Noiraka language

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Noiraka language

Post by Omzinesý »

Noiraka is the project I have been developing in my scrap thread.

It is a much simpler project than Kfadpqh that I'm doing simultaneously.

Ideas in Noiraka
- relatively analytic
- simple syllable structure
- ergativity (but only in trastive verbs)

The source of inspiration is Hawai'ian, but it is not meant to be a copy of it.


Much of this tread is just copied from my scrap thread in a more systematic manner.
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Re: Noiraka Phonology

Post by Omzinesý »

Phonology

Noiraka phonology is quickly described because it just is simple.

Phonotactics

Noiraka phonotactics is very simple (C)V(V). Stressing does not affect syllables structure.

Consonant inventory

Noiraka has the following 15 consonants. Its special characteristic are glottalic resonants /m', n', j', w'/. That is a kind of creaky voice during the consonant.

p t k ʔ <p t k ^>
m n <m n>
m' n' <m^ n^>
s h <s h>
ɾ ɟ <r j>
j w <y w>
j' w' <y^ w^>

To mark a consonant glottalic, the circumflex <^> is added above the following vowel. Similarly, the glottal stop /ʔ/ has no consonant letter but is marked by the circumflex on the following vowel.

There is very little allophony of the consonants because they can only appear on onset and not form clusters.

Taps/flaps /ɾ ɟ/ cannot appear word-initially, that is, they always appear between vowels. /ɟ/ really is rather a palatal tap/flap than a plosive.

Vowel inventory

The monosegmental vowels are the baisic-5 system

i u <i u>
e o <e o>
ä <a>

Bisegmental vowels are either long vowels (both segments the same) or closing (the second segment more closed than the first one). There are 13 of them.

ii uu
ei eu oi ou
ee oo
ai au
ae ao
aa

Stress

Stress always lies on the penultimate syllable and is not phonemic.
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Re: Noiraka Word classes

Post by Omzinesý »

Nouns

No obligatory morphology.
Three articles: i 'indefinite', a 'definite', o 'proper noun', u 'definite because of another noun, usually possessed' Generic nouns probably without article.

a paju 'the cat'
i paju 'the cat'
o paju 'Cat'
u paju 'her cat'

This is a good lang for testing Manchu sound symbolism of gender. Words referring to males often have o and u, while words referring to females often have e and i. a is neutral.

ôsu 'father' - êsi 'mother'
maomao 'boy' - maemae 'girl'


The nominal modifier follows its head noun. The modifier has the strong grade, if possible.
(3)
poju ôku
poju ôju.GRADE
cat man.GEN
'The man's cat'
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Re: Noiraka Dictionary

Post by Omzinesý »

Dictionary

Nouns
aoso 'money'
hatau - hatai 'donkey'
hetekai 'hunter'
iwî 'hand'
maomao ~ maemae 'child'
ôku ~ êki 'person'
ôsu ~ êsi 'parent'
poju ~ peji 'cat'
poruma 'article (written)'
saaruha 'politics'
saata 'neighbor'
sonuu - senii 'friend'
ûsu 'building'

Pronouns
aa 'she, he, it, they'
ojo 'I M'
eje 'I F'
eeri 'you F'
ooru 'you M'

Verbs
ipepe 'know'
hee 'go'
kaha - kaaha 'sit'
kao 'exist, be there, (have)'
kepera 'jump'
kiha 'say'
môhe 'write'
noosa 'love'
pema 'like'
piru 'give'
popo 'eat'
soka - sooka 'kill'
taahija 'burn'
taseka 'beat' (concrete)
topiri 'build'
tuâa 'feel pain'




Adjectives
hoo 'good'
kai 'necessary, important'
kii 'small, little, a little'
mîi 'only, just, nothing but'
nêu 'bad'
nâe 'particular, known, specific'
noi (the name of the people)
pou 'big, much'
sou 'old'
tii 'light, white, happy'
tuu 'dark, black, sad'
yêi 'new, young'

