Láadan/Lessons/4

Introduction
Let's work on forming slightly more complex sentences. This time we'll focus on specifying time, plurals, and another way of using adjectives.

When?
Immediately after your Speech Act Morpheme, you can add a word to denote the time. This sentence structure is symbolized as [(Auxiliary) Verb (Negation) CP-S]. The tense is an auxiliary that goes immediately before the verb. The auxiliary will never change its form (no affixes).

Here is a list of the tenses:

Adjective with a Noun
We know how to say something to the extent of, "Grandmother is old" (Bíi balin hothul wi.), with the adjective being used as a verb (balin = to-be-old). Here, we're simply describing the grandmother.

But, perhaps we want to describe granny but also talk about what she is doing, such as "The old grandmother sews."

The form is similar to our descriptive sentence, but we add the wo- prefix to both the adjective and the noun.

Note: This can only be used if you have one verb (e.g., "to be beautiful", "to be red", the adjective-verb). As an example, you cannot use this wo-* prefix pattern to translate a sentence like the "little red brick wall", which multiple descriptors. 

Examples
Láadan can be a little challenging because its grammar is different from English, and it almost feels like you're speaking backwards. But with practice, you can get a feel for building sentences and utilizing the prefix and suffix markers!

Plurals
Using plurals in Láadan is a bit different than what you'd be used to in English. In Láadan, there is a prefix to specify plurality, me-, but it is only applied to the verb (including when used as an adjective), but not the noun.

Note: When a verb begins with a "D", the plural prefix changes to n- instead of me-. 

The plural marker is always the first part of a verb, before other prefixes (i.e., the adjective prefix).

Plural without a verb
In a case where you need to specify a plural, but don't have a verb to attach the plural marker "me-" to, you can specify "many", "few", or "all".

We can add one of these words after the subject, object, or other case-phrase (recipient, giver, etc.) to specify that there are several or many.

To learn how to specify a certain number of an object, read the Numbers and quantity lesson.

Practice: Quiz
Translate the following sentences from Láadan to English.

Bíi meyod lezh wi.

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Báa aril shóod ne?

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Bíi wod worabalin wohena wi.

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Bíi melalom worabalin wohena wi.

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Answers

 * 1) We ate.
 * 2) Are you busy later?
 * 3) The young siblings sit.
 * 4) The young siblings sing.