Talk:Gamgweth Grammar (book)

What Is This?

This is mean to be a discussion of a lexical analysis that complements the grammar book. This is also intended to find out what modifications to the language should be make to clarify certain constructions whenever issues are noticed.

Proposals for Change

Adverb Adversity!

When an adverb exists, there is no place to put it clearly in the sentence. You can see this from below examples (spec. Example With Adjective vs. Adverb).

Why is this important? Well, adverbs play special roles in more complex sentences, modifiying both adjectives, verbs, and clauses. If we can't decide what it's modifying, then it will definitely lead to confusion.

Without Inflection

Example Adverb/Adjective Incoherency

Esar ama gwer Gamgwethahle.	"I do speak beautiful Gamgweth"	(Do-pres I speak Gamgweth-beautiful)
Esar ama gwer Gamgweth ahle.	"I do speak Gamgweth beautifully"	(Do-pres I speak Gamgweth beautiful)

With Inflection

With inflections, the adverb could follow the verb or moved to the end of the clause.

• e.g., let's assume the inflection is uf'- (one of the least-found pairs)

With Inflection uf'-

Esar ama gwer Gamgwethahle.	"I do speak beautiful Gamgweth"	(Do-pres I speak Gamgweth beautiful)
Esar ama gwer Gamgweth uf'ahle.	"I do speak Gamgweth beautifully"	(Do-pres I speak Gamgweth beautiful-ly)
Gwerke Juli ri li trekhalosann.	"Juli spoke to the good chieftan"	(speak-past Juli to the chieftan good)
Gwerke Juli ri li trekhalo uf'sann. [don't do this, see below]	"Juli spoke to the chieftan well"?	(speak-past Juli to the chieftan goodly [well])
Gwerke Juli ri li trekhalosann uf'sann. [don't do this]	"Juli spoke to the good chieftan well"?	(speak-past Juli to the chieftan-good well)
Gwerke uf'sann Juli ri li trekhalosann.	"Juli spoke well to the good chieftan"	(speak-past well Juli to the chieftan-good)
Uf'sann gwerke Juli ri li trekhalosann. [could modify a clause?]	"Juli spoke well to the good chieftan"?	(well speak-past Juli to the chieftan-good)

Issues with Inflections

Potential Issues With Inflection uf'-

Hentorke uf'bolg Juli ve li gelvmor'seord uf'mor.

"Juli badly traveled in the very dark cave"? "Juli very badly traveled in the dark cave"?

• This suggests that the adverbs should be situationally near, and ordered, to the thing they are describing. Notice in the sentence below that the adverbs follow the thing they are describing, even adjectives. Never modifying from the end of a clause!

Complex Sentence With Inflection uf'-

Hentorke uf'bolg uf'mor vi Juli bolg uf'mor ve li gelvmor'seord uf'mor.

"A very bad Juli very badly traveled in the very dark cave"

(travel-past badly greatly [very] a Juli bad very in the cave dark very)

Already-Written Works with Inflection

This makes use of the written work Lasadel ia Ulf where understood (I have a talk translation on that page here).

Using -ue for Common -ly

In the example Gamgweth sentence "Aevirke ulf lasadal ia bueserke wirue", the adverb is at the end with a -ue suffix. Where wir (evil) + -ue is likely intended to mean "evilly". Thus creating the translation: "The wolf saw the lady and smiled evilly".

Using that as a guide, the previous examples of uf'- to -ue would have the following effect on some sample sentences.

Gwerke sannue Juli ri li trekhalosann.	"Juli spoke well to the good chieftan"	(speak-past good-ly [well] Juli to the chieftan-good)
Hentorke bolgue morue vi Juli bolg morue ve li gelvmor'seord morue.	"A very bad Juli very badly traveled in the very dark cave"	(travel-past bad-ly great-ly [very] a Juli bad very in the cave dark very)

This is ideal for the purpose of finding a way to create adverbial forms.