Locatives
hoto 'in the area'
kopura 'on table'
komu 'in hand'
kuuji 'during day, during 24 hours'
tapeesi 'at school'



auxiliaries
haisa 'why?'
tuâ 'start'
kei 'stop'
aakei 'is still Ving' ('didn't stop Ving')
aatuâ 'haven't yet Ved'
asa 'if' (contrafactual condition)
â (imperative)
puu 'and then'
sai 'does?' (polar question), 'if' (nonfactual condition)

Prepositions
k- ERGATIVE
m^- THEME ARGUMENT
neur- 'VOLITIONAL'
t- OBLIQUE ARGUMENT
ôoj- POTENTIAL
pir- DATIVE
peew- NECESSATIVE
s- 'and'

Sentence-initial Epistemic Particles
He Sensory Evidence
Pa Inferred Evidence
Nû Reportative
Si Egophoric certain (I know cos I did it.)(also used in narratives with an all-knowing storyteller)
? Egophoric uncertain (I think)
Ta Fact (Everybody generally knows, so no need for evidence.)
? Imagined (No need for evidence)
Last edited by Omzinesý on 24 Jul 2021 11:54, edited 34 times in total.
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Re: Noiraka language

Post by Khemehekis »

Are you a filmstabber, by any chance?
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Re: Noiraka language

Post by ixals »

Just a quick comment to say that I really like the idea with the circumflex!
Native: :deu:
Learning: :gbr:, :chn:, :tur:, :fra:

Zhér·dûn a tonal Germanic conlang

old stuff: Цiски | Noattȯč | Tungōnis Vīdīnōs
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Re: Noiraka language

Post by Omzinesý »

Khemehekis wrote: 27 Jun 2021 12:09 Are you a filmstabber, by any chance?
You mean killing the cats?
I don't admit anything!


ixals wrote: 27 Jun 2021 14:30 Just a quick comment to say that I really like the idea with the circumflex!
Thanks
<'> is especially nasty word-initially. "'oku".
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Re: Noiraka Defining nouns and verbs

Post by Omzinesý »

Difference of nouns and verbs

Nouns and verbs are surely distinct word classes in Noiraka, but they work very similarly.

Nouns

Nouns can be arguments, or course. In (1) both paju and hetekai are nouns, as one could expect.

(1)
Soke i paju k-a hetekai.
kill INDEF cat ERG-DEF hunter
'The hunter killed a cat.'

But Noiraka is also a zero-copula language. That is, nouns can appear as predicates alone, like êsi in (2).

(2)
Êsi a êki.
mother DEF woman
'The woman is a mother.'

Many words that are verbs in SAE are nouns in Noiraka. Nouns can well be bivalent, like in (3).
(3)
Noosa a maomao t-a poju.
love(r) DEF boy OBL-DEF cat
'The boy loves the cat.'
literally: 'The boy is a lover to the cat.'

But nouns cannot be causativized just, by adding an ergative argument. (4) is ungrammatical.
# (4)
# Noosa a maomao k-a maemae t-a poju.
# love(r) DEF boy ERG-DEF girl OBL-DEF cat
# 'The girl made the boy love the cat.'

Clauses with nominal predicates cannot have an auxiliary of a verbal clause, like tuâ in (5), either. They must have a verb, like peho in (6), in those meanings. Verbs can, however, be modified by most adjectives, which then have adverbial meanings.

(5)
Tuâ hasuja a ôku.
start sing DEF man
'The man started to sing.'

(6)
Peho noosa a ôku t-a poju.
become love(r) DEF man OBL-DEF cat
'The man started to love the cat.'

Nonfinite forms cannot be formed from nouns, because they are nonfinite to begin with. In (7), tarau is a same-subject converb.

(7)
Popo a ôku, tarau môyo.
popo a ôku, tara-u môyo.
eat DEF man, go-SS outdoors
'The man ate and (then) went outdoors.'

