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Getting my head around prefixes; Can somebody please help?
Topic Started: Nov 1 2007, 03:55 PM (1,695 Views)
Rushton
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Brackenwood Member
After I started trying to learn srs, I realised that there were no words of "am", "does", "will", "would", "are" and a few other basic words which are needed mainly for asking particular questions or stating facts.

Then, whilst going through the 2-Syllable image, I noticed the double-syllable prefixes, like ss for past tense, ll or future tense, dd for command (I still don't know what that means) and rr for question.

Does this then mean that if I were to say "dmd dm?" it would translate to "how you?" (If I was asking somebody how they were). Do I have to, when asking a question, write it as "rr'dmd dm?", to make it translate to "How are you?" (which would make a bit more sense.)

Also, I still haven't got a clue what "command" "suggestion" or "superlative/past perfect" prefixes are, or what they do...
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Laroon
Brackenwood Lightweight
oh dear... we need to help you out, oh lost sarus learner.

Ok. First off. "am", "are"... basic solution.

In english, we have something called Conjugation. It's found in many many many many languages, but it seems the Asian languages and possibly the african and some islandic languages don't. (I have no clue on African languages, it'd just make sense to me. I know for a fact that Hawaiian doesn't have verb conjugation.)

Anyway, now you're probably asking, "But Prof. Laroon, dude, what the hell is 'conjugation'?

Ok. the infinitive of a verb is "to _____"

So the infinitive of "dance" in the english language is "to dance."

It is then conjugated thusly in present tense:

Singular:

1st Person: I dance
2nd Person: You dance
3rd Person: He/She/It dances

Plural:

1st Person: We dance
2nd Person: All of you dance
3rd Person: All of them dance

OK now you might have noticed that "dance" only changes in the 3rd person singular. If you did, then good for you. If you didn't, go hit your head against a wall till fuzzy pictures emerge, then continue.

Ok. So the 3rd person singular is common for it to change. Think about it: I think, He thinks. I like, He likes. I want, He wants. I learn, He learns.

Of course there are some other examples where it doesn't work. These are called "irregulars" or, to people learning english, "the pains in the ass".

These are "to be" and "to be able to". There are probably others, but I can't think of any other examples right now.

Anyway, to conjugate "to be", it's:

I am, you are, he/she/it is, we are, you (plural) are, they (plural) are.

now you can think WOAH!!! conjugation all over the frapping place!

but "to be able to" is simpler!

I can, you can, he can, we can, you can, they can.

Nothing. no conjugation. Why? Cuz english sucks. and there are iregulars. :)

Now, getting to Sarus. There's no conjugation! Yes, I'm telling you that RIGHT after I spent an hour telling you what it was and how to do it. Now, that means that you have to simplify everything.

So now when you want to say "I love, he loves", you have to say "i love, he love"

no conjugation. stop it. don't do it. you'll get a ticket. And, to the question asked before, it therefore means that "t"- to be, is "am", "are", and "is".

Dr t = i am
Dm t = you are
Df t = he/it is
etc

simple, right?

ok. Now point two.

Rr for question...sometimes :)

If you start a question with the word "Who, what, when, where, why, how, or something like that, then you don't need it. Why? because it's already a question from the getgo. The way that makes sense to me, is that Rr is used for yes/no questions.

For example, you have a statement that says "you like me." Dm frt dr.
And now you want to be less demanding to the lady (if you're a straight guy or a lesbian girl, or a bi guy OR girl, whatev. i don't descriminate :D ), and you want to say "Do you like me?"

You simply place the "Rr" prefix before it. and it becomes a question.

"Dr frt dm." = I like you.
"Rr dm frt dr?" = Do you like me?

(Yes, "dr" = "I", "me", "myself")

A command is simply "DO IT NOW!!"

You put it before a verb and it becomes a command. Unfortunatly, I don't have enough of a vocabulary (and I'm too lazy to look up words), so we'll use "Frt" again.

Dd = command, right? ok

So you put that in front of "like" and you can add "dr" after it all.

so "Dd frt dr" means basically "LIKE ME!!!"

Same with future. I will like you = Dr ll frt dm.

Remember, the prefixes always come before a verb. Right before.

If you need clarification on the types of meanings of the prefixes, browse the internet. Adam Phillips didn't make up "Past Perfect". No way. So, look around on wikipedia or something and you should find some handy examples.

I hope this was quite informative. :)



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Rushton
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Brackenwood Member
WHOA! talk about a super big reply :P

However, I thank you immensely and yes, it was SUPER informative. I guess it's just that I've never mastered any other language before, so I'm not used to having to deal with different or simplified grammar. Any who, thanks heaps for the info Prof. Laroon, I'm sure I can pass my SRS midterms now! :D :P

ST!! :)
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chluaid
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Bitey's Daddy
Admin
Sometimes I think Laroon knows more Sarus than I do.. he's the resident Sarus guy :)
Thanks mate!

By the way Rushton, if you haven't already, you might like to check out the Sarus introductory Lessons which will teach you all of the basics, including answers to the most common beginners questions.
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Laroon
Brackenwood Lightweight
Psh... Prof. Laroon gives a huge-ass lecture, and Prof. Chluaid just says, "Oh, check on the lessons."

Whatever, Adam. :D

Hey, speaking of main important things, have you guys seen that song i made recently? there's only been one reply.... =/

http://z7.invisionfree.com/Brackenwood/ind...showtopic=13009

And then, to continue with the lessons (short lesson here), we can say that there are some elements in Sarus as can be found in other languages.

One thing is conjugation. English has it, spanish has it, many other languages have it.

an example: verb - to eat

English- to eat
I eat, You eat, He/she/it eats, we eat, all of you eat, all of them eat.

