Tesipa

For a dictionary of verbs, see Tesipa/Verbs. For nouns, see Tesipa/Nouns. For adjectives, see Tesipa/Adjectives. For adverbs, see Tesipa/Adverbs. Other (closed) classes can be found in the text of this page.

=Information=

=Phonology=

Alphabet
Tesipa has twenty-two letters, composed of sixteen consonants and eight vowels. The Tesipa alphabet looks like this:

AEIOUÄËÜMNGBFDSZXPTKRJLW aeiouäëümngbfdszxptkrjlw

Consonants
This is a chart of all the consonants found in Tesipa and what letter represents them, in parentheses.

Vowels
This is a chart of all the vowels found in Tesipa and what letter represents them, in parentheses. If in pairs, unrounded vowels are listed before rounded vowels. Tesipa has eight vowels, five with standard characters, and the other three with standard characters and an umlaut (except for I and O, which do not have an umlaut partner).

Phonotactics
Tesipa does not have many phonotactic rules. All word forms are free to be constructed in any way. Other word forms and prefixes and suffixes are free to end and start with consonants and vowels. In addition, no vowel to vowel diphthongs are allowed, so each vowel is pronounced separately. Vowel to Approximant diphthongs are allowed, so syllables like ej, oj, aj, üj (ay, oy, ye, igh) are allowed. Some Consonants of the same method of articulation may not be placed next to each other, unless in different syllables. Nasals may not be placed next to other consonants, unless in different syllables.

Stress
Stress is perfectly regular, with the accented syllable always being the penultimate syllable (except in the case of one syllable words). Stress is light, not heavy.

Spelling
Tesipa is perfectly phonetic. The voicing and aspiration of consonants does not have an effect on spelling.

=Grammar=

Sentence Structure
Tesipa's sentence structure is very regular, consisting of either a Subject Verb Object order in the Active Voice or Object Verb Subject order in the Passive Voice. Tesipa also has prepositions (as opposed to postpositions) and adjectives come before nouns. Indirect objects follow direct objects in a sentence. The Morphosyntactic Alignment is Direct.

Affix Heirarchy
The order of affixes usually does not apply, as for most parts of speech there is only one type of suffix and one type of prefix.

NEGATIVE PREFIX - DEPENDENT MORPHEMES - ROOT WORD(S) - GRAMMAR SUFFIX

This system works for all parts of speech.

Verbs
Any verb morphemes can be combined into one verb. Verbs are fusional, with a single suffix for each tense-aspect-mood-voice possibility.

Mood
Mood is formed by suffixes and is very important. There is a mood for five basic modalities, what is (indicative), what must be (imperative), what should be (optative), what would be (conditional), and what could be (potential). If one wants to make the meaning more specific, they should use another verb (like to be able to or to need) to make that meaning, and use the other verb in its infinitive form after the conjugated verb.

Each mood can be changed into negative form with the negative particle, ne or n- (with verbs beginning in vowels).

Voice
There are two voices, active and passive. Active has the Subject Verb Object word order, while Passive has the Object Verb Subject word order.

Tense/Aspect
Tense and Aspect are largely intertwined in Tesipa, and are similar to those in Ancient Greek. The tenses are: future (future events), present (present events), aorist (clean past events), imperfect (imperfect past events or events with no definite tense--except in a gnomic meaning), gnomic (events that are general truths), fluperfect (future perfect), perfect (looking at the result of the event), and pluperfect (past perfect). Progressiveness can also be formed by an adverb, though it is much rarer than it is in Germanic languages.

Person
There are no conjugations for person in Tesipa and verbs do not agree to any type of person. Instead, it is solely determined by nouns and pronouns.

Non-finite Verbs
There are four forms of non-finite verb in Tesipa, which are the Infinitive, Participle, Gerund, and Supine. All types of these verbs function vaguely like moods. There are no gerundives.

Infinitives
Infinitives are the base form of a verb, essentially meaning the verb as a blunt meaning. In Tesipa, they are conjugated by leaving the verb root alone, with no conjugations. Infinitives function as nouns.

Participles
Participles may be either Adverbial or Adjectival in Tesipa, however, this does not make a difference in pronunciation or spelling. Participles function like a mood. Participles are also the only non-finite verb that can be conjugated by tense/aspect.

Gerunds
Gerunds are a noun form of verbs, as the noun that is the action of doing the verb. Gerunds function like a mood.

Supines
Supines are a noun form of a verb that are the purpose of an action (a finite verb). Supines function like a mood.

