Snat Sajem Tan/Sajem Tan Culture, Auxiliaries, Tense, and the Vocative Case

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Auxiliary verbs
Auxiliary verbs, which the cool among us may refer to as "auxiliaries" to save time, are basically like "helping verbs": they go right after the main verb to clarify or add to its meaning. Auxiliary verbs are either "i-auxiliaries" or "ö-auxiliaries", by the vowel of the final syllable (in the vast majority of cases, this is the only vowel, since they are almost all monosyllabic). It is possible to have a sentence without auxiliary verbs. However, if you wish to mark tense or mood, they are mandatory, as that is the only way to mark tense and mood; and none of them can be implied except for dic "indicative mood", which is what is implied in the absence of auxiliary verbs. It is also possible to use many auxiliary verbs in a sentence, and they can also be made to function as normal verbs if you wish to use them so. The rest of this section will detail the uses of auxiliaries as well as a complete list of them. The list also has examples of how they are used.

Tense
Tense in Sajem Tan (that is, where in time an action took place) is awfully erratic. We have four tenses: non-past, near past, mid-past, and far past, and they are marked on the auxiliary verb (mandatorily). The distinction between our past tenses is generally thought of as relative, i.e. it's up to you how far in the past it was. This can be manipulated for effect: for example, if a lot has happened since yesterday and it's almost hard to believe it's only been a day, you can describe the events of yesterday with the far past tense.

Tense is also not mandatory in Sajem Tan. You can write whole paragraphs in Sajem Tan without specifying tense once—theoretically, that is; in practice you're very likely to need an auxiliary verb at some point. It is mandatory to mark tense on auxiliary verbs. You do this by changing the i or ö n the final syllable. Here is a table of changes:

Future tense
So, you may look at our tenses, and ask, "what about the future?" And it's good, you know, to be thinking about the future. Well, the truth is, it's not considered its own tense from a morphological standpoint; rather, it's lumped in with present under the title "non-past". However, 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. Then, the verb of the sentence is put in the non-past tense. 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 actually 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 state of a noun (not to be used for past tense except as a poeticism or when trying to achieve rhyme), but this is controversial for some reason.

Questions
All the way back in Lesson 5, you learned the way to form wh-questions. Now, you will learn how to make yes-no questions (i.e. questions to which the answer is "yes", "no", "maybe", etc.)

In Sajem Tan, yes-no questions use the auxiliary verb kök.

List of auxiliary verbs
Here is a list of our auxiliary verbs in Sajem Tan alphabetical order:


 * dic (dec, dac, düc): indicative mood (generally only used to mark tense when no other auxiliaries apply)
 * dit (det, dat, düt): indeed (e.g.: Lnöxemšo dit dê. "I am indeed singing.")
 * göm (gëm, gym, gûm): must; obligated to (e.g. Dinţot sazucfê gym dê. "I had to go home; I was obligated to go home.")
 * gön (gën, gyn, gûn): try to; attempt to (e.g. Sajem Tan kic šynšo gön dê. "I am trying to learn Sajem Tan.")
 * göt (gët, gyt, gût): stop; complete; finish; be done with
 * ximic (ximec, ximac, ximüc): continue
 * jöm (jëm, jym, jûm): should (e.g. Jëkëm ţekfê jöm dojot. "You should write a book.")
 * jit (jet, jat, jüt): must; necessary (e.g. Kic Sajem Tan šynšojâk möm vafakfê jit do. "It is necessary that you join the tribe in order to learn Sajem Tan.")
 * fmök (fmëk, fmyk, fmûk): irrealis or conditional mood; used in "if...then..." statements (e.g. Dêţot našët kexekêt fmök do, jo dêţot tynön snamfê sin do. "If you love me, give me an umbrella.")
 * fnit (fnet, fnat, fnüt): willing to
 * sök (sëk, syk, sûk): asks for clarification when the speaker perceives a contradiction
 * sin (sen, san, sün): imperative mood
 * sit (set, sat, süt): begin to; start to
 * šnön (šnën, šnyn, šnûn): maybe; it is possible that (e.g.: Saridat zanum šnön dê. "It is possible that I am a rabbit.")
 * šik (šek, šak, šük): can; able to (e.g. Žûžûmum šik du. "He is able to fly; he can fly.")
 * möt (mët, myt, mût): not; this marks that a sentence is negative
 * kök (këk, kyk, kûk): marks a yes-no question (e.g. Vanum kök möm? "Is the tribe weird?".)