I've decided to rewrite everything that's already been said, exclude what's outdated, include what's new, and generally describe the Pekseili grammar in a different way than I previously did (or at least tried :P).
Please read to the very end. :P
Revised Pekseili Guide (sounds, grammar, et cetera)
Pippakka sopekseili veatlan suamen (vormo tuihenhe tuinonken)
Pekseili /ˈpʰɛksəɪli/,
Pek. pekseile /ˈpɛksɛɪ̯lɛ/ (previously called
Vutulkian) is an a priori language based on a primitive grammar, minimalistic phonology and flexible word formation. What you'll get here is probably a morning breath smelling surprisingly minty, like a mixture of Finnish and Japanese sounds and grammar, but several concepts are new and were created just for Pekseili. So take a seat, feel home and keep reading. ^^
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Tulki pilo hevaila tatulki kommi sere kura hansokso kura heesaita. Muiko kesen heeteke sana koovhalme sana muu kitlen ninen leta kena muiko kinesu.
[ˈtʉlkɪ ˈpɪlˠo ˈhɛⱱaɪ̯la taˈtʉlkɪ ˈkomːɪ ˈsɛrɛ ˈkʉra ˈhãsokso ˈkʉra ˈhɛːsaɪ̯ta] [ˈmʉɪ̯ko ˈkɛsɛ̃ ˈhɛːtɛkɛ saŋ ˈkoːʋɦalmɛ sam mʉː ˈkɪtɬɛn ˈnɪnɛ̃ lːɛŋ kɛm ˈmʉɪ̯ko kɪˈnɛsʉ]
Phonetics and phonology (Kiihete tuihilkiihete)
Consonants (Sitkili)
1. [ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ before /k/.
2. [ʂ] is an allophone of /st/.
3. [ɦ] is an allophone of /h/.
4. The affricate [tɬ] is an allophone of /tl/.
5. The velarized [lˠ] is an allophone of /l/ before /o/.
6. [v] is an allophone of /ⱱ/ before /ʉ/.
7. The affricate [bv] (with labiodental /b/) is an allophone of an initial /ⱱ/.
8. The approximant [ʋ] is an allophone of a final /ⱱ/ and /ⱱ/ before voiced consonants; a non-syllabical vowel [ʉ] is an allophone of /ⱱ/ before unvoiced consonants; a final /ⱱ/ can also be pronounced as /ʔ̪/ (a labiodental glottal stop).
Pekseili's phonemic inventory is rather small, consisting of as few as 11 consonant phonems, of which 7 can be geminated phonemically (/pː/ /mː/ /tː/ /nː/ /sː/ /lː/ /kː/) and 2 geminated allophonically (/fː/ and /ʋː/); /r/ and /h/ cannot exist in geminations. There are 13 consonant clusters: /tk/ /tl/ (realized as the affricate [tɬ]) /ks/ /nt/ /ŋk/ /st/ (can be realized as [ʂ]) /lm/ /lk/ /vl/ /ft/ /ht/ /rm/ and /rt/. Some situations enforce strong allophony on consonants (some of them undergo typical allophony, others lengthen preceding vowels or add nasalization). The most allophonic is probably /t/, which, depending on the surrounding sounds, can be pronounced as /t/, /p/ or /m/, or nasalize the preceding vowel.
There are two consonant types that decide how compound words are formed (more precisely, whether modifier roots are appended on the left or on the right of the main root). The first type of consonants are type-N consonants /m, f, ⱱ, t, n, l/. These consonants are laid on the left and undergo heavy allophony (see the table below). The second type of consonants are type-S consonants /p, s, r, k, h/. These consonants are laid on the right and can't undergo allophony.
The table below shows how allophony works depending on the neighboring consonants. It is primarily set in the context of compound formation. In the first column, type-N consonants were marked black and type-S consonants were marked red. On the white, there is /v/ and /n/ - the only consonants allowed to exist word-finally. Cells in bold with a superscripted "C" contain consonant clusters existing phonemically too. Shading with diagonal lines means that such a combination of consonants is prohibited or that it's not allowed in compounds (e.g. type-S consonants but also some type-N consonants too).
Vowels (Volkili)
1. Overlong and some long vowels are allophones of a short/long vowel + /l/ + short vowel (as in /maːlara/, pronounced as [maːːra]).
