Difference between revisions of "Matsui"

Revision as of 19:01, 1 February 2005

History

Matsui was created by King Felipe Othar because of a need for a language which all could learn without favouring any one culture. It is used in all government functions, and in national television programmes. It is also taught in primary schools as a required language. Even though it was originally created as a mere lingua franca, the language has become a living language with native speakers. These speakers are generally scattered around the nation, as the language was never intended to have been the lingua franca of any one region. The language itself is also a limited one, as it was intended to be easy to learn.

Grammar

Introduction

Unlike European languages, Matsui has no genders. Also unlike European languages, Matsui has no built-in numbers. Whilst most languages have singular and plural inflections, Matsui has no such thing. However, Matsui does distinguish singular and plural by particles. Additionally, Matsui uses particles to distinguish the nominative, accusative, and dative cases.

Nouns

Matsui has four types of nouns. It has "aktinoya" nouns, "endinoya" nouns, "eaoya" nouns, and "oaoya" nouns.

Aktinoya nouns represent the act of doing an action. The phrase "the act of irrigation" represents the type of noun aktinoya is. These nouns end in the letter 'i'.

Endinoya nouns represent the ability to do actions. The English equivalent to endinoya is the -ability suffix. In Matsui, they end in 'ö'.

Eaoya nouns are the action causers. In English, they end in either -er or -or. They are not necessarily the subject of a statement. In Matsui, these nouns end in the letter 'ë'.

Oaoya nouns are the action receivers. In English, they frequently end in -tion. They are not necessarily the object of a statement. In Matsui, these nouns end in the letter 'í'.

Noun Particles

Matsui has three particles to distinguish nominative, accusative, and dative. Additionally, it has a plural particle.

Nominative nouns are distinguished with the particle ea. Accusative nouns are distinguished with oa. Dative nouns are distinguished with ra. If the noun is plural, the particle sa follows after the particle before it, be it nominative, accusative, or genitive.

Pronouns

Unlike all other nouns, pronouns are always indicated as subjects or objects when they are marked as aktinoya or endinoya. Aktinoya pronouns always carry the ea particle. Endinoya pronouns can either carry the oa or the ra particle. Additionally, the la particle, which will be discussed in more detail in the adjective section, can influence the pronouns.

Because of the particles and inflection, there are few individual pronoun words. They can be formed into several more pronouns, however.

English: I, we, you, you all, he, she, that person, they, it, this, these.

Aktinoya: meyë ea, meyë ea sa, dusë ea, dusë ea sa, yelë ea, heyë ea, dusë ea la, dusë ea sa la, dyasë ea la, dyasë ea, dyasë ea sa.

English: Me, us, you, you all, him, her, that person, them, that, those.

Endinoya: meyí oa/ra, meyí oa/ra sa, dusí oa/ra, dusí oa/ra sa, yelí oa/ra, heyí oa/ra, dusí oa/ra la, dusí oa/ra sa la, dyasí oa/ra, dyasí oa/ra sa.

Adjectives

Unlike many languages, adjectives are not marked as plural, and as nouns do not have gender, neither do the adjectives. All adjectives (including particles and indefinite/definite articles) end in the letter 'a'.

Adjective Particles

By now, you are familiar with ea, oa, ra, sa, and la. There is a sixth particle, mala. Since it does not affect pluralisation or case placement, it is not relevant to the noun particle section. However, it can modify nouns by giving it the opposite meaning. In contrast, la gives it a secondary or neutral meaning. By default, unmarked nouns are positive. Mala becomes malo when modifying adjectives or verbs. Malo comes after adjectives, but before verbs.

Adverbs

Adverbs are formed as easily as any other part of speech in Matsui. They are base + o, or adjective -a +o. They go behind the adjective that they modify, but in front of any verb that they modify.

Verbs

All native verbs in Matsui are regular. Because of the limited lexicon of the Matsui language, and because it may not be able to cover every specific field, there are loan words, of which any could possibly take a verb form. As you'll find, these verbs' tense suffixes do not attach to the verb, but are written as separate particles.

Matsui does not distinguish infinitives from gerunds or present tense verbs. They are all written the same, with the basic ending 'e'.

Tenses

From a linguistic standpoint, the definition of 'tense' in Matsui is rather loose. Tense covers time, mood, aspect, but not voice (unless you take into account that all verbs in Matsui are active verbs). See here for more information on the individual tenses.

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