Other Issues

Noun Adjectivication

Turning nouns into adjectives, such as fire into fiery, or anger into angry, there are very few lexical examples to hint at a commonality. For instance,

Noun (meaning)	Adjective	Change (if any)
elba (gloom)	elban (gloomy [as opposed to "gloomily" adverb)	-n
cambri (magic [n assuming])	cambri (magic [adj; as opposed to "magically"])	no change
? (silence)	ghazal (silent [as opposed to "silently")	?

This is important as a distinction, because words in Common can change form when created as an adjective or adverb. Just because Common does it, doesn't mean that Gamgweth requires it, but take the case of aes for fire. How does one define "Fire" the noun adjunct differ explicitly from "Fiery" the adjective as it is clearly seen in Common?

maor aes zaul => "Fiery Devil Cat" or "Devil Fire Cat"?	maor aeszaul => "Fire-Devil Cat" or "Devil-Fire Cat"?	maoraes zaul => "Devil Fire-Cat"?
maor zaul aes => "Fiery Devil Cat" or "Fire Devil-Cat"?	maorzaul aes => "Fire Devil-Cat" or "Fiery Devil-Cat"?	maor zaulaes => "Fire-Devil Cat"?

While the distinctions may be clearer in written form, when Gamgweth is vocalized, the necessity for inflection should become apparent, yet there doesn't appear to be a general rule to assist with this process of distinguishing a noun from its adjective form. Take the difference between "the bony prince" and "the Bone Prince"; in Common, the nouns and adjectives are easy to understand.

Compounds

When are words compounded? For instance, seordmaor (dark cat) is a compound of an adjective + noun; faldesu (long river) is the same. So when dealing with simple compounds the adjective usually should follow the noun, but either is acceptable. When multiple adjectives are applied, what then? Lets say the word is lunmor (boulder) and the comparison should be made against another object as a "big red boulder". Then the word would become lunmor mor talan, or should it be lunmor mortalan, or lunmormortalan. Using the "dark green brook" example, faldban seord'telgi, only the first adjective makes it onto the noun, while the rest follow compounded.

This seems to hold true for the most part, but there are a couple examples from that demonstrate otherwise (probably most commonly in names, and this seems to be acceptable).

Basic Structure

Alphabet

There are 24 Common characters used in Gamgweth (by example)

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W Y Z

• Notice there is no example of the Common letters Q or X used (though the vocals may exist in other combinations)

Punctuation

There are 4 (or 5) special characters used punctuation and are as follows:

Character	Usage
.	end of a declarative sentence.
?	direct question at end of sentence
,	separate ideas, elements, clauses (but not to separate adjectives)
' (apostrophe)	indicate vocal stop (construed) between compounds where similar double consonants are paired; e.g., seord'telgi (dark green); also used when inflecting verbs by adding -ing; e.g., gwelder (kill) -> a'gwelder (killing); may also be vocal stops
!	(presumably) indicate emphasis in declarative or vocative sentence

Other Parts of Speech

Articles

Definite (the)	Indefinite (a and an)
li	vi

Prepositions

against	as	at	by	in	of	on	out of	to
gand	ev	ae	ha	ve	ai / rae	kus	diluai (construed)	ri

Conjunctions

and	but	nor	or
ia	kho	uldin (construed)	ul

Some Subordinating Conjuntions (others are already listed above)

"I was so scared that I ran away" (complement)

"I use that" (noun)

"I found it useful that I had the gold already" (sub conj) [arguable]

"It is on top of that table" (adjective)

• This is meant to illustrate that these words may are not well-defined; it may be right in Common reuse the same word in different ways, but it may not be the intended usage in Gamgweth.

how	than	that	when	where
lof	jen	padia	sudu	suren

Compounds

General

Greater than

suffix -mor "great" to specify a greater amount/degree of a noun or adjective

Noun	Meaning	Modified Noun	New Meaning
chel	"cool"	chelmor	"cold"
zindu	"house"	zindumor	"manor"
sel	"sea"	selmor	"ocean"
		lermor	"gorge"
gelv	"cave"	gelvmor	"cavern"

Less than

suffix -ban "little" to specify a lesser amount/degree of the noun or adjective

Noun	Meaning	Modified Noun	New Meaning
sel	"sea"	selban	"bay"
fal	"river"	falban	"creek/brook"
		lerban	"fissure"