Phonemically, Pekseili has 5 short vowels and 3 long vowels. When followed by /t/, /n/ or /m/, they are in some cases nasalized. When followed by /l/, they are sometimes lengthened. Whether or not depends on the particular word and the surrounding sounds. There are 6 short diphthongs (/ɛa̯/ /ɪa̯/ /ʉa̯/ /aɪ̯/ /ɛɪ̯/ /ʉɪ̯/) and 3 long diphthongs (/ʉːa̯/ /aːɪ̯/ /ʉːɪ̯/).
Accent/stress (Sufruupu)
The stress in Pekseili always lies on the first syllable of a word. If a prefix of some sort is attached, the stress remains on the first syllable after the prefix.
Phonotactics (Kiisuiru)
All Pekseili roots, from which all primitive words originate, are CVC(C). The vowel inside can be a short/long vowel or a short/long diphthong, and the consonant on the right can be a single consonant (C) or a consonant cluster (CC). There are no restrictions for consonants, but a combination of a long vowel/diphthong and a consonant cluster is prohibited. This gives a theoretical number of 4,477 possible roots.
Primitive words (single-root words) are compounded into compound words (multi-root words) in a fashion much like in Japanese. Phonotactics of compounds are a little bit more complicated but they're basically a combination of the primitive-word phonotactics and the allophony table above.
Orthography (Hetere)
Pekseili is currently written in a variation of the Latin alphabet consisting of 17 letters. Long vowels are represented by doubling them and overlong by tripling. I tried designing Pekseili's own writing system but realized that I best like seeing it written with Latin letters.
Aa Uu Oo Ee Ii Pp Mm Tt Kk Nn Ss Ll Vv Ff Hh Rr
[kal kʉl kol kɛl kɪl pʉ mʉ to kʉ nʉ so lʉ vʉ fo hʉ rʉ]
There are two orthographies in Pekseili: Literal Orthography and Common Orthography. The former is used in dictionaries and legal contexts, and can take a bit more space than the latter. The latter is used in everyday communication. I am going to use Common Orthography in the following posts unless specified otherwise.
Compounding (Sinhese)
In Pekseili, compounding plays a major role in word formation. As said earlier, it is a bit similiar to that in Japanese but has its own quirks. All compounds are nouns. Every compound must have a head root. Let's take the root *hes «word» and turn it into some linguistic terminology, shall we? :>
The primitive word for *hes is
heso /ˈhɛso/ «word». If we combine the N-type root *maan (to negate, oppose) with *hes as a head root, we get
maahese /ˈmaːhɛsɛ/ «antonym» (*maan sticked to the left because it's an N-type root - the consonant right after the vowel is a N-type consonant). But hey! What did just happen? /n/ disappeared and there's an /ɛ/ at the end while
heso has an /o/! Well, compounding can get a bit tricky and unpredictable because some words are just easier to pronounce if we get rid of a sound or two. /n/ disappeared for this very reason.
maanhese /ˈmãːhɛsɛ/ would be correct as well. But what about that /ɛ/ at the end? It's
vowel harmony. We can't just take the /o/ from
heso because we're joining roots not words, and roots don't end with vowels. Vowel harmony requires us to put the same vowel at the end of the root as before the final consonant.
Maahese. *maan (to negate, oppose) is a common root for producing words of opposite meaning.
Now, if we wanted to have a word for
borrowing, loanword, we would use the root *fest (to borrow). It is a type-S root because the consonant right after the vowel is /s/. It is laid on the right of a head root and type-S roots don't undergo allophony. Instead of allophony, all consonants on the right of the vowel are cut so we have only
fe.
Borrowing is thus
hesefe (*hes + *fest) /ˈhɛsefɛ/.
If we, on the other hand, wanted to say
dictionary, we would use a different head root (because a dictionary is not a
word actually
- it's a book). The root for
book is *vaak. *hes is a type-S root so it will go on the right of *vaak.
Dictionary in Pekseili is
vaakahe /ˈvaːkahɛ/ (*vaak «book» + *hes «word»;
a word book).
Compound in Pekseil is
sinhese /ˈsɪ̃hɛsɛ/ made up from the roots *sit (collection, amount) and *hes (word). In the Literal Orthography it would be written
sitihese (notice double vowel harmony) but still pronounced the same. *sit is pronounced /sɪ̃/ because of allophony (see the allophony table above ;)).