Negative
The Negative form of a verb is created by adding the prefix n- (or ne-) to the beginning of the verb. There is no adverb, unlike in English. The negative prefix works with all conjugations, as it is a prefix, not a suffix.

Conjugation Table
There is a short pause between the actual word and its conjugation, but it is not written. The conjugations are also very regular. Many of the suffixes are only very rarely used, such as obscure aspects in the imperative and precative that are usually used more often in the indicative, however, they can still be used if the need arises. Almost every verb is conjugated regularly (the only irregular ones being af (to have), es (to be) and fol (to do)), and even then, it is considered acceptable to conjugate irregular verbs regularly, albeit slang-like.

Nouns
Morphemes are often combined, for example, a dog kennel might be directly translated as "dog place". The order does not matter. Nouns do not have true declensions, and are essentially bare, unlike verbs.

Case
Case is not formed by declensions. Instead it is created by a mixture of word order and prepositions. Three cases, Nominative, Accusative, and Dative, are determined from the word order solely. For example, a sentence might run "I traded you apples", which is in the order Nominative, Verb, Accusative, Dative. Every sentence and subclause runs this way. Others cases are created by using prepositions.

Genitive
Genitive, the equivalent of Possessive in English, and in Tesipa is created by adding the particle "uf" between the possessor and the possessed. For example, in English, possessive can be created by the particle "of", which could create the noun House of John. In Tesipa, it would be translated literally into John of House, while having the same meaning as the English.

Definiteness
Definiteness is determined by the demonstrative in front of a noun, if any. If there is no demonstrative, indefiniteness exists.

Comparative
A comparative form is created by adding the word "mari" in front of the adjective.

Superlative
A superlative form is created by adding the word "moli" in front of the adjective.

Negative
A negative form is created by adding the prefix n-, or ne-.

Adverbs
Adverbs are not usually descended from adjectives.

Intensity
An adverb's intensity can be increased the same way as an adjective, using the comparative and superlative. To make it more specific, extra morphemes, adverbs, or adjectives can be added.

Negative
A negative form is created by adding the prefix n-, or ne-.

Pronouns
Pronouns are very simple in Tesipa, and are as basic as possible. The main conjugation for them is for person (1st, 2nd, 3rd).

Personal
There are no intensive pronouns, which is instead covered by modality. There is no difference between number, gender, or case. A dummy pronoun does not exist, instead, an impersonal verb just stands on its own.

Possessive
A possessive pronoun do not really exist, instead, the standard "uf" particle is used. A sentence would look like "Me of cat."

Indefinite
There is only one indefinite pronoun, On, but determiners may be added to modify it.

Correlatives
Tesipa has relatively few correlatives, and no quantifying correlatives, which are simply created by a determiner and a personal pronoun. Correlatives are regular.

Relative pronouns use the same set as the Interrogative pronouns. A reason proadverb (why) can be creating by using the literal translation "for what".

Prepositions
Prepositions are found before the noun/noun phrase in Tesipa and function similarly to how to function in English. They serve the purpose of grammatical case.

Copulas
Copulas are very simple in Tesipa. The verb "to be" (es) serves as the copula for all types. It can be conjugated for tense/aspect and mood as well. Some sentences in English which would have a copula are completely served by moods as well, with no copula.

Conjunctions
There are five conjunctions in Tesipa. They are und (and), ind (nor), aps (but), olk (or), and osp (so). Conjunctions are placed between the two words or clauses they connect.

Modality
There are many modalities that are used in Tesipa. (Chart coming soon to viewers like you)

Reflexive
Reflexive is achieved by using the pronoun Se as the object and the noun that is acting upon itself as the subject.

Obviate
As a replacement to voices in Tesipa, the less important noun in a sentence can be marked as obviate with the prefix b-. This sets the obviated object as the less important item, so pronouns will usually refer to the non-obviated item and such.

Conditional Sentences
Conditional Sentences are formed similarly to English, with two separate sentences, with both the first sentence being in the Conditional mood. A word for word translation might be "You(OB) heat(COND) water, it boil(IND)." The structure remains the same for various types of conditions and effects.

Dependent Clauses
Noun clauses are formed by adding the demonstrative eko or a relative pronoun in front of an independent clause. They serve as a noun in a sentence

Adjective clauses are formed by changing the repeated noun in an independent clause to the demonstrative eko or a relative pronoun, and inserting the clause in front of the noun (unlike some English).

Adverb clauses are formed by putting a subordinating conjunction in front of the dependent clause and putting it before the independent clause.

=Dictionary=

=Example text=