Area of type

remove end vowel and suffix -ren "land" to specify an area consiting of the type of noun or adjective

Noun	Meaning	Modified Noun	New Meaning
mod	"tree"	modren	"woodland"
neflor	"train"	nefloren	"training ground"
nama	"salt"	namadren	"salt flats"

Full of, or filled with

suffix -ta "full"

Noun	Meaning	Modified Noun	New Meaning
crof	"bush"	croftan	"brush"
selban	"bay"	selbanta	"cay"
din	"no/not/zero"	dinta	"empty"
av	"eye"	avtai	"stars" (see seordav "eclipse" [dark + eye])

Person of type (occupation)

suffix -ger "person"

Noun	Meaning	Modified Noun	New Meaning
tyval	"theft"	tyvalger	"thief"
lasa	"noble"	lasager	"nobleman"

Young type of thing

suffix -wen "young"

Noun	Meaning	Modified Noun	New Meaning
ger	"person"	gerwen	"child"
andu	"day"	anduwen	"morning"
lasa	"noble"	lasawen	"heir"
night	"surmi"	(inflected) sumiwen	"evening"

Construables

Negative type of thing

suffix -isi (construed "unwelcome/unwanted/dangerous/negative")

Noun	Meaning	Modified Noun	New Meaning
lort	"plant"	lortisi	"weed"
dyr	"animal" (construed)	dyrisi	"beast" (see dyrgelv "den")

Time of thing

suffix -dor (construed "time")

Noun	Meaning	Modified Noun	New Meaning
jeol	"ice"	Jeoldor	"Winter"
anla	"sun"	Anlador	"Summer"
sca	"before" (construed)	scador	"prepare"

Questionables

• batar, dotar, hentar "left, right (dir), crossroad", hen "road"
  • not sure how to interpret this...

Inflections

Adjectives

Compounding nouns with adjectives

Li denenshonarthe...	"The warm king..."	(the king warm)
Sa li denenshon arthe.	"The king is warm"	(be-pres the king warm)
Phopher li denenshona'phopher.	"The dreaming king dreams"	(dream the king dreaming)

Adjectives to Adverbs (Common -ly)

No inflection of the adjective, simply add to end of the sentence to modify

• (assume Heyor == 'greet (v)' from Heyo "hello")

Heyor li denenshonchel Juli.	"The cool king greets Juli"
Heyor li denenshon Juli chel.	"The king greets Juli cooly"

• There's no rule for inflecting the adjective-to-adverb with -ly, so this I guess is considered contextually appropriate in this structure (see adjective adverbs below).

Make appearance of, make into (Common -en), suffix -(a)fi

Adjective	Meaning	Modified Adjective	New Meaning
rom	"broad"	romafi	"broaden"
atila	"gold (metal)"	atilafi	"golden (metal)"

Nouns

Verbification

If ending with a vowel, suffix -r

Noun	Modified Noun	New Meaning
phofe	phofer	"dream (v)"
ferse	ferser	"sleep (v)"

If ending with a vowel+consonant, replace consonant with -r

Noun	Modified Noun	New Meaning
achol	achor	"fear (v)"
abues	abuer	"love (v)"

If ending with a double-consonant, suffix -er

Noun	Modified Noun	New Meaning
gweld	gwelder	"kill (v)"

Adjectification

Noun	Meaning	Modified Noun	New Meaning (Adjective)
elba	"gloom"	elban	"gloomy"

Verbs

There do not seem to be infinitves with verbs (via examples), however there is ri (to) which may suggest it is usable to create them. However, it may also be intended to be preposition only and represents the Common use of the word, not necessarily proper Gamgweth usage.

Nominalization

TODO

Conjugations

Transitive Verbs

are modified by tense

Gweldke Juli li  denenshon.
TV      S    Det DO
"Juli killed the king"
(Kill-did Juli the king)

Intransitive Verbs

are modified only as a tense participle when using copulas (be)

Sa  Juli a'gwelder. "Juli is killing."
Cop S    IV

Axiliary Constructions

Progressive Examples

progressives using transitive verbs, you may want to use auxiliary verbs for tense e.g., sa "be-present", sake "be-past", and saal "be-future"

past progressive

Sake li denenshon a'gwelder.	"The king was killing"	(be-past the king killing)
Sake gaena a'gwelder.	"They were killing"	(be-past they killing)

past progressive + past participle

Sake li denenshon a'sa gwelder.