Nouns are just introduced with essive presosition non, (8).

(8)
Soka a paju k-a hetekai, non-u noosa.
kill DEF cat ERG-DEF hunter, as-its lover
'The hunter killed the cat but loved it.'



Verbs

Verbs have only one finite form. But they have Actor nominalization and same-subject and different-subject converbs.

The Actor nominalization is usually formed lengthening the first vowel of the verb root.
soka 'kill (once)'
sooka 'be a killer' ~ 'kill often'

(7)
Haijesa a sooka paira.
free DEF killer still
'The killer is still free.'

Habitual aspect is usually expressed with Actior-Nominalization. Because it is a nouny form, it cannot have an ergative argument. That makes Noiraka a split ergative language between nonhabitual and habitual aspects.

(8)
Sooke a hetekai s-i puu paju.
kill DEF hunter PREP-INDEF several cat
'The hunter kills cats.'
Literally: 'The hunter is a killer to cats.'

Actor nominalization can appear with auxiliaries, but the meaning combinations are a bit different. They always appear with verbs, (9), however.

(9)
Peho sooke a hetekai s-i puu paju.
become kill DEF hunter PREP-INDEF several cat
'The hunter started to kill cats.'
Literally: 'The hunter became a killer to cats.'

Edit: I'm still considering if a special Accusative preposition s- is needed for Habitual aspect.

I think I have actually played with noun-verb borderline enough.
Last edited by Omzinesý on 30 Jun 2021 09:44, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Noiraka language

Post by Khemehekis »

Omzinesý wrote: 27 Jun 2021 15:05
Khemehekis wrote: 27 Jun 2021 12:09 Are you a filmstabber, by any chance?
You mean killing the cats?
I don't admit anything!
https://www.frathwiki.com/Khemehekis_Conlanger_Taxonomy
♂♥♂♀

Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels

My Kankonian-English dictionary: 86,336 words and counting

31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
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Re: Noiraka language

Post by Omzinesý »

Khemehekis wrote: 28 Jun 2021 05:16
Omzinesý wrote: 27 Jun 2021 15:05
Khemehekis wrote: 27 Jun 2021 12:09 Are you a filmstabber, by any chance?
You mean killing the cats?
I don't admit anything!
https://www.frathwiki.com/Khemehekis_Conlanger_Taxonomy
Oh, reflection of conlanging community.
Somewhat yes (I'm kind of returning to Tamdouk, as well.), but I think I usually rush to new projects and forget the old ones. But during the transition, there can be several projects going on.
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Re: Noiraka language

Post by Omzinesý »

I think I'll however go with a more "normal" distinction of verbs and nouns. Noosa 'to love' is thus a verb.

Copula clauses

There is no copula verb. Copula clauses are of the form:
[predicative] [article [subject]]

(1)
Ôku a hetekai. 'The hunter is a man.'

Nominal predicate cannot be preceded by preverbal auxiliaries (but verbs with similar meanings) and it cannot have same-subject forms.

Sometimes nouns can be made verbs with zero-derivation and adding an ergative subject. It has the verby features.

(2)
Hekekai a maomao u ôsi.
(make)hunter DEF boy POSS father
'His father made the boy a hunter.'
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Re: Noiraka language

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Verb complex

The pattern of the VP is: [auxiliary] [adjective] [verb], of which the verb is the only obligatory word.

Verb

Verbs have two aspect forms: Habitual and Nonhabitual. Habitual usually has a long first vowel while Nonhabitual has a short one. Despite what I said earlier, aspect does not affect alignment.

Noosa 'loves'
Nosa 'is expressing love'

Poopo 'eats (e.g. every day)'
Popo 'ate, is eating'

Auxiliary
tuâ 'start'
kei 'stop'
aakei 'is still Ving' ('didn't stop Ving')
aatuâ 'haven't yet Ved'
asa 'if' (contrafactual condition)
â (imperative)
sai 'does?' (polar question), 'if' (nonfactual condition)
...

adjective

Adjectives can also modify verbs.

