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.

Perfective aspect
You were introduced to verbal aspect in the last lesson, and now you will learn about the perfective aspect, which, incidentally, has made a sneaky appearance in Lesson 1.

The suffix -fê is used in Sajem Tan to mark the perfective aspect. It is used to denote the action as a complete whole, an event rather than an ongoing process. The internal structure of the event, if it exists at all, is irrelevant to what is being said. This is one reason why it is preferred by many in the tribe for states of being, though this is an incorrect usage and the gnomic aspect should be preferred. However, don't fret about using perfective correctly: nobody in the tribe has any idea what it means anyway or whose decision it was to have it in the language in the first place.

Returning to the example sentences from Lesson 1 wherein you've seen the perfective aspect already, let's take a look at some of them:




 * Ţu||dûdenfê||du.
 * me-FLORAL||distract-PERF||it-NEUTRAL
 * colspan=3|"That distracts me."
 * }
 * colspan=3|"That distracts me."
 * }




 * Sê||gajinfê||vu.
 * me-FAUNAL||salute-PERF||you-LITHIC
 * colspan=3|"You salute me."
 * }
 * colspan=3|"You salute me."
 * }




 * Do||xanönfê||dê.
 * you-NEUTRAL||greet-PERF||I-NEUTRAL
 * colspan=3|"I greet you."
 * }
 * colspan=3|"I greet you."
 * }

Future tense
The future tense is very simple to express in Sajem Tan: you simply put the suffix -jot after the subject noun, after all other derivational suffixes and before any morphological suffixes. Yes, future tense is marked on the noun, not the verb. This is because that suffix means "the future state of [the root word]", and so it is a derivational suffix. Here are some examples:




 * Temöt||kygykfê||dêjot.
 * cake||eat-PERF||I-FUTURE
 * colspan=3|"I will eat cake."
 * }
 * colspan=3|"I will eat cake."
 * }

Some have proposed that archaic periods of Sajem Tan (i.e. Sajem Sülem) had a corresponding -got for the past tense, but this is controversial for some reason. Despite that, Sajem Tan actually has three past tenses and they are not marked in this way; they are marked on auxiliary verbs, which you will learn about in lesson 13.

Wh-questions
In Sajem Tan, there is nothing to directly correspond to the question words "which", "who", "what", "where", "when", "why", and "how". Instead, we have one handy little suffix: -ku. However, since you are learning Sajem Tan from English, we will go over the ways to translate each of the ideas behind those seven question words.

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?"
 * }

Who, What
These two are grouped together because they use the exact same construction, and it actually mirrors the above, except the neutral third-person pronoun du is used instead. (I suppose the animacy doesn't matter, if you know the animacy but not identity of the questioned thing.)




 * 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?"
 * }

When, Where, Why, How
These four are capable of many diverse translations, which unfortunately require things that must be dealt with in future lessons.