Alright, here we go. This lesson will go over Selsimicu's auxiliary verbs and its postpositional phrases, which will lead us to FINALLY finalize the full sentence structure! Can you believe it? We're so close!
If you don't know linguistic vocabulary, you might not actually know what a postposition is. Well, a postposition is like a preposition, but flipped around! Whereas a preposition goes "[X] Y" ([to] the town, [from] my house, [about] math, [below] the table), a postposition goes "Y [X]", and this is what Selsimicu does! First, let's actually tell you all the postpositions, in a nice handy chart!
| WORD | use case | linguistics term |
|---|---|---|
| fej | direction or goal; "to", "for" | "dative" |
| man | origin; "from" | "ablative" |
| tzun | cause or reason; "because" | "causative" |
| muj | location; "in", "at", "on" | "locative" |
| twel | partnership or nearness; "by", "with" | "comitative" |
| lori | utilizing X method or tool; "using", "with" | "instrumental" |
| ukeq | dates, times, events; "in", "at" | "temporal / essive" |
| īñoke | above something; "over", "above" | "superessive" |
| zer | below something; "under", "through" | "subessive" |
| wanun | inside something; "within", "inside" | "inessive" |
| jofjan | outside something; "outside" | "postessive" (?) |
Now that you know all the postpositions, it's time to use them!
First of all, postpositions can work as primary verbs when there's nothing else, which means you don't need a copula like "to be" to say it. I.E. "i'm in a hole" is simply "i hole in"
"i'm in a hole..."
"there's a flower in my bag"
"the festival's tomorrow!"
(remember the "[noun phrase] [postposition]" order! it's imperative that you know how to read it!)
When inserting postpositional phrases into verb sentences, they prefer to go after the subject and object, but before the verb. You can add as many as you need to specify details!
"you're going to draw in her house?"
"i sense danger outside the water"
"you've gotta give flowers to him!"
"excavators make holes with digging tools"
"the bird flew from the shadows, above the land"
Exactly ONE postpositional phrase can be fronted directly to the beginning of a sentence (even before the subject), if it's a very important part, but for the most part, you want them contained.
Auxiliary verbs are verbs that add important detail to a phrase, like for example saying "i want to frollic", instead of saying "i frollic". These come from other words (usually other verbs), and are simply just added to the right of the main verb, and are read in that order! Again, let me list them all in a nice table, and then we can go over usage examples!
| WORD | use case | original meaning |
|---|---|---|
| piris | want to | verb (to want) |
| mei | allowed to, able to (from skill) | old adjective (skilled) |
| selsi | able to (from knowledge), know how to | adjective (smart) |
| seika | try to | verb (to search for) |
| kirx | start to | verb (to begin) |
| or | stop | verb (to stop) |
| nokao | continue to | verb (to progress) |
| praqao | need to | verbalized noun (root) |
| sua | do again | adjective (new) |
| wikix | think about doing | verb (to think about) |
"yea, i want to draw in her house!"
"humans really can't fly? alright..."
"she knows how to build bags. she's not allowed to."
"this selsian will certainly try to know how to draw! (a.k.a. "learn how to")"
"my bag keeps collecting tons of rainwater!"
*Don't recognize this? It's a word that means something like "okay" or "gotcha", from the verb "kona" that means to hear. Or to smell. Long story.
Finally, the moment you've been waiting for! The true, complete form of Selsimicu's sentence structure! Let's get on with it!
Second most essential part of the sentence; NEVER skipped! If sentence is a listener command, place "az" or "zax" in this spot, and leave empty. They are now the subjects. Give whatever modifiers you want!
Optional part of the sentence, unless it's called for! If "pi", "fe" or "qu" are nouns in this spot, they become "leipī", "lifē" and "leqū" respectively. So now you know that. Give whatever modifiers you want!
As many as you need to make your point clear! Which can also be none! Give whatever modifiers you want, and cap off with the star of the show: the actual postposition!
Our star marker, right before the main verb! "az" and "zax" fall in this category too, if you're using them to accentuate a more normal sentence. Skip if sentence time is already clear from context or previous information.
THE most essential part of the sentence; NEVER skipped! Can be a default adjective (without -n) or a lonely postposition, but it'll always be there! Give whatever modifiers you want!
The accentuators to our main verb. Not always necessary, but immensely useful! Can themselves be modified, so give whatever modifiers you want!
Congratulations! You now know the full Selsimicu sentence structure! We'll keep explaining grammatical concepts, but rest assured that they will all continue to fit this framework!