Ring B: 3/20: Asha'ille

Personal Deixis
---------------

Normal deixis is like most other languages: everything is relative to
the speaker and the present. But when telling a story in Asha'ille, it
is very common for the deixis to be shifted to make a different person
the grammatical first person or shift the base time period. Typically,
the main character of a story becomes central and all others become
relative to that character. To mark the change in deixis, any or all
of the following may be employed:

    _ayana_: changes subjects used in the story
    _neyane_: changes objects used in the story
    _keyanu_: changes time of the story

These words as used as follows:

    Ayana ne <grammatical person> jho <character>.

After the personal deixis has thus been shifted, any use of the
specified grammatical person will be understood to be from the
character's point of view. Thus, normally _en'i_ refers to the
speaker:

    Shav en'i ne asha'ille.
    "I speak Asha'ille."

But if you change _eni'_ to refer to _illen_ "friend" instead, the
meaning changes:

    Ayana ne en'i jho illen. Shav en'i ne asha'ille.
    "(This from a friend's perspective.) 'I' speaks Asha'ille."
    "A friend speaks Asha'ille."

Translating directly into English if difficult, but the important
thing to note is that the subject is really the friend. Pragmatically,
shifting deixis like this asks the listeners to empathize more closely
with the new point-of-view character.


Temporal Deixis
---------------

Like personal deixis, temporal deixis can also change what the assumed
time point of reference is. Normally, the present is assumed. The
general form is:

    Keyanu ne <time period>.

Like noted above, "Shav en'i ne asha'ille" will usually mean "I speak
Asha'ille." But if you change the time to _rékretil_ "long ago":

    Keyanu ne rékretil. Shav en'i ne asha'ille.
    "(The time was long ago.) I 'speak' Asha'ille."
    "I once spoke Asha'ille."

Any shifted deixis is ended by _yanú_.


Statements of Equivalence
-------------------------

Asha'ille does not use a normal verb for copula sentences. Where you
could think of two things as being equivalent, A = B, you say in
Asha'ille:

    Jhor'A t'B.
    "A is B."


Conjugations
------------

All verbs end with _v_, excepting one class of verbs. Verbs ending in
_-illev_ are frequently shortened by dropping the _-illev_ entirely.
For example, the verb _énillev_ "to feel" is often seen in texts as
simply _én'_. Conjugations and other suffixes are agglutinative,
following after the final _v_ without otherwise modifying the verb
form.

Conjugations are fairly complex in Asha'ille, but for this particular
text you only need to know a few things about it. _En'i_ is a pronoun
that refers to the speaker, or to the person described by a personal
deixis shift. Its conjugation is _-(e)ni_. Female animals use the
conjugation _-a_. Objects use the conjugation _-ec_. "Intimate
strangers" -- such as those you might tell a story to -- use the
conjugation _-aiye_.

    Emaeliv en'i ne   emaen.
    write   self OBJ: letter
    "I write a letter."

    Emaelivni  ne   emaen.
    write-self OBJ: letter
    "I write a letter."

Note that _-(e)ni contracts to just _-i_ when following an abbreviated
_-illev_ verb that then ends with an _n'_.

    Kénillevni ne emaen.
    "I see a letter."

    Kén'i ne emaen.
   "I see a letter."


Verbal Sentences
----------------

Other than copula sentences, Asha'ille is strictly VSO word order.
There are no case markings on verbs, so the word _ne_ separates the
subject from the object. Even when there is no subject noun (only a
conjugation), the _ne_ must still precede the object.

Direct versus indirect objects are not distinguished except by context.


Possessives
-----------

There are two types of possession in Asha'ille: tangible and
intangible. Tangible possession is used for things that the owner can
control, and intangible for everything else.

