Snat Sajem Tan/Wh-Questions and the Gnomic and Habitual Aspects

In the last lesson, you learned how to form basic sentences. In this lesson, you will take your knowledge further and learn how to form more kinds of sentences.

Wh-questions
In Sajem Tan, we do not have distinct words to directly correspond to the question words "which", "who", "what", "where", "when", "why", and "how". Instead, we form them using one handy little suffix: -ku. Paired with the neutral third person pronoun du, it can be used to form question words. In this lesson, you will learn a few of them.

-ku (Which)
"Which" is the easiest of the bunch to translate: you simply put -ku after the thing that is doubtful. So:




 * Ţefam||kygykfê||decekku?
 * stone||eat-PERF||chicken-which
 * colspan=3|"Which chicken ate a stone?"
 * }
 * colspan=3|"Which chicken ate a stone?"
 * }




 * Zmetku||zanum||jëkëmzmet?
 * building-which||is-GNO||library
 * colspan=3|"Which building is the library?"
 * }
 * colspan=3|"Which building is the library?"
 * }

Duku (Who, What)
The word duku pairs the above suffix with the third-person neutral pronoun du. It literally means "which it", and so it forms an interrogative pronoun. It can be translated as "what" or "who".




 * Ţêvmê||tekezisëtso||zanum||duku?
 * me-LITHIC-GEN||computer-having||is-GNO||it-NEUTRAL-which
 * colspan=4|"Who has my computer?"
 * }
 * colspan=4|"Who has my computer?"
 * }




 * Duku||tanfê||do?
 * it-NEUTRAL||say-PERF||you-NEUTRAL
 * colspan=3|"What did you say?"
 * }
 * colspan=3|"What did you say?"
 * }

Make sure you don't accidentally use this word to form relative clauses. While that can be done in English (e.g., "the waiter who gave me the soup"), this is not done in Sajem Tan. You will learn about relative clauses in a later lesson.

Dukutê
Dukutê is translated "why", or, more literally, "because of what". It uses the causative case, which you will learn about in Lesson 14.

Dukuţok
Dukuţok means "where", using the pseudo-case -ţok, meaning "at". You can also say jytkuţok, literally "at which place".

Habitual and Gnomic aspects
You were introduced to verbal aspect in the last lesson, and now, in this lesson, we are learning about the habitual and gnomic aspects.

Habitual
The habitual aspect, marked with -êt, refers to actions that recur regularly. For instance, in English, the phrase "used to" marks a verb as habitual: "I used to go to Spanish classes" is habitual because going to Spanish classes was a recurring action for the speaker. However, the habitual aspect is used more often in Sajem Tan, and it doesn't just translate "used to"; "I went to Spanish classes for a year" would also be translated with the habitual aspect in Sajem Tan.

Gnomic
The gnomic aspect, marked by -um, typically expresses truths that are aphoristic or unchanging within the context of what is said. This is sometimes referred to as "habitual-generic". Here are some examples:


 * Žǔžǔmum||viţitâ.
 * fly-GNOMIC||birds
 * colspan=2|"Birds fly."
 * }
 * colspan=2|"Birds fly."
 * }


 * Gafün||zanum||žasik.
 * blue||to be-GNOMIC||sky
 * colspan=3|"The sky is blue."
 * }
 * colspan=3|"The sky is blue."
 * }

States of being are often expressed with the verb zan "to be" in the gnomic aspect, or by simply putting the gnomic suffix on the end of the predicate, effectively verbalizing it:


 * Tišnimum||dê.
 * tired-GNOMIC||I
 * colspan=2|"I'm tired."
 * }
 * colspan=2|"I'm tired."
 * }

It is usually a good idea to use zan anyway, though, to avoid ambiguity: for instance,Žnëmum dê could mean either "I am bright" or "I glow". That said, we usually drop it.

By now, if the concept of aspect is still tricky to you, you may be wishing there were some way to avoid all of this and just not mark aspect. The good news is, you can! In informal writing or speaking, it is totally fine to use the gnomic aspect when you can't decide on an aspect or don't care to.