  Ì, based on color patterns. But that’s not important here. 2 syllables may acquire a variety of tonal realizations, although phone-Note that stressed mically there is only high and low pitch.

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Vowels may belong vowels are marked with a macron:. Long  a. Vowels is a lo may also be nasal:a ˜ is a short nasal vowel, pronounced [˜a];  a ˜ ng nasal vowel, pronounced [:˜a]. At the beginning of a word, or immediately after another vowel, a vowel has one of threebreathings: Theabruptbreathing, which is the normal vowel breathing, is pro- nounced with a precedingglottal stop. For example,Ìis pronounced [Pi], andaÌis pronounced [PaPi]. 3 Thesmoothbreathing, indicated as ‘ a, is pronounced with a preceding semivowel. For example, ‘ Ìis pronounced [ji], y‘ is pronounced [4y], ‘ u is pronounced [wu], and ‘ ais pronounced [a “ a]. Theroughbreathing, indicated asha, is pronounced with a preceding unvoiced glottal fricative. For example,h  3is pronounced [h9:]. 1.2.3 Consonants Table 2 show the 27 consonants in Ebisedian alphabetical order. gh kh ng g kt ˆ G k g kx ŋ h ˆ dh th n d t t ðT t tn d h jh ch-j c c ˆ Z S- ÙÃ Ù h z s- -l r z s - - ló,R v f m b p p ˆ B F p pm b h

Table 2: Consonants The language is pitch-accented; syllables of high pitch are marked with an acute accent:kais low-pitched, whereask  a Similarly,is high-pitched.k  a is long and low-pitched;k  ais long and high-pitched. 3 Note that this only applies to word-initial vowels and vowels immediately following another vowel.

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1.3 Punctuation Unlike the multitude of punctuation in English, Ebisedian only has 3 types of punctuation:word breaks,sentence breaks, andparagraph breaks. Although the native writing 4 together and uses ligatures to mark wordcrams all words boundaries, in the orthography we use spaces instead. Sentence breaks are marked with a period (.), and paragraph breaks are marked by breaking the line and starting a new paragraph, as per English conventions.

2 Basic Concepts Ebisedian has a few basic concepts which the learner absolutelymustun- derstand in order to make any sense out of the language. We will deal with them here.

2.1 Noun cases Nouns are inflected for 5 cases. They are theoriginative, thereceptive, the instrumental, theconveyant, and thelocative. In order to understand how noun cases in Ebisedian work, we need to understand how the Ebisedi think. Let’s take a look at some examples. 2.1.1 The Originative and the Receptive Consider the following sentence: eb  ø zot   řp   Ìz3du.“I look at a man.” The wordeb  øis the masculine first person pronoun, “I”. It is in theoriginative case. The verb in this sentence iszot  ř, “look at”. 5 The wordp  Ìz3dumeans “man”, and is in thereceptivecase. So, if we write out the cases of each noun in the sentence, we have: “I (originative) look-at man (receptive).” Why is “I” in the originative case, and “man” in the receptive? Because to look at something, you are paying attentiontothat thing. are the Yougiverof attention, or theoriginof 4 sanokÌ. 5 For now, we won’t worry about the fact that it’s a physical incidental perfective verb. We’ll worry about that when we discuss verbs.

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attention. So “I” must be in theoriginative “man”case. On the other hand , here is thereceiverof attention; hence, “man” must be in thereceptivecase. Now, let’s take a look at another sentence: eb  u f  řt3p  Ìz3dø.“I see a man.” Here, we haveeb  u, which is, in fact, thereceptiveform of the wordeb  ø, “I . ” f  řt3 Andis a verb meaning “see”.p  Ìz3døis theoriginativeform ofp   Ìz3dÌ, “man”. Now, this may appear to be totally backwards, because in English we are used to thinking of the “I” as thesubjectof the sentence, and “man” as the object. However,Ebisedian does not work in terms of ‘subject’ and ‘object’.  Instead, it works in terms of who/what is theoriginof something, and what is therecipientof something. In Ebisedian reckoning, seeing something is a matter ofreceiving sightof that thing; hence, the seer must be in thereceptive the thingcase. Similarly, which is seen is thesource, theorigin, of that sight; so it must be in the originativecase. That is why in this sentence, “I” isreceptive, whereas “man” is originative. Let’s look at more examples. eb  ø t  řma p  Ìz3du.“I speak to the man.” Here, we see thateb  øis in the originative case again, andp   Ìz3duin the receptive.t  řmais a verb meaning “speak”. As is to be expected, when you speak something, you are thesource, or theorigin Hence, the speaker, “I”, in this sentence is, of the spoken words. in the originative case. Similarly, the person spoken to is the onereceiving the words you spoke; hence, “man” here is in the receptive case. On the other hand, consider the following sentence: eb  u kut  řme p  Ìz3dø.“I hear the man.” Here,kut   řmeis a verb meaning “hear”. being “I”, who hears whom? But the hearer, is therecipientof the words spoken by the man; hence, “I” must be in thereceptive the words, or the sound, is comingcase. Sincefromthe man, “man” is in theoriginative.