Other examples could be:
tinnihe /ˈtɪnːɪhɛ/ «information, warning» (*tinn ‹to inform, warn› + *hes ‹word›)
paahe (in literal orthography:
palahe) /ˈpaːhɛ/ «root (in a compound word)» (*pal ‹piece, fragment›, *hes ‹word›)
tansonhese (in lit. orth.:
tamasonohese) /ˈtãsõhɛse/ «pronoun» (*tam ‹to hide, conceal›, *sonk ‹to give name›, *hes ‹word›)
henhe (in lit. orth.:
hetehe) /ˈhɛ̃he/ «grammar» (*het ‹way, manner›, *hes ‹word›)
pekseile /ˈpɛksɛɪ̯lɛ/ «the Pekseili language» (*pek ‹to give, provide›, *seil ‹language, dialect›)
Grammar (Henhe)
So, what is the grammar like?
- strongly head-initial, right-branching (what describes follows what's being described)
- SVO (reorderable into OSV and SOV) as a primary syntax; VSO as a secondary syntax
- optional copula
- no distinction for gender (except for pronouns) but visible relation to three animacy categories: human, animal and object
Introduction to grammar (Heesosto sohenhe)
There not many parts of speech in Pekseili, and turning a blind eye there probably only two: a noun and a verb. Here is a possible breakdown of all the parts of speech:
- Nouns
- -> Nouns
- -> Verb-like stative nouns (kesa-verbs)
- -> Verb-like active nouns (kaka-verbs)
- -> Pronouns
- -> Names
- Verbs
- -> Stative verbs
- -> -> State verbs
- -> -> Prefix verbs
- -> -> Context verbs
- -> Active (action) verbs
There is no perception of an adjective or adverb in Pekseili. The key to understand this grammar is that:
every sentence is based on a noun, and that noun is modified by verbs or other nouns, and those nouns are modified by verbs or other nouns, and those nouns are also modified by verbs or other nouns...
The simplest sentence (but still a full one) may look like this:
Leissi. /ˈlɛɪ̯sːɪ/ - A squirrel. / A squirrel exists. / There's a squirrel. / There WAS a squirrel.
Every sentence requires a noun. And that noun is enough to constitute a complete sentence. It doesn't tell us when the squirrel possibly was (or will be?
) but, given a context, we can deduce that there was something important about the squirrel because it's presence has been uttered.
Nouns (Sonhese)
There are two numbers: unmarked (doesn't tell the amount) and singulative (one piece of something). There aren't any grammatical cases for them. If anything, there are only two forms: declarative and emphatic. Historically, the emphasis stood in the opposition to the declaration, where emphasis was used to contradict or highlight something while anything else was kept in a declarative tone. Over the time, the emphatic form came to be used for different purposes: as a copulative form, for marking context verb arguments, and for marking subject in a VSO clause.
To turn a declarative noun (let's take
leissi) to an emphatic noun, we remove any final vowels and add the -iv ending. So
leissi becomes
leissiv /ˈlɛɪ̯sːɪʋ/. An ending -kiv is added instead of -iv if the noun is a compund with a type-S root as the last root (that's because the last vowel in such a root is crucial in preserving its meaning while type-N roots duplicate the second vowel so it has no significance to the meaning). Thus,
vaakahe «dictionary» would be
vaakahekiv in its emphatic form while
sinhese «compound» would turn into
sinhesiv.
Making the singulative form is a bit trickier because there are some exceptions and different patterns depending on the final vowel or the last consonant. Turning a singulative declarative noun into a singulative emphatic noun is as simple as replacing the last -a with -iv. Compound nouns that end with -kiv in their unmarked emphatic form are turned into the singulative declarative by adding -kana (and into singulative emphatic by adding -kaniv) instead. The nouns in the first table below are all primitive while the second table shows a mixture of both.
Nouns can either function as non-modifiers (as in the sentence:
Leissi.) or modifiers (modifying other nouns). Any noun can be a modifier but a good example would be
puhu «speed; fast».
Leissi puhu. /ˈlɛɪ̯sːɪ ˈpʉhʉ/ - Fast squirrel(s) is/are. / Fast squirrel(s) exist(s).
As said earlier, the emphatic form can be used as a copulative form.
Leissi puhiv. [ˈlɛɪ̯sːɪ ˈpʉhɪʋ/ - Squirrel(s) is/are fast. / Squirrel(s) was/were fast. / Squirrel(s) will be fast.
The copulative form used above still does not signify any tense; we're merely giving it a specific characteristic. And it's of course a complete sentence.
