Note: duhot? is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable: du-HOT. It literally means Say which person, i.e. who?.
Animate Determiners and Personal Pronouns[edit | edit source]
In the last lesson, you learned the question word duhos? meaning what? and referring to a thing. In this lesson, we introduced the interrogative animate pronominal deictic determiner duhot?, which means who? or whom, referring to a person. Duhot is short for du hoa tob, say which person. Here is a chart of possible answers, i.e. pronominal deictic determiners and personal pronouns and pronominal adjectives:
Singular Animate Pronouns and Determiners
TYPE
PRONOUN
POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVE
interrogative determiner
duhot...?....who(m)?
duhota...?....whose...?
proximal determiner
hit....this person
hita....this person's
distal determiner
hut....that person
huta....that person's
1st person singular pronoun
at....I (or) me
ata....my
2nd person singular pronoun
et....you
eta....your
3rd person singular pronoun
it....he (or) she, him (or) her
ita....his (or) her
Notice that duhot differs from duhos in the final consonant. Pronouns ending in -t refer to persons, while those ending in s refer to things. They can be pluralized by suffixing i: Duhoti?....Who?, Which persons? and Duhosi?....What (things)?.
Mirad is a gender-neutral language. If gender is to be expressed, it is done so with the use of the markers w and y. To make it....his/her specifically refer to a male, insert wbefore the root vowel. Thus, wit means he/him and wita means his.
Similarly, to make a pronoun or possessive adjective refer to a female, insert yafter the root vowel. Thus, iyt means she/her and iyta means her.
Determiners can be genderized, too. Huyt means that female, she/her while hwita means this male's/his. The letter combination in Mirad hw is pronounced exactly as wh in English what.
Table of Pronouns in Mirad Showing Gender-marking[edit | edit source]
Here is a table of pronouns with gender marked. Note that the plural personal pronouns begin in a y and cannot be masculinized. The corresponding masculine plural deictic pronouns can be used instead. The plurals of deictic pronouns end in the usual noun plural marker -i.
Personal and Deictic Pronouns with Gender Expressed
Descriptive adjectives end in the vowel -a. There are usually two sets of semantically opposing adjectives: Those with a three-way opposition like aga (big) - ega (normal) - oga (small) and those with a two-way opposition like via (beautiful) - vua (ugly). The vowels a and i are positive, while the vowels o and u are negative. The vowel e is in-between.
The descriptive adjective via (beautiful), because of the i-vowel stem, is a positive attribute. Changing i to u yields vua (ugly).
Here are some examples in sentences:
Hus se vua dyun.....That is an ugly name.
Eta dyun se vua.....Your name is ugly.
Likewise, fia (good) can be easily transformed to fua (bad).
Ata tuxut se fia.....My teacher is good.
Hit se fua tixut.....This is a bad student.
Hia tuxut se fia ay fua.....This teacher is good and bad.
Knowing the above, try filling in the blanks below:
Iga means slow, so uga means ________.
Vaa means affirmative and vea means possible, so voa means _________.
As learned in the last lesson, adjectives and other words with an a vowel stem can be part of a three-way scale, as shown in this chart:
Three-way Scaling
POSITIVE
INTERMEDIATE
NEGATIVE
va....yes
ve....maybe
vo....no
aga....big
ega....normal
oga....small
ay....and, also
ey....or, else
oy....but
hay...hello
hey...hey, oh
hoy...goodbye.
So, since you know that va means yes from this lesson's dialog, you now no how to say maybe and no.
Eta dyun se John, va?....Your name is John, yes?
Vo. Ata dyun se Bill.....No. My name is Bill.
Hua tuxut sefia, va?....That teacher is good, right?
Ve. It se fia ay fua.....Maybe. He (or she) is good and bad.
Hia dresem se oga oy fia.....This desk is small but good.
Hit se via ay hut se vua.....This person is nice-looking and that one is ugly.
Via ey vua, hia tuxut se fia.....Beautiful or ugly, this teacher is good.
When addressing a senior male, use hey Dut (oh, Mr.). Hey is a vocative interjection. Similar, use hay for hello and hoy for goodbye. Notice that these greetings have the a - e - i three-way scaling. Dut means sir, mister (the female version being Duyt (Ms., Ma'am, Madam, Mrs., etc.).
The definite article ha (the) is really just another adjectival deictic determiner. It is used exactly as in English. Unlike in the Romance languages and other languages, ha is invariable in its adjective form and there is no agreement in gender or number with the noun it modifies. In fact, this is true of all adjectives in Mirad.
Ha dresem se aga.....The desk is big.
Ha dresemi se aga.....The desks are big.
Ha aga dresemi se via.....The big desks are beautiful.
This adjectival deictic determiner can be made into an animate and inanimate pronoun by suffixing -t or -s, as shown in the following chart:
Definite article ha as a deictic determiner
TYPE
ADJECTIVE
ANIMATE PRONOUN
INANIMATE PRONOUN
Definite
ha....the
hat....the person, he, she
has....the thing, it
Proximate
hia....this
hit....this person, he, she
his...this thing, this
Distal
hua....that
hut....that person, he, she
hus....that thing, that
Examples:
Hat be hua dresem se Joe.....The one at that desk is Joe.
Hat se ata tuxut.....He is my teacher.
In fact, -s and -t can be suffixed to most any noun to mean an X thing or an X person, eg.:
Ha tuxut se ha agat be ha dresem.....The teacher is the big fellow at the desk.
Agas ey ogas?....A big one or a small one?
The thing -s and person -t suffixes are really abbreviated stubs of the words sun (thing) and tob (person).
You will notice the phrase in the dialog be ha dresem, which means at the desk. The preposition be comes before its object and indicates general location or position. It can have various translations, though, as shown here:
at / et / it / yat / yet / yit....I (or) me/you/he (or) him, she (or) her / we (or) us / you / they (or) them
duhot? / hat / hit / hut / duhoti? / hati / hiti /huti ....who(m)?, the person / this person / that person / who (pl) / the persons / these persons / those persons
Adjectives
fia / fua....good/bad
via / vua....beautiful/ugly
duhota? / hata / hita / huta....whose? / the person's / this person's / that person's
ata / eta / ita / yata / yeta / yita....my / your / his (or) her / our / your / their
Interjections
va / ve / vo....yes / maybe / no
hay / hey / hoy....hello /hey /goodbye
Conjunctions
ay / ey / oy....and /or /but== Quiz ==
gay / gey / goy....also / even / except
Prepositions
be....at (a general preposition indicating location)