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2.1.2 The Conveyant Now, let’s examine the following sentence: l   ys eb  3l   oru.“I went outside.” Here,l  ysis a verb meaning “go”.eb  3is, in fact, still the same word for “I”, but in another case inflection: this time, it isconveyant. Finally,l  oruis a noun meaning “outside”. 6 It is in thereceptivecase. In other words, this sentence literally reads “go I (conveyant) outside (receptive).” If you are used to thinking about subject/object in English, you may find this quite surprising. Why is “I” in the conveyant case? The answer is this: because “I” in this sentence is what isgoing, ormoving, from point A to point B. It is beingconveyedfrom point A to point B; hence, it is in theconveyantcase. The receptive noun,l   oru, must therefore be thedestinationof motion. This is another aspect of the receptive case: it indicates goal. Now suppose we add an originative noun to the sentence: jul  ør l  ys eb  3l  oru.“I left the house and went outside.”  Literally, this sentence says “from the house, I went outside”. The originative noun marks theoriginas the receptive noun marks the desti-of motion, just nation of motion. That which travels between the origin and the destination is the conveyant noun, “I”. As a general rule, anything that starts from the origin and heads for the destination would be put into the conveyant case. This is shown in the next example: eb  ø t   řl3re tal3r  3mÌr  3nu.“I sing a song to the child.” Here, we haveeb  ø, “I” (originative);t   řl3re, a verb meaning “sing”;tal3r  3, “song” (conveyant), andmÌr  3nu, “child” (receptive). Since “I” is the source, or the origin, of the song, it is in the originative case. The child is the one being sungto; hence, it is in the receptive case. The song is what is beingconveyedfrom the singer, “I”, to the listener, “child”. So it is in theconveyantcase. 6 Actually, it means “plains” or “open area”. Its meaning depends on context; it may be “outdoors” or it may be “countryside”, or it may just be “the plains”. Here, we’ll just assume it means “outside”.

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2.1.3 The Instrumental Consider the following: l   ys eb  3mang  a m  oju.“I rode on the horse to the town.” We have herel   ys, “go”;eb  3, “I” (conveyant);mang  a, “horse”instrumental; m  oju, “city” (receptive). Here, the use of the instrumental should be clear: “I” am going to the city by means of “horse”, being the instrumental noun, is whatthe horse. The drivesandsustainsthe motion of “I”. Let’s take another look at the instrumental case. First, consider this sentence: eb  u kal  ung m3ng  3.“I pulled the horse.” Here, we haveeb  u, “I” (receptive),kal  ung, “pull”; andm3ng  3, “horse” (con- veyant). The “I” is in the receptive case, indicating that the horse was being pulled towards The horse, being the thing which is pulled, or moved,the speaker. is in the conveyant case. So far so good. Now compare this with the following: eb  a kal  ung m3ng  3.“I pulled the horse.” Here,eb  ais “I”, but in theinstrumental is the difference here?case. What The instrumental nouneb  aindicates that “I” is the onesustainingor drivingthe pulling action. we could better translate this sentence as Hence, “Idraggedthe horse.” We could clarify the act of dragging by adding a receptive noun to the sentence: eb  a kal  ung m3ng  3jh  Ìlu.“I dragged the horse to the hut.” jh  Ìlumeans “small hut”, and appears here in the receptive case. The meaning of this should be clear: the hut is the destination of the dragging action. There is also another use of the instrumental case, involvinggerunds. But we aren’t ready to discuss gerunds yet, so we will leave it for now, until after we discuss verbs.