Tangible possession is formed by attaching the prefix _so-_ to the
possesor, or _s-_ to a pronoun referring to the possessor.

    ne   chirejhen so'san
    OBJ: toy       POSS-girl
   "the girl's toy"

    ne   akol seni
    OBJ: tail POSS-self
    "my tail"

Intangible possession is formed by attaching the prefix _mlo-_ to the
possessor, or the prefiix _ml-_ to a pronoun referring to the
possessor.

    ne   mleni   aimenad
    OBJ: POSS-self village
    "my village"


Adjectives
----------

If you understand regular expression syntax, the following describes
Asha'ille sentence structure:

    adverb? verb (adjective? subject)? (ne adjective? object){0,2} (phrases)*

Otherwise, I'll explain. :)

Single-word adjectives precede their head noun. Otherwise, they must
follow after the core VSO structure, in an adjectival phrase marked
with which noun it modifies. An exception to  single-word adjectives
preceding is a tangible possessive, which may directly follow the noun
if the possessor is one word.

    Emaelivni ne docheth emaen.
    "I write a short letter."

    Emaelivni ne edhalth emaen.
    "I write a personal letter."

    Emaelivni ne emaen e'kath docheth edhalth.
    "I write a short, personal letter."

    Emaelivni ne emaen seni.
    "I write my letter."

If both a descriptive and tangible-possessive adjective are used, they can both
surround the adjective if they are single words:

    Emaelivni ne docheth emaen seni.
    "I write my short letter."

_Egik_ heads an adjectival phrase that modifies the subject, and
_e'kath_ heads one that modifies the object. _'Sa_ heads a phrase that
modifies the word immediately preceding it.


Adverbs
-------

Adverbs are treated very similarly to adjectives. Adjectives may be
turned into adverbs by prefixing them with _ve'-_. Single-word adverbs
precede the verb; multi-word ones follow the core VSO elements in an
adverbial phrase headed by _eg_.

Adverbial phrases can have more specific roles, like indicating time
or location. In such cases, the phrase is headed by something other
than _eg_. For example, _vae'-_ heads a locational adverbial phrase:

    Ve'nagh emaelivni ne emaen.
    "I write a letter poorly."

    Vae'cresin emaelivni ne emaen.
    "I write a letter at home."

In both cases, the adverbial phrase is only one word long, so it
precedes the verb. Compare:

    Emaelivni ne emaen vae'cresin seni.
    "I write a letter at my home."

Adverbial phrases may optionally end with a closing word that closely
mirrors the phrase's opening adverb. This usually only occurs when
some confusion about what words belongs to the phrase might arrise,
but below is an example for example's sake:

    Emaelivni ne emaen vae'cresin seni kae.
    "I write a letter at my home."


Verbal Particles
----------------

Particles indicating tense and mood appear between the verb and any
conjugations. Two such particles are:

    _-j-_: ability; "to be able to"
    _-t-_: involuntary: "to be forced to"

For example:

    Emaelivjeni ne emaen.
    "I can write a letter."

Showing that an action was involuntary -- that someone else caused the
actor to do the action -- is marked with _-t-_ on the verb, followed
by the actor's conjugation. The person or thing forcing the action may
optionally be given in the position normally reserved for the subject.

    Emaelivteni ne emaen.
    "I am forced to write a letter."

    Emaelivteni illen seni ne emaen.
    "My friend forces me to write a letter."


Cause and Effect
----------------

Cause-and-effect clauses are joined by _t'ves_, literally "and then,
also." The second clause always begins with this _t'ves_, independent
of whether it is the cause or the effect. The verb of the
effect-clause is marked with the _-t-_ "forced" paticle.

    Emaelivni ne emaen.
   "I write a letter."

    Emaeliv illen seni ne emaenim.
    "My friend writes letters."

    Emaelivteni en emaen, t'ves emaeliv illen seni ne emaenim.
   "I write a letter because my friend writes letters."

    Emaeliv illen seni ne emaenim, t'ves emaelivteni ne emaen.
    "Because my friend writes letters, I write a letter."


Miscellaneous
-------------

* Only one apostrophe may appear in a contiguous section of text. This
means that if a word has an internal apostrophe, and then is prefixed
by something else that contains an apostrophe, the second apostrophe
will "disappear."

    ne a'llad
    "the meeting"

    ne gir'a llad
    "the great meeting"

* Verbs can be nominalized by siffixing "_-on_" to the verb, before
any conjugations the verb may have.

