Basics of the SENĆOŦEN word
There are two basic kinds of words in SENĆOŦEN: full words and particles. Full words are the nouns, verbs, adjectives, and auxiliaries of the language. These are words that have meaning by themselves like TÁN ‘mother,’ YÁ¸ ‘go,’ ÍY¸ ‘good,’ and ÁN¸ ‘very.’
Full words can be simple, like TÁN ‘mother,’ YÁ¸ ‘go,’ ÍY¸ ‘good,’ and ÁN¸ ‘very,’, or complex. All full words have a root. Each of those four words is simply a root by itself. A root has stress (see Part 2) and can have one or more elements of meaning attached to it to make it complex.
Anything attached at the beginning of a root is a prefix. For example, attach ȻȽ- ‘already’ to YÁ¸ ‘go’ to get CȽYÁ¸ ‘already go.’ Anything attached to the end of a root is called a suffix. For example, add the -TW̱ ‘cause’ suffix to YÁ¸ go get YÁ¸TW̱ ‘cause to go’ or ‘take.’
It is possible for a word to have both prefixes and suffixes. For example, ȻȽYÁ¸TW̱ ‘already take.’ A word can have more than one prefix. For example, the I¸ ‘in process’ prefix comes after the ‘already’ prefix to get ȻȽI¸YÁ¸TW̱ ‘already in the process of taking.’ And a word can have more than one suffix. For example, -OṈE ‘you (object)’ added to ȻȽI¸YÁ¸TW̱ gets ȻȽI¸YÁ¸TOṈE ‘already in the process of taking you’ (The final W̱ of the ‘cause’ suffix drops when the object is added.) There are many prefixes and suffixes in SENĆOŦEN that are covered in detail in Part 3 of this grammar.
In addition to prefixes and suffixes, SENĆOŦEN also has infixes and reduplication that are used in word building. An infix does not attach to the beginning or end; it goes into a word. For example, YÁLE¸ ‘they go’ has the plural LE infix put after the vowel and before the final consonant of YÁ¸. (Yes, the ¸ is a consonant—see Part 2, below.) Reduplication adds meaning by copying part of the root. For example, copy the first consonant and vowel of YÁ¸ to get YÁY¸E¸ ‘going.’ Details of how these all work are covered in various chapters throughout Part 3 of this grammar.
Multiple prefixes, suffixes, infixes, and reduplication can be added to a root at the same time. As you can see, it is possible for full words to get quite complex—one word in SENĆOŦEN often translates into English as a whole sentence. Take a look at the technical root index in the SENĆOŦEN dictionary to get a preview of the types of complexity to be found in SENĆOŦEN full words.
Particles, on the other hand, never take prefixes, suffixes, infixes, or reduplication. Particles are small, unstressed words that are necessary to make sentences grammatical. SENĆOŦEN particles are similar to English words like ‘a,’ ‘the,’ and ‘of.’ They do not mean much alone, but they are crucial in making sentences work. There are many particles in SENĆOŦEN. Some, such as the subject pronouns SEN and SW̱, are covered right away in §1. Others are discussed as they are needed in the chapters that cover the grammatical patterns.
These little words are easy to overlook and often hard for new language learners to hear. But the presence or absence of a little particle can make a huge difference in the meaning of a sentence. For example, probably the most grammatically important particle in the language is the preposition ¸E. Compare these two sentences—one with the preposition and one without:
LÁ¸E ¸E TŦE LETÁM ‘It’s on the table.’
LÁ¸E TŦE LETÁM ‘The table is there.’
Or these two sentences—with and without the ¸E:
QENNEṈ ¸E TŦE SPÁ¸EŦ ‘The bear saw him/her.’
QENNEṈ TŦE SPÁ¸EŦ ‘He/she saw the bear.’
The grammar of these two pairs of sentences is covered in detail later in several chapters of Part 3, but for now, a quick look at them makes it is easy to see how a little word like ¸E can make a very big difference in meaning. The nouns and verbs of SENĆOŦEN are the flesh and blood of the language, but the particles are its skeleton. All of these linguistic body parts need to be put together correctly to make a healthy living language.