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2.1.4 The Locative The locative case in Ebisedian has several distinct functions. This is very important to keep in mind when you see a locative noun; it will depend on context to determine which of these functions is intended. 1. When a locative noun is part of a larger sentence, it usually has aloca- tivemeaning—that is, it describes theplacewhere an event happened; thegeneral vicinity example:of some occurrence. For jul  Ìr eb  ø t  řma p  Ìz3du.“In the house, I talked to the man.” Literally, the sentence reads “House (locative) I (originative) talk man (receptive)”. Here, the locative noun “house” describeswherethe talk- ing happened. This usage is also extended to mean “around” or “in the vicinity of”, especially when the noun refers to a person. For example: 3mÌr   3n3les  a bÌte  Ì.“The children were movingaround the mother.” 3mÌr   3n3 locative nounis a conveyant noun meaning “children”. The here isbÌte  Ì, “mother”.les   ameans “moving”, or “going”. 7 In this particular context, becausebÌte  Ìislocative, we understand that the children are neither moving away from or towards the mother, but rather movingin the vicinity ofthe mother. 2. A related use of the locative case is to marktime example:. For Ìs  uÌl  ys eb  3m  oju.“In the future, I will go to the city.” Here,Ìs  uÌis atemporal nounreferring to some particular time in the future. It functions here as a locative noun describing thetimewhen “I” will go to the city. 3. When occurring by itself, the locative case may be avocative,a term of address. This usually occurs with names. For example: 7 les  ais actually aparticiple, which is the instrumental case of a gerund. But we’ll just pretend it’s a ‘verb’ for now.

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y ‘ ma  Ì. gh  Ìjřb  3? are you?”“Mother! where y ‘ ma  Ì Itis a feminine locative noun referring to one’s own mother. is often used as an endearing term of address. (For now, don’t worry about the second part of the sentence. We will come back to it later, after we first understand stative sentences and interrogatives.) 4. The locative may also mark the noun as atopic example:. For eb  ø t   řma mang  Ìp   Ìz3du. “I talk to the manaboutthe horse.” Here,mang  Ìis the locative form of “horse”. This use of the locative case will be discussed in more depth when we covernominator sentences. 5. Finally, the locative case is thecanonical All Ebisediancase in lexicons. lexicons list nouns in their locative case forms. 2.1.5 Characteristic vowels You may have noticed that in the previous examples, the final vowel on originative nouns is alwaysø, and on receptive nouns,u very rare. With exceptions, this is always true. Each noun case has acharacteristic vowel, which always 8 appears as the last vowel in the noun. The characteric vowels are as follows: originative—ø; 9 receptive—u; instrumental—a; conveyant—3; locative—Ì.

2.2 Stative sentences (1) Unlike English and many other languages, Ebisedian sentences do not always have verbs. In fact, verbs arenotused except to indicateeventsorchanges. When describing astatic, unchangingstate of things,stative sentencesare employed. These are verbless sentences comprising mainly of nouns or noun- phrases. Noun cases play a vital role in stative sentences, as we shall see. 8 Barring said exceptions, of course. 9  cases are not merely formed from these characteristic vowels; variousCaveat: noun other vowel shifts often happen in the noun when it changes case. However, the charac- teristic vowels are a useful way for identifying the case of a particular noun. 10

2.2.1 Conveyant with Locative: containment Let’s take a look at a simple stative sentence. 3mÌr  3n3jh  ÌlÌ.“[Many] children [are] in the room.” This sentence consists of two nouns:3mÌr   3n3, “children” (conveyant); and jh  ÌlÌ, “room” 10 (locative). How does a 2-word sentence translate to “many children are in the room”? Firstly, in Ebisedian, plural nouns are often used emphatically, with an implication of “many” or “much”. This is why in the translation given above we put [brackets] around ‘many’, to indicate that it is a supplied word. Secondly, Ebisedian iszero-copulameans that it does not have a, which word equivalent to the English ‘to be’—‘is’, ‘are’, . . . , etc.. This is why we put [brackets] around the word ‘are’. So, the above sentence literally reads “children (conveyant) room (loca- tive).” But why is ‘children’ in theconveyantcase, and why is ‘room’ in the locative case? Obviously, the room is theplacewhere the children are; hence it is in the locative case. How about the conveyant case? Here, we are in fact looking at another meaning of the conveyant case: that ofcontainment. When a conveyant noun appears with a locative noun, it often implies that thecurrent locationof the conveyant noun is in the locative noun. For example: l  ys eb  3l   orÌm   oju.am going through the countryside to-“I wards the town.” We have seen a similar sentence before.l  ysis “go”;eb  3is “I” (conveyant); and m  oju Thisis “town” (receptive). basically says that I am headingtowards the town. 11 The additional locative noun here,l   orÌ, “countryside”, describes my current location am moving towards the town; but I am. Icurrently inthe countryside. Of course, in this latter example, the conveyant case indicates movement; but it doesn’t have to. In our first example,3mÌr  3n3jh  ÌlÌ, we have the children in the conveyant case; but they aren’t moving anywhere. Their 10  can refer to either. ItYou may recall that we previously translated this word as “hut”. Its original meaning is “small house”; the Ebisedi considers rooms as ‘small houses’, or ‘sub-houses’, within a larger house. 11 Or, plains”. “

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