Kii popo a poju.
little eat DEF cat
'The cat ate a little.'
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Re: Noiraka language

Post by Omzinesý »

Locatives

Locatives are the third open class in Noiraka.
Locative phrase is alike with NP:
[article] [adjective] [locative] [possessor]

Locative phrases express time or location, i.e. appear as adverbials.

(1)
Hee a maemae t-a maomao a tepeesi.
go DE girl and-DEF boy DEF school
'The children went to the chool.'

(2)
nayi kuuji
first day
'on Monday'

They cannot be absolutive arguments or take prepositions. They can, however, be possessors of nouns.

(3)
Taahija a ûsu tapeesi
burn DEF building school
'The school burned.'

(4)
No tuâa u komu.
SG1 feel.pain POSS hand
'My hand is aching.'

Locatives can also appear as predicates.

(5)
Tapeesi a maemae t-a maomao.
'There are the children in the school.' ~ 'The children are in the school.'


Komu, kuuji, tapeesi are all locatives and mean 'in hand', 'in day', 'in school'.
Edit: Locatives could actually have suffixal/enclitic articles.

Pera 'in the house' (no definite article used)
Pera-i 'in a house'
Pera-u 'in one's house'

Komu 'in the hand'
Komu-i ['komoi] 'in the hand'
Komuu 'in one's hand'

Now that they have proclitic articles, there is always hiatus between the article and the preceding word. Locatives cannot be preceded by prepositions, anyways.
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Re: Noiraka language

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Transitivizing applicative

Its suffix is -je. Theoretically, it is fully productive but, in practice, appears with few verbs. It makes intransitive verbs transitive, adding a patient. The subject becomes an ergative argument.

(1a)
Popo i ôko.
'A man is eating.'

(1b)
Popoje k-i ôko.
'A man is eating it./ A man ate it.'

(2a)
Môha k-i ôko t-a saaruha.
write ERG-INDEF man OBL-DEF politics
'The man is writing/wrote about politics.'

(2b)
Môhaje i poruma k-i ôka t-a saaruha.
write.APPL INDEF article ERG-INDEF man OBL-DEF politics
'A man is writing/wrote a article about politics.'
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Re: Noiraka language

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Numbers

Numbers 1 - 10 appear in the adjective slot. Before verbs they mean 'X times'.

koho 'one'
saja 'two'
paa 'three'
peje 'four'
iwî 'five' ('hand')
soosa 'six'
tana 'seven'
mâha 'eight'
oosi 'nine'
uri 'ten'

Ordinary numbers are formed with suffix -ji.
kohoji 'first', sajaji 'second' ...

Suffix -ku means 'at least X' / 'X or more'.
kohoku 'one or more', sajaku 'two or more' ...

Suffix -tiâ means 'at most X' / 'X or less'
uritiâ 'ten or less'

They -ji can be combined with either of two two.
uritiâji 'tenth or a smaller number'
Edit: 1001 nights is "elf layla wa-layla" in Arabic, that is, '1000 nights and a night'.
Noiraka could do big numbers similarly.

"i soosauriku ôku s-i paa ôku"
'sixty three men'
lit. 'at least sixty men and three men'
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Re: Noiraka language

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Prepositions

There are quite few primary prepositions.

Most (all?) promary prepositions end in a consonant so they form a phonetic unit with the following article.

