Sangi/Derivation

verbs, nouns and adjectives have derivations in Sangi which allow a word belonging to one part of speech to be transferred to another, e.g. a verb forming a noun, a noun forming an adjective, and so on. Overall, a lot of these processes will create synonyms of words which already exist, and through incorporation may allow up to four or more words to have exactly the same meaning, unlike most English synonyms where the meaning differs subtley.

Verbs
Verbs have the largest ability to create new words by means of suffixes and mutations. Verbs can create abstract, inanimate, human and occupational nouns as well as adjectives with both active and passive meanings and can also take suffixes which will turn the verbal system into a relative clause.

-an – When this suffix is added to the verbal complex, it forms the gerund, which is equivalent to the “-ing” forms of verbs in English, expressing something along the lines of “the act of ...-ing”. This form is also the same as -ing noun forms, such as "the kissing". The passive form of this suffix is "-air". When forming these forms with stems that are false vocalic (historically final t and c) the 3nd weak grade is used, i.e. a "j" falls between the stem and the suffix.

-[a]n-inf.-a – This complex suffix creates the second infinitive, which is the infinitive used after another verb as in English “I tried to run” where “to run” would take the form of the second infinitive. This form is rare as many of the verbs that precede an infinitive in English are built into the verbal complex.

-in – When attached to the weak II stem of the verbal complex it creates an abstract noun in the active voice.

-eil – When this suffixes is added to the weak II stem of the verbal complex it creates an abstract noun in the passive voice.

-ave – When attached to the weak stem it creates an inanimate noun with active meaning.

-or – When attached to the weak stem it creates inanimate nouns with passive meanings.

-ul – When attached to the weak stem it creates an animate noun with active meaning, usually animals but somtimes plants.

-ih – When attached to the weak stem it creates animate nouns with passive meanings, usually animals but somtimes plants.

-am and -si – These suffixes create human nouns with active and passive meanings respectively.

-en – When attached to the Weak stem forms human nouns with the meaning of an abstract concept.

-ibi and -di – These suffixes create occupational nouns with active and passive meanings respectively.

-[a]lta and -[a]csa – These suffixes create adjectives with active and passive meanings. The final “a” is lost when vocalic suffixes are attached to it.

-iw[a] - This form creates a noun or adjective which means "...who/that Verb". To complete the meaning, a pronoun must be added to the suffix, e.g. If the verb takes a noun object, this is declined as normal for the construct. Forms using the object suffixes are found mostly in poetry or in names. These are created using the 3rd person singular conjugation of the verb followed by the correct object suffix, the -iw[a] suffix and the correct pronoun. In the psoken language, these are constructed as normal using the accusative or dative pronouns.

It should be noted that no distinction is made between dynamic and stative meanings in these basic verbal derivations so the verbs “hear” and “listen” would both have the same derivations, although the intentional and unintentional suffixes could be used to make this distinction where the intentional means “listen” and the unintentional means “hear”. To distinguish active and stative meanings the infinitve suffix is added before the derivation suffix.

Nouns and Adjectives
Nouns and adjectives can changed word class without need for suffixes or stem change. Two suffix may be used, though, to change a noun to an adjective (-lp[es] - the "es" is lost in declension) and an adjective to a noun (-mm[er] - The "er" is lost in declension) When an adverb is created from either a noun or an adjective the suffixes “-[i]na” is added at the end of the complex. An adjective following a verbal adjective or a verbal noun must become an adverb, taking the suffix -[i]l.

Other derivational affixes exist such as “-iga” which would translate as “-ese” in English, like “Japan>Japanese”. Basically it means “relating to COUNTRY”, but only in an adjectival form. People from places are built up as “COUNTRY-'man'” whith the word of the country in the possessive, while languages are formed by suffixing “-saŋ” to the languages people (in the possessive), like “enclandis-saŋ” or English language. Other affixes like this can be created from their English ancestors using the sound change laws if no other process can be used to form a word of the same meaning.

Creation of Verbs
Besides derivation from verbs to other parts of speech such as nouns and adjectives and the simple derivation of predicate verbs through the simple conjugation of a declined or undeclined noun or adjective there are several processes through which dynamic and stative verbs can be derived.

The first is used with just adjectives. "to be good" would be derived from "cus" (good) buy adding an epenthetic -[s]e to the end and conjugating it in the stative -l-. When used in any other conjugation, the -[s]e suffix is added directly to the adjective and it is conjugated as needed. In non-present tenses, it is the -[s]e element that is marked for tense.

-ssâ - Derived overall from the Finnish suffix -staa, this suffix creates a class of verbs known as captative verbs. These verbs indicate the hunting, catching or other processes of a certain animal or other targets. Example in English are "to fish" which in Sangi would be "wiscissâ-" in which the suffix is attached directly to the noun complex. This suffix can also be used to show the hunting of a specific animal using the definite article suffix, so "wiscissâ-" would become "wiscossâ-" (to catch the fish).

There are series of verbs created from nouns donated that someone has the properties a noun, like "to be shoelike" but also sameness "to be the same as a shoe" and a third donating difference "to be different from a shoe". These are created by adding one of three suffixes, -tim (originally the verb "to seem"), -[h]em (originally the word "same") and finally -[a]kim (a contraction of "to not seem"). These suffixes may also be added to the verb pihei (to be) to form the verbs "to be like", "to be the same (as)" and "to be different (to)" which are used with the comparative case of nouns.

Relative clauses
-ir – This created a relative clause beginning in English with the demonstrative pronoun that. As this is still a verb, the -ir- suffix does not cause i-affection of the last vowel.

-[i]ja- – This creates a relative clause that would begin in English with an interrogative pronoun. The suffixes that would be attached to the suffix to complete it are “-w” (how), “-” (who, what) “-a” (why), “-n” (when), “-j” (where), “-t” (which (one)). As this is still a verb, the -ija- suffix does not cause i-affection or a-affection of the last vowel.

When the relative clause for both suffixes is created that clause must end with the word "î" if it is followed by a continuation of the main clause. This word is not required if the end of the relative clause is the end of the sentence.