    Kénilleva ne emaelivoneni.
    "She sees that I write."
    "She sees me writing."

If the nominalized verb has its own arguments, the usual _ne_ that
precedes objects becomes _done_ instead:

    Kénilleva ne emaelivoneni done emaen.
    "She sees that I write a letter."
    "She sees me writing a letter."

-a          pron. female animal
-ad         part. reflexive
-aiye       pron. informal intimate stranger
akénelv     v. to look at
áldae       adj. next
arin        adv. try, attempt
ayana       deix. (see notes)
ccat        adj. fat
cchirn      n. young man
chaea       n. yard
chiduna     n. month
chilaizen   n. pet Delaizen
daedav      v. to balance
dayuna      adv. always, all time
deigan      n. back, shoulder
do-         adj. repeated; X times. part. (embedded clause)
dosar       adv. once, one time
-ec         pron. it
eg          adv. (heads phrase that modifies verb)
eirsi       n. sack (originally meant for grain, but has other uses)
e'llaea     school, place of learning
en'i        pron. self
-(e)ni      pron. self
eshólivash  n. winter melancholy, tiredness
eyemale     n. animal-drawn vehicle
ezán        n. embankment, especially of a yard
fo          adj. red
gijhev      v. to better
gir'-       adj. big; adv. more, very
girsardos   adv. increasingly, more and more
ita         n. hand, paw
-(i)th        (adjectivizer)
iyen'lli    n. student, learner
-j-         part. able to
jhi         interj. yes. adj. intensifier
jhiviken    adv. still, continue
jho         deix. (see notes)
jhor'-      cop. (see notes)
jjhen       interj. of course
jo          n. master scribe, teacher
kae         adv. phrase-closing complement to _vae'-_
kasaea      n. there, over there, that place
kénillev    v. to see
keyanu      deix. (see notes)
kache       n. cold
kret'-      conj. but
má'en       n. trail
gir'má en   n. road
maniv       v. to touch
mirv        v. to come
ml-         poss. int.
mmav        v. to move
naea        n. place, location
nain        n. ground, floor
ne          (precedes object of sentence)
nesh        adv. soon
-on         (verb nominalizer)
peijan      n. worry
rekreví     n. story, joke
rojh        adv. phrase-closing complement to _jhor'-_
-s-         part. progressive aspect
'sa         (heads phrase that modifies previous word)
saemirv     v. to arrive
shápav      v. to soothe, to calm
so'-        poss. tan.
sshi'i      adj. amusing, funny, surprising
sshókaro    n. winter soltice festival
t'-         cop. (see notes); conj. and
-t-         part. forced action
vae'-       adv. where
vedá'-      adv. from
veia'-      adv. goal
vekeluna    n. rest of the day
vel'-       adv. to, toward
ven'-       adv. within, through
ves'-       adv. while, during, simultaneously
vet'-       adv. thus, therefore
vik'-       adv. now
vilo'-      adv. near
yanú        deix. (see notes)
yubirv      v. to climb (the object of the sentence is what was climbed, a
            locational adverbial phrase describes the destination of the climb)

LEGEND
------

adv.    adverb
cop.    copula
conj.   conjunction
deix.   deixis
int.    intangible
interj. interjection
n.      noun
part.   verbal particle
poss.   possessive
pron.   pronoun or conjugation
tan.    tangible
v.      verb

The speakers of Asha'ille are a quadrepal feline species known as the Cresaeans. Their homes are dug out below the level of the streets, and thus their yards have embankments surround them, rather than fences.

Writing, literacy, and history are valued very highly in Cresaean culture. Young Cresaeans are taught by scribes. The lucky ones may appentice under a master scribe, who teach them more that just practical knowledge of literacy. The masters host their few apprentices in their home during the weekdays, and will often pick up their students in an animal-drawn cart at the beginning of the week.

Cresaeans are genetically related to a small tree-dwelling feline species, _dehalaizen_ in Asha'ille, "Delaizen" in English. A subspecies of this species has been domesticated as pets.