Syntactic prepositions
k- 'ergative' (only with semantically transitive verbs)
t- 'oblique argument' codes a second argument that is not affected/patient (think about X, love X, good at X)
pir- 'dative' (appears with few verbs 'give to X', 'say to X'
s- 'and' (could be called 'assosiative' but easily translated as 'and')
m^- 'theme argument' (with ditransitive verbs and the object of 'have')

Modal prepositions
There are two modal words that are prepositions syntactically. They always appear as a subject (A or S), i.e. replace absolutive or ergative argument. (Dixon argues that modals always take an (A or S) subject, and even ergative languages have such a subject category.)
peew- 'necessative' 'must'
ôoj- 'potential' 'able'
neura- 'volitional'

(1a)
Hee peew-a êsi.
go NECESS-DEF mother
'Mother must go.'

(1b)
Soka peew-a hetekai a poju.
kill NESCESS-DEF hunter DEF cat
'The hunter must kill the cat.'

(2)
Toopiri ôoj-a êki i ûsu.
build.HAB POT-DEF woman INDEF building
'The woman can build a building.'

The idea comes from Finnish, where necessative clauses take genitive subjects.

Metsästäjän pitää tappaa kissa.
hunter.GEN must kill.INF cat.NOM
'The hunter must kill the cat.'
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Re: Noiraka language

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Pronouns

There is only one 3dr person pronoun, aa 'he/she/it/they', which is surely related to the definite article a.

1st and 2nd person pronouns have a binary distinction of gender, see below.

ojo 'I M', eje 'I F'
eeri 'you F', ooru 'you M'

They don't have plurals but copulative compounds can be made of them.

eerije 'I and you'
eerijo
ooruje
oorujo

aaje 'I (M) et. all.'
ooje 'I (F) et. all.'

aari 'you (F) et. all.'
aaru 'you (M) et. all.'

aarije 'I (F), you (F) et. all.'
aarijo
aaruje
aarujo

Cultural things on gender of the Noiraka
Dender roles are very binary in Noiraka culture. There are strict traditional norms about what can a person's work clothing etc. be based on their gender. Men are supposed to be macho and women caring etc.
On the other hand, people are even encouraged to be gender fluid. Everyone should sometimes, say a week in a year, live in the other gender's role. In practice, it demands going to another town or at least other circles because changing your role among the same people is nearly impossible. Those, let us call them transvestites (I have to come up with a Noiraka term), are considered members of the gender according to which they behave. There is no problem with transgender people either. One can choose either gender as their "normal" role. But third gender or genderless people go beyond their cultural understanding.
So the problematic issue in Noiraka culture is not genders but narrowness of allowed roles, all together.
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Re: Noiraka language

Post by Khemehekis »

Omzinesý wrote: 06 Jul 2021 12:24 Cultural things on gender of the Noiraka
Dender roles are very binary in Noiraka culture. There are strict traditional norms about what can a person's work clothing etc. be based on their gender. Men are supposed to be macho and women caring etc.
On the other hand, people are even encouraged to be gender fluid. Everyone should sometimes, say a week in a year, live in the other gender's role. In practice, it demands going to another town or at least other circles because changing your role among the same people is nearly impossible. Those, let us call them transvestites (I have to come up with a Noiraka term), are considered members of the gender according to which they behave. There is no problem with transgender people either. One can choose either gender as their "normal" role. But third gender or genderless people go beyond their cultural understanding.
So the problematic issue in Noiraka culture is not genders but narrowness of allowed roles, all together.
That's some fascinating conculturing there.

I'm a gender-nonconforming bisexual cismale, so the Noiraka would probably hate me!
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Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels

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Re: Noiraka language

Post by Omzinesý »

I, at last, found the donkey-beating story from https://conlangery.com/2012/01/conlange ... e-marking/.




