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Showing posts with the label Grammar

Questions and Indefinites

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Questions To change a statement into a question, simply add the question marker glyph at the end of the sentence. If you want to ask for specific information (i.e. who, what, where, etc.) simply combine the question marker glyph with the type of thing you want to know (i.e. person, object, location, etc.) and place the combination glyph where the answer would be in the response. (e.g. "You are the teacher?" = Are you the teacher?) (i.e. Q: The book is question-place?  (Where is the book?) A: The book is at my house.) Indefinite The indefinite marker glyph has the same combinations as the question marker glyph, but instead create words that are equivalent to words that start with "some-" in English (i.e. somebody, something, somewhere, etc.). Pluralizing the "some-" glyphs makes them equivalent to words that start with "any-" (i.e. anybody, anything, anywhere, etc.) while negating them makes them equivalent to words that start with ...

Basic Sentences

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Majok is written left to right, or top to bottom and left to write when written vertically. The basic sentence structure is flexible between SVO and SOV (S = subject, O = object, V = verb), so "I like dogs." and "I dogs like." are both valid. Sentences are usually written without spaces between words. However, one can omit the join characters and instead specify multi-glyph word boundaries with spaces surrounding the word when writing in script. The join character is optional in block print. Here's an example with the sentence "I like chocolates". (chocolates = creamy + brown + sweet + plural)  - Note that glyphs that serve a grammatical function (i.e. particles) are optional, and are placed after the word they mark usually when things need to be clarified. Interestingly, poetry in Majok often omits such words to add ambiguity. Descriptors and Specifiers All words that act to describe or specify something are usually placed in front of the wo...

Conjunctions and Helpers

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These 25 glyphs cannot stand by themselves, and instead are required to be part of a word or sentence. Close-Up and Block Print ikik: do ikim: can / able to dakun: this dokin: that over there dekan: that sha: possessive marker (of / 's) ap: it / thing su: is suzu: just susir: subject marker sukhun: topic marker pasir: object marker join glyph da: a / an zi: have ado: and sado: therefore / so rado: or wado: also / too todo: but ra __ : to want to ___ ha __ : to have to ___ yakha: question marker (see Questions and Indefinites ) yagam: indefinite marker (see Questions and Indefinites ) soshik: STEM / academics (see School and Work ) Next Lesson: Words: Endless Memorization?

Tense and Aspect: When? Complete?

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Majok clearly distinguishes between past, "non-immediate" present, "immediate" present, and future. Non-immediate present refers to verbs that occur over a longer span of time (e.g. I sing for a living. I don't eat meat.), while immediate present refers to verbs currently happening (e.g. You sound sad. I hear the ocean.) All verbs by default are non-immediate present tense, and the "past", "present", or "future" glyph is combined after the verb to change it to past, immediate present, or future tense respectively; the future tense glyph is usually given an upper embellishment. If the verb is on-going (e.g. I am singing.), the "still" glyph is added to after the verb. If the verb has been "completed" (i.e. perfect form) (e.g. He has already eaten.) the "end" glyph is added right in front of the tense glyph. In other words, the order is: Verb - (continuousness) - (completion) - (tense) ...