Spanish- comer
Yo como, tu comes, el/ella come, nosotros comemos, vosotros comeis, ellos/ellas comen.

French- manger
Je mange, tu manges, il/elle mange, nous mangons, vous mangez, ils/elles mangent.

German- essen
Ich esse, du esst, er/sie/man esst, wir essen, ihr esst, sie essen, Sie essen.

So as you can see, of the 3 languages i know (well enough) conjugation is HUGE. If you don't conjugate, you sound uneducated. Think about someone that says "I is a student." or "We eats dinner".

Like I said, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hawaiian, and several other languages don't have conjugation, and are therefore easier to deal with. And neither does Sarus :)

Have you noticed that the word for "to be" and the word for "yes" are the same?
OMG!

The reason for that comes from Chinese. I've talked to Adam in the past about this, and I found out that he's pretty good at what he does. :) In chinese, there's no word for "yes" or "no". If someone says "Is it hot today?" you don't say "yes, it's hot." you say, litterally, "is" [shi]. if you want to say "it's NOT hot", you simply say "no is." [bu shi]. Same in sarus.

If you say "do you know where the store is?" the person can either say "know" or "no know"
etc.

Ok, it turned out to be a long lesson. But there are two points on this. And perhaps, if I see enough interest, I'll make summore stuff up. :P
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StickyWicky
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Scientia est Vox!
I don't know any sarus. :worry:
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kinoko
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Brackenwood Lightweight
And in Chinese it's not really natural to say shi all the time... If someone asked you if it's hot, you would probably say re or bu re. (hot/not hot). Shi would work as a response to sentences with shi. But the thing is, Chinese doesn't really have adjectives like English does. To say "Is it hot today?" you wouldn't say "Jintian ta shi re ma?" you would just say "Jintian re ma?" It acts more like a verb. And another way of saying yes is like saying "correct" or "That's right." ("dui") So, it would probably make more sense to say "correct" as a catch-all yes word instead of "to be."


btw, what's an islandic language?

Yeah... and this is nitpicking here, but it's nous mangeons, du isst and man isst. :)
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Laroon
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::Professor Laroon tips his had to Master Kinoko::

Thankyou for picking up my mistakes. You're right on everything you said. :)

When I said "Islandic", I meant languages such as Hawaiian, Samoan, and so on. Not to beconfused with Icelandic :P
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FuzzyMcJohnson
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Brackenwood Newbie
To expand on Laroon's educated explanation of the Command prefix, I'd just like to add that it is used to suggest an immediate action (much like in Hebrew, which by the way also does not conjugate), for example:
"tdm" = Run (here is where my Sarus rust reveals itself... if I recall correctly the exact disposition depends on the context)
"ll tdm" = Run (later today, sometime tomorrow, whenever you feel like it)
"dd tdm" = Run (you could wait a few more seconds, but it will increase your likeliness to be incinerated)

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chluaid
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Bitey's Daddy
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completely off topic - I love your sig Fuzzy.. both image and quote :)

Back on topic, yes those are good examples of commands and suggestions.
Often the prefix of command, suggestion or formal may be omitted, so if I saw a plane falling out of the sky coming right towards us, it's safe to omit the prefix and just have "tdm", even though it could be a suggestion or a command.

Therefore, if there's any chance of confusion it may be appropriate to include/exclude the prefix at your discretion..

As another example, there's a couple of ways you could command someone to sit..
a strong command and a nice command.

Strong Command "sit down!"
Nice Command "take a seat"

In the first case, I would use the command prefix, in the second case I wouldn't.
In the following, I would use the command prefix only on the last line:

Policeman: "take a seat please sir"
Drunk guy still standing
Policeman: "Sir, please sit down"
Drunk guy starts wandering about
Policeman: "Sit down now!"
Drunk guy shits his pants and sits down
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kinoko
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Brackenwood Lightweight
Oops... sorry, somehow the first part of my post got clipped off. (Notice the random "And.") It's not really important, bu what I had typed was something along the lines of:

To say that Japanese and Korean don't conjugate at all is really inaccurate. All those hours it took to learn all those horrible of Japanese verb forms tell me that Japanese verbs definitely do conjugate. :yfok:

So... about the "Islandic" stuff... not only is that not linguistic jargon... it's not an English word. I think you might mean "Austronesian." There's also no language family called "African" or "Asian," and it seems to me (and I could be wrong) that you were grouping Japanese and Korean into the same family as Chinese, even though there is no substantial proof that any of the three is related to another.

...and now that I reread that, it seems really hostile. Please don't think that!! I'm only bothering to point this stuff out because it seems like you have the same interests as me, and if I were in your shoes I'd like someone to do that for me. :)

So, a little back on topic...

I'm curious; is there any specific order to put the prefixes in if there's more than one in a sentence?
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BonzaiRob
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The Demon Plasterer
What is the past perfect/superlative tense? My girlfriend studies some languages, and she couldn't think of any English examples (just French, which didn't help much).

EDIT: never mind, found a post by chluaid explaining it.

Quote:
 
...tt, which gives the past perfect tense (verb) or superlative (adjective).

verb examples:


  • sml - break

  • tt sml - broken



  • rrm - do

  • tt rrm - done


adjective examples:


  • ms - good

  • tt ms - best



  • sdr - loud

  • tt sdr - loudest



  • fl - more

  • tt fl - most


The word tt can be used by itself to mean 'most'.
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Rushton
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Brackenwood Member
Just a quick question, as I am eager to learn more srs.

Is there a predicted date as to when the intermediate lesson will be uploaded? or if it already has been and I'm just stupid enough not to notice, could I please be shown the link?
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