Mirad Grammar/Lesson 2

= Lesson 2: Who are you? =
 * In this lesson you will learn how to ask and respond about people.

Dialog


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

 * 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:


 * 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)?.

Possessive Adjectives

 * A possessive adjective is formed from the pronoun by the addition of the adjectival ending -a. So, at (I/me) becomes ata (my).
 * Duhota?....Whose?
 * hata....the person's, his/her
 * hita....this person's, his/her
 * huta....that peron's, his/her
 * ata....my
 * eta....your
 * ita....his/her

Gender in Mirad

 * 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 w before 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 y after 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

 * 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.



Descriptive Adjectives

 * 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 _________.
 * Fua means bad, so fia means ___________.
 * Afwa means allowed, so ofwa means ___________.

Three-way Scaling of Words

 * 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:


 * 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.).
 * Hey Dut Johnson, .......Hey Mr. Johnson.
 * Hey Duyt Johnson, hay!....Mrs. Johnson, hi!
 * Va. Hoy!....Yes. Goodbye!

The Definite Article ha

 * 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:


 * 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).

The Preposition be

 * 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:
 *  be ha dresem.... at the desk
 *  be ha mimkum.... at the shore
 *  be abem bi ha tam.... on top of the house
 * It se be sinibar....he is on television
 *  be nem bi his.... in place of (= instead of) this

Lesson 2 Vocabulary

 * Nouns
 * tixut / tuxut....student/teacher
 * dut / duyt....sir, mister, Mr./Mrs., Miss, Ms., Madam, Ma'am
 * dyun....name
 * Pronouns
 * 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&apos;s / this person&apos;s / that person&apos;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


 * gay / gey / goy....also / even / except
 * Prepositions
 * be....at (a general preposition indicating location)

Quiz
{In this quiz, fill in the blanks with the correct Mirad word. (Note: upper/lower case is significant.) 1. { Ha _2 } (The) tuxut se { via _3 } (pretty). 2. { Vo _2 } (No), hia tuxut se { vua _3 } (ugly), oy { fia _3 } (good). 3. { Hua _3 } (That) tixut se { gay _3 } (also) fia. 4. { Duhota _6 } (Whose) dyun se { his _3 } (this)? 5. { Hay _3 } (Hello), { duhos _5 } (what) se { eta _3 } (your) dyun?
 * type="{}"}