Ælis/Topicalisation

    

    

This page is currently under construction.





Up to here, we have only spoken about the word-level of the language. On the sentence level, word order is completely free for the speaker to choose. In order to allow this, Ælis has a high rate of topicalisation or "function marking". What this means is that words themselves (lexically) indicate role they play in the sentence. This approach is very similar to a languages that use a case system, like Latin or Russian. But there is a difference in a approach. While most languages mark cases through inflection (i.e. modifying a part of a noun or adjective, usually with a suffix), Ælis on the other hand, given the fact that it is a purely analytical language, cannot inflect. Instead, it has a set of root words that have the sole purpose of assigning a specific syntactic role to a word.



Sentence structure
Perhaps the hardest trick is to adopt the way of thinking that Ælis syntax functions in. Rather than a subject-verb-object oriented syntax, Ælis bases its syntactic behaviour not in a grammatically predefined way, but on the semantics of the words themselves. This makes Ælis an active-stative language, specifically the Fluid-S subtype.

Ælis has 4 primary function markers to assign roles, therefore it considers itself to have 4 word types. To facilitate the understanding, try to rephrase any utterance you might make as follows:

Not all of these word types must be present in a sentence. Sentences may be formed with essentially any combination of these word types. Example include:

As such, the following sentences would be formulated as:

My name is John &rArr; name John is given to me &rArr; hArEkdZZONK <span style="color:hsl(40,100%,40%);">iA1mA

Mary sees a dog &rArr; <span style="color:hsl(0,100%,40%);">vision (of) dog occurs <span style="color:hsl(40,100%,40%);">to Mary &rArr; <span style="color:hsl(0,100%,40%);">hAeNeMqOrEuA <span style="color:hsl(40,100%,40%);">iAnIkmERIK

We like the Ælis language &rArr; <span style="color:hsl(0,100%,40%);">good feeling occurs <span style="color:hsl(40,100%,40%);">to us <span style="color:hsl(100,100%,35%);">because of Ælis language &rArr; <span style="color:hsl(0,100%,40%);">eLeAnA3rA <span style="color:hsl(40,100%,40%);">iA6tE <span style="color:hsl(100,100%,35%);">lAeG1lIS

We will see each other soon &rArr; <span style="color:hsl(0,100%,40%);">vision happens <span style="color:hsl(40,100%,40%);">to us <span style="color:hsl(100,100%,35%);">by us <span style="color:hsl(200,100%,30%);">in context near future &rArr; <span style="color:hsl(0,100%,40%);">hAeN <span style="color:hsl(40,100%,40%);">iA6tE <span style="color:hsl(100,100%,35%);">lA6tE <span style="color:hsl(200,100%,30%);">iRaSdA3rA

<p style="margin-bottom:2em;">

Primary function markers
<p style="margin-bottom:2em;">

The topic-agent-patient triad
<p style="margin-bottom:2em;">

The modifier
<p style="margin-bottom:2em;">

Free function markers
<p style="margin-bottom:2em;">

The sentence bracket
<p style="margin-bottom:2em;">

The separator
<p style="margin-bottom:5em;">

<p style="text-align:center;font-weight:bold;margin-bottom:1em;">Further reading

Main page Reading and writing Morphology Function marking Root word list and vocabulary