"The king was being killed"

(be-past the king being kill)

present progressive

Sa li denenshon a'gwelder.	"The king is killing"	(be-pres the king killing)
Sa gaena agwelder.	"They are killing"	(be-pres they killing)

present progressive + past participle

Sa li denenshon a'sa gwelder.

"The king is being killed"

(be-pres the king being kill)

future progressive

Saal li denenshon a'gwelder.	"The king will be killing"	(be-fut the king killing)
Saal gaena a'gwelder.	"They will be killing"	(be-fut they killing)
Saal gaena a'tyvar urfe naen.	"They will be stealing all afternoon"	(be-fut they stealing afternoon all)

present simple

Gwer tema Gamgweth?	"You speak Gamgweth?"
Gwer tema Gamgweth	"You speak Gamgweth" or imperative "(You) speak Gamgweth"

Sentences without copulas are not good, because there is not a distinction between the third person present tense and the second person imperative, "(You) kill Juli."

Gwelder Juli.	"Juli kills" or "Kill Juli"?
Gwelder ama.	"I kill" or "Kill me"?
Karke Juli gwelder.	"Juli has killed" or "Have Juli killed"?

In this case, the default should imply the imperative is intended, and instead use modal conjugations when describing activities

Gwelderal Juli.	"Juli will kill"
Gelderke Juli.	"Juli has killed"

Use of modal esar (do):

Esar Juli gwelder.	"Juli does kill"
Esar ama gwelder.	"I do kill"
Esar tema gwer Gamgweth?	"Do you speak Gamgweth?"
Esar ama gwer Gamgweth.	"I do speak Gamgweth"

Example With Adjective vs. Adverb: This is where adverbs break down. See the following examples as to why adjective-to-adverb constructions don't necessarily work.

Esar ama gwer Gamgwethahle.	"I do speak beautiful Gamgweth"	Do-pres I speak Gamgweth-beautiful
Esar ama gwer Gamgweth ahle.	"I do speak Gamgweth beautifully"	Do-pres I speak Gamgweth beautiful

• This can't necessarily go next to gwer (speak) as might an adjective for the same example way above without modals. i.e.,

Heyor li denenshon Juli chel.

"The king greets Juli cooly"

Greet the king Juli cool

• In this example, heyor (greet; construed) would have to be modified, but then would become

Heyor chel li denenshon Juli.

"Cool greets the king Juli"

Greet cool the king Juli

• The problem is that adverbs should be inflected to indicate they are indeed modifiers.

past simple

Esarke Juli gwelder.	"Juli did kill"	(do-past Juli kill)
Gwelderke Juli.	"Juli did kill" (per grammar rule)	(kill-past Juli)

future simple

Gwelderal Juli.	"Juli will kill"	(kill-fut Juli)
Sa Juli hevor ri gwelder.	"Juli is going to kill"	(be Juli going to kill)

• In the last example, it might be possible to drop the ri (to) as implied infinitive or preposition; since the word exists, it should probably be considered proper to add it, while dropping it would be more like slang.

Perfect Progressive Examples

use of kar sa "have + be" with tense participle verbs (-ing)

present perfect progressive

kar li denenshon sa a'gwelder.

"The king has been killing"

(has-pres the king be killing)

|- | karfano li denenshon sa a'gwelder. | "The king could have been killing." | (has-pres-could the king be killing) |}

past perfect progressive

karke li denenshon sa a'gwelder.	"The king had been killing"	(has-past the king be killing)
karkefano li denenshon sa a'gwelder.	"Thing king could have been killing"	(has-past-could the king be killing)

future perfect progressive

karal li denenshon sa a'gwelder.

"The king will have been killing"

(has-fut the king be killing)

--DAEMETHEUS (talk) 22:46, 27 October 2016 (CDT)