We're almost to the finish line! Our penultimate lesson will cover topics that were mildly left in the dust between the rest of the lessons, or needed a bit more time to shine! They're mostly about relating one thing to another, so... In Relation! I am good at naming things. Anyways, let's get to your final swatch of vocab!
You might remember "wañ" from lessons 1 and 5. It means yes! Just as ken means no. But just like ken can act as a negator, wañ can act as an intensifier! Place it after the verb and it'll mean something like "very X", "so X" or "really X". Super simple!
Similarly, the interjection of "twen" (maybe, sorta, “jein”) can also be used as a de-intensifier, saying something is "kind of X", "sorta X", "a little bit X".
We'll be using that throughout this lesson.
Selsimicu has a simple set of 5 words to handle comparisons, which are...
The ones labeled "adjective" work like any other! You add -n to them and they do their magic. You can even stack them with other -n adjectives, and it's all fine! Examples include...
"This fruit is the best."
"That knife is the worst."
"The grass will be greener because of the sun(light)."
"Iljana has made a less powerful toxin."
"My vase is full. I don't want anything more."
Meanwhile, the postpositions allow you to compare one thing to another! The main thing with be the subject, the thing being compared to it will be in the postpositional phrase, and the verb / adjective will be field of comparison! More examples...
"I run more than you."
"He excercises more often than you."
"Your song is as energized as a fish."
"The grass is mildly less green than normal."
"My room will be less big than her room."
tepsu (give) and tux (receive) can also function as an interesting pair of valency changers for verbs. They act like auxiliaries, being placed after the main verb, and they do specific things to it:
tepsu changes an intransitive verb to a transitive AND causative one. For example:
"You ran."
vs...
"You made me run."
It turns an intransitive sentence "X does Y" into a transitive sentence, "X makes Z do Y", and thus requires a new object.
Meanwhile, tux changes a transitive verb to an intransitive AND passive one. For example:
"I craft a knife."
vs...
"A knife is crafted."
It turns a transitive sentence "X does Y to Z" into an intransitive sentence, "Z has Y done to it", and thus the object becomes the subject, and the original subject is gone. It can be re-added with a man phrase:
"A knife is crafted by me."
You can't add tux to an intransitive verb, nor tepsu to a transitive verb, nor can you add both to the same verb. Most notably, if you wanna communicate "you made me do X" when the X is a transitive action, consider doing something like so:
"You made me craft a knife" (you made that i craft a knife. that works. you can experiment with verbs other than sun i think)
Describing things that happen, happened or will happen is pretty great, but describing things that didn't happen is a lot funnier, and what would a language be if it couldn't? ...well, Selsimicu isn't that language! Talking about things that almost happened, could've happened, or are about to happen, is as easy as the following four words:
These follow the standard grammatical categories that we're already familiar with, so... I guess there's no further ado! How are they used?
"Pitaza almost hit me!"
"Pitaza, you could've hit her." (you "hypothetically" hit her; as in "it didn't happen but if it had happened then...")
"It's just about to throw away all the rotten fruits."
"We're almost the same person!"
"It's possible that you'll fall over there"
Nouns are pretty cool, we have a lot of nouns. But sometimes describing things comes at an interesting caveat where, maybe we don't have enough nouns? Sure, being able to turn base verbs into agent nouns and patient nouns like we did in Lesson 6 is cool, but what about longer verbal phrases? What if I'm a birdwatcher? Must I settle for being a seer (uzioto)? A seer of birds (uzioto ta pupulwoto)? As it turns out, neither!
Selsimicu doesn't appear built for this, but there's nothing in the rulebook saying a selsian can't play basketball! I mean- that a selsian can't string together long words with several components!
Selsimicu has a specific structure for turning OV sentences into one concise noun, and it might appear familiar to you...
[Object] + "-" + [Verb] + [Prefix / Suffix]
It's pretty much the same structure we have in English, yeah. A "birdwatcher" is someone that watches birds, and so... a pulwoto-uzioto is a wato nen pulwoto uzi! Simple as that. More examples? I'm happy to provide!
A stoneworker, a mason
A game winner, a champion
An everyone lover, a pansexual
A life thinker, a philosopher
And these are just ones using -oto! You can use this for the derivational affixes of lei-, o- and -(a)s too. An important clarification for those first two, actually: Since they're both prefixes, as opposed to suffixes, they will go after the object noun but before the verb, as perhaps is expected. Example...
A music creating tool, a DAW
Something given by a friend, a gift
"Self"-crafting, sculpting (remnant from when "ñek" meant statue, hence why it's an Inanimate noun. didn't notice that? you're welcome!)
Final detail: the noun class for these new nouns depends on the affix used: -oto and -(a)s become [A] nouns and lei- and o- become [I] nouns!
This lesson's gone through quite a bit, and next one won't really cover much of the language at all, so... this is pretty much your last lesson! So I'm not letting you off easy! Let's practice all that we've learnt.
Translate the following sentences from Selsimicu to English:
Translate the following sentences from English to Selsimicu:
Congratulations! You are now pretty much at the cusp of learning Selsimicu for realsies! You've done great thusfar, and I'm serious that you could stop here if you wanted and continue on to the Additional Resources. However, Lesson 15 focuses on one thing and one thing only... the Selsimicu writing system of Weicamicu! If that interests you, go right ahead and finish this for real.