'There was once a man who beat his donkey every day.'
Nû kao i ôku, tasekaa u hatai kuuji-kuuji.
REPORTED exist man, beat.HAB POSS donkey.F day-day

'One day, a second man, who was a neighbor, came to the donkey-beater and asked, “Why do you beat your donkey?”'
Nû hee i ôku non-i saata hoto a taaseka-hatai kapupu "Si haisa taseka u hatai k-ooru?"
REPORTED go INDEF man as-INDEF neighbor in.area DEF beat.HAB-donkey ask "EGO why beat.NHAB POSS donkey ERG-you.M"

'The donkey-beater said, “Beating is all the donkey knows, I must beat him until he learns how to behave.”'
Nû ki a taaseka-hatai "Ta ipepe a hatai t-e mîi taseka, taaseka peew-ojo aa, woosa paa kikihi aa t-e sohuwo"
REPORTED say DEF beat-donkey "FACT know DEF donkey OBL-ABSTR only beat, beat.HAB NECESS-SG1 sg3, for.the.period NEG learn OBL-ABSTR behavior"

The donkey-beater then went into his home and discovered his dinner wasn’t ready, so he beat his wife.


His neighbor heard the screams of the donkey-beater’s wife and came to the door. “You should not beat your wife so much,” said the neighbor.


“I beat her until she learns to have dinner ready on time.”


Some time later, the neighbor saw the donkey-beater beating his son in a field.


This time, he did not say anything, but seized the donkey beater and began to beat him with a heavy cudgel.


When the donkey-beater asked why his neighbor was beating him, his neighbor replied, “I will beat you until you learn not to beat others.”
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Re: Noiraka language

Post by Omzinesý »

Verb Phrase

Many don't like speaking of VPs in an atheoretical discussion. Here VP refers to the verb and its direct modifiers, only.

Noiraka VP is:
[Epistemic particle/Negation] [Adjective] [Verb]

Subordinate/dependent clauses cannot have the epistemic particle, which is makes them less finite, though I don't consider them nonfinite.

Adjective is here a descriptive category and a title for the word class. Their part of speech is, of course, adverbial, here. It is optional in VP.


Epistemic Particle

Three of the particles express pure evidentiality and the other four related epistemic categories.

The particle also codes negation. The negative form could be analysed dimorphemic: Epistemic + uu. Egophoric and Opinion particles are merged, when negative.

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POSITIVE NEGATIVE
He	Huu	Sensory Evidence 
Pa	Puu	Inferred Evidence
Nô	Nûu	Reportative 

We	Wuu	Egophoric (I know cos I did it.)
Wa	Wuu	Opinion, uncertain (I think) 
Ta	Tuu	Fact (Everybody generally knows, so no need for evidence.) 
Si	Suu	Imagined (No need for evidence) 

Ni    Directive (Not an affirmative, no need for evidence)
Stories use several epistemic particles, depending on genre.
Mythical stories usually use the fact particle ta because everybody is supposed to "know that they are true".
Fictional child stories usually use the imagined particle si because they are not supposed to be true.
Fact stories, naturally, use the particle that tells the evidence, usually the reportative particle .

I don't know which particle is used by an all-knowing storyteller of a modern novel. Probably EGO.

Polar Questions

Polar questions are started by repeating both Positive and negative particles.
Hehuu
Papuu
Kokuu
Wewuu
Wawuu
Tatuu
Sisuu


Adjective


The meanings of Adjectives as adverbs are closely related to those of Adjectives as modifiers of noun.

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	Pre-verbal				Pre-nominal 
hoo 	'well'					'good'
nêu	'badly'					'bad'
		
pou 	'much'					'big, much' 
kii 	'a little'				'little, a little'

tii 	'happily'				'white, happy'
tou 	'dark'					'black, sad'

yêi	'in a new way'				'new, young' 
sou	'in the old way'			'old' 

hao	'many times (repeatedly, simultaneously)'	'many (together)'
pee 	'many times (separately) 			'many (separately)' 
sei	'few times (repeatedly, simultaneously)' 	'few (together)' 
pei	'few (separately) 				'few (separately)' 
Numbers, or course, express X times, and ordinar numbers express 'the Xth time'.

Verb

Verbs have two morphological aspects.
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Last edited by Omzinesý on 24 Jul 2021 11:36, edited 20 times in total.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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