THE MEMORY OF THE CITY
log in
Lilitika Grammar
Lilitika Grammar Pre-History
The grammar of Oksí Lilitika and its derivation from Sotaní Oksirapho.
Plans for Lilitika as a new language began in the winter of 23947 ksepo during the Vendashro. Although Sotaní Oksirapho was heavily bleached and simplified over earlier forms of the language, it still presented a significant burden to its remaining speakers both culturally and phonologically. Most of what early Lilitika owes to Oksirapho is in its vocabulary; many derivational morphemes and fundamental syntax decisions were deliberately reinvented. The result was a very analytical language quite unlike its predecessors in appearance, but it ultimately failed to escape many of the cultural presumptions of Oksirapho as it was, conceptually, a relexification.

It is assumed the reader is familiar with standard Íomanazinení Lilitika Grammar.

Parts of speech



  • litasa: qualitative descriptive words; adjectives (dzhrítasa) and adverbs (tshúdítasa). These always end in -í.

  • dzhrasa: nouns. These end in -u in their root form and only inflect with gender when not followed by a case marker.

  • tshúdasa: verbs. These end in -é in their root form and only inflect with tense when not followed by a mood or aspect particle.

  • warzasa il tshítekha: case particles. These end in -u, and inflect as the noun was going to.

  • warzasa il rezarinu talinu ha: voice and tense particles. These are essentially helper verbs that inflect as such.

  • warzasa il spatinina: mood particles. These resemble and act like tense/voice particles, but go after them.

  • ahekíurivíasa il warzina il rezarinu talinu ha: modifiers for tense/voice particles. These have no standard ending and can be considered proclitic. They go before tense/voice particles; if none are present, they go before the verb itself. They always express aspect.

  • ahekíurivíasa il warzina il dzhrasa: modifiers for noun particles. These end in -es and go before noun particles.

  • tshíroivasa: conjunctions. These are postfix and inflect on behalf of the words they represent.

  • tshíroivasa il sebenina: possession-relationship particles. These are infix and do not inflect.

  • Noun phrases


    A noun phrase consists of adjectives (in no particular order) followed by the noun itself, and then the appropriate noun particles. There are no determiners, and numerical counts are formed with the appropriate prefixes and the -úí suffix.

    Example: dzherurí atshu venes mela: at under the red star

    Gender


    Oksí recognizes three genders, -a (feminine/natural), -e (neuter/natural), and -o (masculine/artificial). Very few nouns belonged to -e at this stage, and -o was reserved for a closed set of things containing the Ksreskézai and their creations.

    The plurals of these genders are formed as in Íomanazinení: -asa, -ete, and -ozo. Note that the class infix is considered part of the noun itself and does not move.

    Cases


    Oksí recognizes the following language roles:

  • Subject: ifu.

  • Object. ikhu.

  • Indirect object or destination. mekhu.

  • Subject complement. ifu + ilu.

  • Object complement. ikhu + ilu.

  • Source, indirect object, or origin. mefu.

  • Location. melu.

  • Comitative. wu.

  • The temporal cases were an early Íomanazinení innovation.

    Verb complexes


    Verb complexes are constructed analogously to noun phrases: adverbs lead, followed by the verb root itself, tense/voice markers, and finally trailing mood particles. Aspect markers precede the verb unless a helper verb is invoked.

    Examples:
    - walí gé en ílis kin (quickly will be going maybe)
    - walí en gis kin (quickly going maybe)

    The verb (or the rightmost auxiliary verb) is inflected to -is and is preceded by the aspect markers.

    Tense and Voice



  • ílé represents the future tense and is literally a simple word meaning 'to want/need.' It implies the being of the sentence's noun arguments are drawn inexorably towards a future state where these things are the case.

  • íré represents the past tense, and is literally 'to have', implying the being of the things has already been supplemented.

  • eshé represents the passive voice. If combined with a tense, it goes before.

  • While Oksí was only used briefly, it did have enough time to undergo changes, which are particularly prominent in the tense markers. In 5 lilpo, ílé and íré were replaced with the -iris past, -ilis present, and -iril future by Survika grammarians.

    Aspect



  • en represents the progressive or imperfective aspect.

  • at represents the perfect or perfective aspect.

  • If both are used, the preferred ordering is "at en".

    Mood



  • nato indicates reversal of an action.

  • alez indicates the negative mood.

  • rez indicates compellment of some kind but not realis action (contrast ílé).

  • rez il ifu indicates compellment by the subject's own desires.

  • rez il zel indicates compellment by law or order.

  • rez il ossa indicates compellment by natural forces.

  • ím indicates the imperative.

  • dhí indicates the interrogative.

  • kai indicates the gnomic.

  • kin indicates the potential.

  • lis indicates the dubitative.

  • Conjunctions


    Conjunctions in Oksí are postfix, unlike other chronolects of Lilitika. They form a combined phrase with two or more antecedents, which are noticeable by their lack of inflection.

    Example: su ru hu mefa: to you and me

    This is why later dialects have distinct "word-level" and "clause-level" conjunctions; they are remnants of this system. Unlike the later convention, however, word-level conjunctions only exist for nouns.

    andor
    nounhushu
    clauseshé


    FPIC conjunctions



    These are one of the few features in Oksí that used an infix notation; il, , and íé function much as in later dialects. iv was originally a verb, ívé, meaning "to be greater than", with the quality marked as a dative argument.

    There is one notable exception: il can be placed at the end of the sentence to mark perspective or narrative account, analogous (and ancestral) to the perspective/timeline endings of Íomanazinení and Zeyetaní.

    Example: su ifa lu ikha hefré íris il sa (I killed her, according to my perspective.)