Current Martian Year: 2220 A.D.

Diligent readers may recall that it is rude, ungrammatical, and even immoral to use the Instrumental Case -ki with animate nouns. If one should suffer the misfortune of needing an animate instrumental, such as a ditransitive causative construction in the imperfective mood, one must resort to circumlocutions such as ( Read more... )

A new case was recently authorized in Siye: the Causative Case, the nominal counterpart of the causative clause-final suffix -ya. The new case suffix, like many other new case suffixes in the expanding case system of Siye, uses the Genitive Case suffix -ne- as a base; thus the new case suffix is -neya. It is not sensitive to animacy distinctions. ( Read more... )

There are two final verbal suffixes in Siye: the first is the non-final verb suffix -(a)m. This am is the same word as that used to connect nouns derived from participles. -(a)m is the final suffix of the verb, following the relational suffix. It indicates that the verb is not the final verb in the clause or, if there is a relational suffix such as ( Read more... )

The adverbial case in Siye is indicated by the case enclitic -ku. As its name indicates, this case usually forms adverbs as part of an open class (there is also a closed class of adverbs ending in -e). The principal difference between -pu and -ku is that -pu has a nominal and adjectival sense, whereas -ku has an adverbial sense. This difference is ( Read more... )

The instrumental case ('by means of') in Siye has two forms, animate -e and inanimate -ki. The animate form appears to be the source of the nominative pronominal forms le, pe, and (oddly) e. The only place vowel dominance would have allowed the animate enclitic to survive is after a syllable ending in a nasal or the vowel i.
These form a closed ( Read more... )

The comitative case -ni in Siye indicates 'with' or 'and'. There is another word for 'and', am, but it primarily links clauses rather than individual nouns. If -ni is understood as 'with', the number agreement on the verb is not affected; if -ni is understood as 'and', the number agreement on the verb reflects the aggregate noun phrase.

Kumayam-na ( Read more... )

The three locative cases in Siye are the lative -tu/-su, locative -kem , and ablative -sum. The lative case has already been introduced in the previous post. The locative case indicates a stationary location, the lative indicates motions towards, and the ablative case indicates motion away from a point. The directional suffixes -tu and -su are ( Read more... )

Basic Siye word order is SOV. In the case of verbs like “give,” which require an indirect object as well as a direct object, the word order is SIOV, The indirect object uses the dative enclitic -tu, if animate, or the allative or lative enclitic -su, if inanimate. These enclitics are almost, but not quite, complementary.
I laye sili-me-tu liyo nimu- ( Read more... )

Siye has two genitive-like case enclitics, the genitive and the possessive. The possessive indicates a relationship which is more intimate and less separable than the that indicated by the genitive. The primary axis of differentiation is inalienable vs. alienable, but the division is neither near nor wholly logical. Examples follows.

Genitive -ne
( Read more... )

Siye nouns are definite. In order to create an indefinite noun, the word tum 'one' is placed after the noun.
tupi-ya              the bird (ergative case)
tupi tum-na       a bird (ergative case)
tupi-lo-ya          the birds (ergative case)
tupi tum-lo-ya    birds (ergative case)

Siye syntax uses a mixed ergative system. There are three cases relevant ( Read more... )