Pronouns (Tansonhese)
The gender-neutral pronouns are considered neutral in their politeness while gendered are used only with the people we are familiar with. The "we" clusivity refers to whether third parties are involved. The inclusive
huun includes: me, you and probably other people. The exclusive
kun includes: me and you only (it excludes other people).
The fact that Pekseili nouns have no gender was compensated through subjectival-objectival phrases that are used in distinguishing between multiple third-person referents (otherwise possible with gendered pronouns in other languages). It is a bit similiar to the obviative but, again, due to the fact that even pronouns used in a polite way show no gender at all, the subjectival-objectival system is much more flexible and can signify virtually any kind of relationship (not only direct objects but also in expressions like "in X", "about X" or even with regular verbs: "the one that was kicked"). We'll come back to this topic once we get a grasp of verbs. :P
Verbs (Kinhese)
Now, onto the verbs, were everything will finally make sense! Although every sentence revolves around a noun, it is the verbs that the inflection is centered around the most. All verbs in their dictionary form end in -a. Here are some general points about verbs:
Verbs divide into two main categories: stative verbs and active verbs. Each of them has its own conjugation pattern. Stative verbs describe states while active verbs describe actions. The latter show distinction for three aspects: initiative, progressive and completive. The former can only be progressive because they describe states, but they can be converted into regular action verbs in the initiative and completive aspects:
sava /ˈsaⱱa/ - to search, look for sth
savara /ˈsaⱱara/ - to find sth
savatta /ˈsaⱱatːa/ - to start searching, looking for sth
Sava is a stative verb while
savatta and
savara are active verbs conjugated like any other active verb.
Stative verbs further divide into state verbs, prefix verbs and context verbs. We'll cover all of them in separate sections but first let's take a look at the tenses and moods in context of verbs in general.
There are 7 tenses:
- Unmarked (heika sanke: common, general) - describes actions or states without signifying any tense. It is probably the most frequently used tense in Pekseili as it's a common practice to use the unmarked tense all the time while the person we're talking to knows whether we're talking about the past, the present or the future.
- Infinitive-present (heika motan: happening) - describes actions or states that happen/are happening simultaneously with a previously mentioned action. In other words, it refers to the present moment relative to the context of what's being said. For example, in the following sentence: "Jack was going to the shop. He was wearing a blue T-shirt.", was wearing refers to the present moment defined by the tense of "was going". It is particularly important in context of Pekseili prefixes (in, at, on, etc.) as they are all verbs that are used in the infinitive-present (e.g. the verb suina means to fall, be put in sth but as a prefix it is translated as in, inside, within). It is also the form used in dictionaries and sometimes it is called the noun-verb nominalization because a verb in the infinitive-present tense could be interpreted as a modifier-only noun.
- Present (heika sumen: blooming, blossoming) - describes actions or states that happen/are happening at the moment of speaking.
- Past proximal (heika kutan: withering, wilting, drooping) - describes actions or states that happened in the past but are emotionally close to the speaker. It doesn't matter if it was a few minutes or 10 years ago as long as it's filled with emotions.
- Past distal (heika fastan: forgotten) - describes actions or states that happened in the past and have no emotional significance to the speaker.
- Future proximal (heika nuilen: progressive, developing) - describes action or states that will happen in the future and are emotionally close to the speaker. Again, it doesn't matter if it will happen in a few minutes or 10 years as long as there are some emotions.
- Future distal (heika sainen: seeming, appearing) - describes action or states that will happen in the future but are of no emotional significance to the speaker.
As you can see, the difference between proximal and distal tenses is based on the amount of emotions that the speaker has regarding the action or state and not the actual timespan. Proximal tenses cannot show distinction for any of the aspects while the distal ones show distiction for the initiative, progressive and completive aspect. Nonetheless, proximal tenses are far more likely to be used in whole range of situations where it's not necessary to signify the aspect as the distal counterparts will sound cold and indifferent.
As for moods, there are six:
- Indicative (hetu kilan) - also called absolutive. The rest of the moods are called expressive.
- Imperative (hetu pakkan) - expresses commands and requests onto the subject by the speaker.
- Optative (hetu tenten) - expresses wishes and hopes (realistic!) onto the subject by the speaker.
- Favorable (hetu peten) - expresses approval or approbation of the speaker for a state or action carried out by the subject.
- Unfavorable (hetu hopen) - expresses disapproval or disapprobation of the speaker for a state or action carried out by the subject.
