Snat Sajem Tan/Introduction to Describers and Genitive

So far, you have only learned about two parts of speech: nouns and pronouns. In this lesson, you will learn about describers. Describers are a part of speech in Sajem Tan whose function is to describe words. They are like English adjectives and adverbs. You will also learn about the genitive case, which functions like the English -'s, indicating possession.

Describers
Describers can be used in two ways: to describe a noun (corresponding to adjectives in English), and to describe a verb or another describer (corresponding to adverbs in English). Luckily, you never have to do anything special to describers. The only rule is that they go right in front of the noun, verb, or adjective that they describe.

Here are some examples of describers with nouns:




 * dût||žnicön
 * large||dog
 * colspan=2|"large dog"
 * }
 * colspan=2|"large dog"
 * }




 * gažyn||decek
 * green||chicken
 * colspan=2|"green chicken"
 * }
 * colspan=2|"green chicken"
 * }

And here are some describers describing other describers:




 * xüm||van
 * very||weird
 * colspan=2|"very weird"
 * }
 * colspan=2|"very weird"
 * }

Describer-forming suffixes
You can easily turn nouns, verbs, and so on into describers with one of the following methods.

The suffix -mêt
One of the ways to form describers out of nouns is to use the suffix -mêt, which means "a plenitude of" or "full of". It is most often used when you want to express that something has a significant amount of something. For example, if you take the word gamyk and add -mêt, you produce the word gamykmêt, which means "full of trees" (or "plenty of trees", when used as a noun).

There is some precedent for using -mêt to mean "having the quality of"; for example, the word dûganmêt is found in the lexicon and means "circular" ('dûgan means "circle"). This usage is more common in some people's usage of the language than others'.

The suffix -xêt
Another suffix you can use is -xêt, which is kind of the opposite of the above: -xêt means "none of" or "lacking in". So gamykxêt translates into "lacking in trees" or "treeless".

Tûn _so
The word tûn means "the quality of" and -so means "_-haver", "that which has", "_-having-one". So, this construction turns, for example, tücelit "that which affects you in a good way" into tûn tücelitso "having the quality of affecting you in a good way", "beneficial". It is used when you want to describe a quality something has. So if we were to say, tûn tücelitso lnöxem, it would mean "a song that affects someone in a good way; a beneficial song; a pleasing song". This construction is rare, if it is used at all, and the same effect can be achieved by simply using the word as a describer: tücelit lnöxem, or by using -mêt.

"To have"
Unlike English, Sajem Tan does not have a verb that can be translated as "to have". Instead, we make use of the suffixes -mêt, -so, -kâm, and -xêt. You have met some of these suffixes in Lesson 3.

-so
The most common way of translating "to have" into Sajem Tan is with the suffix -so, which you met above. It literally means "having-one", "one who has". For example, žiman means "feather", and žimanso means "feathered one". So "

Genitive case
Sajem Tan has grammatical cases, which denotes the relationship of a noun or pronoun to the other words in the sentence. For instance, in many languages you may have studied, such as German, Russian, or Icelandic, the subject of the sentence is in the nominative case, and the direct object is in the accusative case. Nominative and accusative show the relation of the nouns to the verb.

Sajem Tan doesn't mark nominative or accusative, but we do have a number of cases. The first one you are going to learn is the genitive case, which shows possession, somewhat like the English "-'s". The genitive in Sajem Tan is marked -vmê, and the noun or pronoun doing the possessing goes in front of the noun being possessed.

Here are some examples:




 * Tözenvmê||nün
 * Fog-genitive||friend
 * colspan=2|"Fog's friend"
 * }
 * colspan=2|"Fog's friend"
 * }




 * žuvmê||gigim
 * you.faunal-genitive||fin
 * colspan=2|"your fin"
 * }
 * colspan=2|"your fin"
 * }




 * Kižütdinvmê||ţemüt
 * bee-hive-genitive||information
 * colspan=2|"the Beehive's information"
 * }
 * colspan=2|"the Beehive's information"
 * }