In continuing grammar work, I’d like to talk a little bit about forming basic clauses and sentences in Draványa. Much of this work is new, either in the sense that it’s very recent (i. e. from the last few weeks) work or having replaced outdated material.
One point I should mention, though, is that the form of Draványa currently in development is Classical Draványa, which is not the everyday speech of the man on the street, but rather the long-codified language spoken by the educated and used in official communication or formal proceedings. The modern language has evolved a great deal since then, and a comparison between Republican Roman Latin and modern Italian would not be inapt. So bear in mind as we go that what you’re reading about isn’t the modern tongue but an ancestor language kept alive in certain contexts, and which in many respects is highly stylized.
Also, I intend to leave the accent marks (which repersent vowel stress,) out of the final orthography as much as possible. However, it’s important to have them there now, because they can change by inflection and I have to keep the pattern of such changes in mind.
I may as well make one final note: the formal and ancient name of the language, from the earliest time in which Classical Draványa was spoken, is the Vurésh Draványa, literally the “speech of the cities.” Another ancient from is Angách Dravá, the “Dravánu language.” Neither are much used anymore, and even in archaic documents the tongue is called merely Draványa.
So with that out of the way, let’s get to it.
Basic Structures
Verbs are words denoting action. In Draványa, tense, mood and voice specify the action of the verb, while its person will give more information about the subject doing the acting. The forms of verbs (unlike nouns) are not modified for number, although there are various verbal particles that are.
So, to take a few elementary examples. We’ll start with the present tense (indicating action happening right now,) the indicative mood, which is used for statements of fact, and the active voice, which indicates that the subject of the verb is performing the action.
The verb maché means “to kill.” We might recognize this as something called the Infinitive form of the verb. As in English, in Draványa the infinitive is the standard form in which a verb is presented, with or without the accompanying particle “to.” In Draványa, however, this is built right into the form of the word itself instead of being indicated by an accompanying word.
The verb’s tense, mood and voice act similarly, changing the form of the verb. The person of the verb also modifies it. So we thus have:
maché, “to kill” (Present, Indicative, Active)
- 1st Person: (singular) é machéler “I kill”
- 2nd Person: (singular) gé machélu “you kill”
- 3rd Person: (singular) té machelé “he/she/it kills”
(plural) éu machéler “we kill”
(plural) gén machélu “you (pl.) kill”
(plural) tés machelé “they kill”
Notice that, as mentioned, the number of the noun (singular or plural) performing the action is not indicated by the verb form; instead, it is noted by the number of the noun employed as the verb’s subject. In this case, the subject of maché is the personal pronoun é, in its (masculine) first, second and third-person forms. Sometimes the pronoun is dropped; the person can be implied from the form of the verb, but the number must be determined from context. This generally occurs when the subject is singular.
A verb’s tense indicates when the action is happening, whether in the present, the past or the future. Four of Draványa’s tenses (the present, past, future and immanent) are indicated by the inflection of the verb, while the remaining two (the anterior and progressive) are indicated by particles that follow the verb.
For now, since we actually want to put a sentence together,, let’s examine the past tense of maché:
maché, “to kill” (Past, Indicative, Active)
- 1st Person: (singular) é machálur “I killed”
- 2nd Person: (singular) gé macháluro “you killed”
- 3rd Person: (singular) té machalúre “he/she/it killed”
(plural) éu machálur “we killed”
(plural) gén macháluro “you (pl.) killed”
(plural) tés machalúre “they killed”
The object of a verb is the thing upon which the verb’s action is being performed. In Draványa, the object typically precedes the verb but follows the subject; that is, Draványa follows SOV word order, like Japanese or Turkish, and unlike English or Chinese which are SVO. There are exceptions, however, and word order in Draványa is generally more flexible than in English, but less so than in Latin.
The noun thách is one of several term for “man.” Employed in this context, the Objective (i. e. used as an object) form of this word is thár. Thus, in order to say “I killed the man”, we would say é thár machálur. Or éu thár machárin, “we killed the men.”
Now, notice something here. Draványa, like Latin or Russian, lacks definite or indefinite articles – words like “the” or “an” in English. Whether a noun used represents one of a general class of nouns (as we would use “a”,) or a particular example of such (when “the” would precede the noun in English,) is left to context.
Let’s go back to the present tense for a moment now. Verbs in the present or past (or future) tenses imply an action which is completed, or “perfect” in the Latin sense. Actions which are, were or will be ongoing take the progressive tense, indicated by the verbal particle dú in the singular. Such particles inflect according to number; duá is the plural form.
So in English, where we might say “we killed the men,” in Draványa we would say éu thár machárin. “We were killing the men” would be rendered as éu thár machárin duá, where duá matches the subject in number.