- Aggressive (hetu raihen) - a stronger version of the unfavorable mood. I would suggest avoiding it at all costs if you want to keep your tone polite. :P
So there is one absolutive mood (indicative) and five expressive moods (all the rest). Expressive moods are called expressive because all of them express thoughts or emotions of the speaker (not the subject!).
Active vs stative verbs (Heseka tiisunhese)
Active verb (
heseka: the word that takes the action)
Stative verb (
sunhese: blossoming word)
As said earlier, active verbs describe actions and stative verbs describe continuing states. A few other things about each of them is that active verbs tend to be more closely tied to their direct objects, and therefore are more direct (something that one should keep an eye on when talking about people to whom they should show more respect). State verbs require a prefix before their direct object and therefore they seem to be less direct. Due to this difference in politeness, there are some state verbs in Pekseili that could be translated into English using active verbs, or there are active verbs that require a prefix before their direct object even though they aren't state verbs. Practically, the thing with prefixes is not set in stone and both active and stative verbs can switch prefixes if there's a need for it.
Also, the conjugation patterns are different, as shown in the conjugation tables below.
Remember the
leissi «squirrel» from one of the first sentences? Good, now we're gonna make the squirrel eat a nut. :D
As said before, every sentence revolves around a noun, and all other nouns and verbs modify that noun (or generally any noun, but eventually they all modify the main noun). The verb
ruta means «to eat» and
puuilo means «a nut».
Leissi rutua puuilo. /ˈlɛɪ̯sːɪ ˈrʉtʉa̯ ˈpʉːɪ̯lˠo/ - A squirrel ate a nut.
Questions (Heetisi)
Forming questions in Pekseili is very simple. There are two types of questions: polar (yes-no) and non-polar (which, what, when).
Polar questions are formed by adding the -ttu suffix to a conjugated verb. For example:
Leissi rutuattu puuilo? «Did the squirrel eat a nut?».
Non-polar questions are formed by adding the -llu suffix to a noun. For example
Leissi rutua kuitullu? «What did the squirrel eat» (
kuitu means «thing»;
kuitullu means «what/which thing»).
Stative verbs: state verbs vs prefix verbs vs context verbs
Stative verbs divide into three subcategories. They differ primarily in the position they are found in sentences as well as regarding other grammatical constructions. All three of them are stative so they share the same conjugation pattern (see the second table above).
- State verbs (sunhese: blossoming word) is basically a name for stative verbs that are neither prefix verbs nor context verbs. It is also a name for the two other verbs when they can be used as state verbs too (e.g. most prefix verbs can also be used as state verbs).
- Prefix verbs (nonsunhese: blossoming word lying close) are verbs found almost always in their infinitive-present form. None of them take a prefix for their direct objects. They are clitics and can be translated into English as prepositions. A few of them have shortened forms and attach directly as prefixes. Others are written separately from their direct objects.
- Context verbs (taaimatuinhese: word of indirectness, relation, appreciation) are, technically speaking, verbs that describe an action or state directly carried out by a subject in context of some individual or group of individuals. They are also called personal verbs because the nature of a personal context is that it only involves humans (with a few exceptions). Some examples of such contexts could be permissions, obligations, expressed beliefs or speech indirection. They differ from the two above with the fact that they act like a VSO clause (in contrast with the default SVO), e.i. an emphatic argument follows a context verb, and that argument is the subject of the context verb. A sentence containing a subject, verb, object and a context verb is called a SVCO sentence (Subject-Verb-Context-Object).
There are also two small categories:
emphatic verbs and
post-verbs. As for now, they contain as few as several verbs but they are used very frequently.
An emphatic verb (
kinhesera) doesn't have a direct object but rather relates to the emphatic phrase neighboring with a noun it's describing. For example,
ha, while it has several uses, it is also an emphatic verb and means
to be. If you remember the first sentence with an emphatic noun we constructed:
Leissi puhiv «Squirrel is/was/will be fast». If we add
ha to describe
leissi like so:
Leissi puhiv ha - it now means
Squirrel is fast. And if conjugate
ha «to be» to
hua «was», the sentence
Leissi puhiv hua means
Squirrel was fast!
A post-verb (
kinheseta), similarily to an emphatic verb, doesn't have a direct object, but this time it relates to a verb phrase. It's called a
post-verb because it comes after that verb phrase. For example,
hatta as a post-verb means
to be going, planning to.
Nan munan hattakan means
I'm going to go.
Kaka-verbs and kesa-verbs (Kinhese kaka tuikinhese kesa)
And last but not least, the
kaka-verbs and
kesa-verbs. These are not verbs per se but nouns that go with the auxiliary verbs
kaka «to do, participate in» and
kesa «to display, show, be, do». The former is an active verb so a noun that goes with
kaka produces an active verb construction, and the latter is a state verb so a noun that goes with
kesa produces a state verb construction. Both
kaka and
kesa take their direct objects without any prefix.
pippaka (guide, guidance) -> kaka pippaka (to guide)
meahta (war) -> kaka meahta (to start a war)
tuurakka (film, video) -> kaka tuurakka (to record, film)
kirto (illness) -> kesa kirto (to be ill)
vorme (sound) -> kesa vorme (to be audible, hearable)
kesa pena (to be nice, pleasurable; e.g. a landscape or sound)
Due to the fact than
kesa is a frequently used verb, the /ɛ/ inside is often omitted in speech (/ˈkɛ̥sa, ksa/).
Kaka on the other hand is an irregular verb.
Irregular verbs
At the moment, there are two irregular verbs:
ha «to be» and
kaka «to do, participate in». The irregular forms were marked in red.
Cardinal numerals (Teinhese)
Pekseili has a quinary number system. Numeral words are ordered from the smallest to the biggest (that's because of the singulative form that makes the numeral
one always come first because it's an ending appended to the noun). The numeral
zero is faciliated by the verb
hina «to not exist» in its unmarked form (
hinen).
0. (hinen)
1. -na/-ma/-ta (singulative form of the counted noun)
2. hike
3. maile
4. veile
5.
meise
6. -na/-ma/-ta
meise
7. hike
meise
8. maile
meise
9. veile
meise
10.
pike
11. -na/-ma/-ta
pike
12. hike
pike
13. maile
pike
14. veile
pike
15.
hese
20.
kuuahe
The pattern for naming numerals higher than 20 is to multiplicate by 5.
100.
nitte
500.
leke
2,500.
soke
12,500.
fite
62,500.
ferte
312,500.
teave
1,562,500.
kaikse
Names for numerals higher than
kaikse are formed by compounding with the root *sat (to go forward) starting from *fit:
safiti, sanferte, sateave, sakaiksa. Even bigger numerals are formed with the root *niam (huge, enormous):
nifiti, niferte, niteave, nikaiksa.
Nikaiksa is 610,351,562,500. That's big enough I think. :P
Ordinal numerals (Hesetu)
Ordinal numerals are formed differently depending on whether we are enumerating people, animals or things (such a distinction does not exist with cardinal numerals).
To enumerate a noun, the scheme is as follows: <noun> + <keitu «something»/kaitu «some animal»/kuitu «somebody»> + <cardinal numeral - 1> (notice that the cardinal numeral used in ordering is actually decremented by one). Example for moso (dog):
the first dog - moso kulke ("kulke" means "first/foremost")
the second dog - moso kaitta (lit. "dog and one dog";
kaitta is the singulative form of
kaitu)
the third dog - moso kaitu hike (lit. "dog and two dogs")
the fourth dog - moso kaitu maile ("dog and three dogs")
and so on...
The understanding is that when a dog is, let's say, third, there are two dogs that are before it, so it is "a dog and two dogs".
Extra (Hampeke)
Nominalizing verbs
There are at least four ways to nominalize verbs in Pekseili. We'll take a look at each of them:
- Making a verb unmarked causes it to become a noun-verb (noun-verb nominalization). Used only as a modifier. Allows direct objects without any prefixes. Has a special meaning of "doing something at an unspecified time". The subject is specified through the modified noun. No way of specifying time.
- The ending -una turns a verb into a noun that can be used also in non-modifying positions. It requires the possessive so- prefix on direct objects. No way of specifying time or subject.
- Using the auxiliary noun mulo «state, affair, action» allows whole, unmodified verb phrases to be used as nouns. Allows specifying both time and subject (through the VSO syntax). It is pretty similiar to the Japanese こと (a verb with all its objects directly modifies the auxiliary noun).
- Using the auxiliary noun moto «time, occurence, condition, situation, point of view». It has quite a lot of possible translations. It behaves the same as mulo but its meaning is different depending on the context. Most of times, it is used in phrases like "I'm thinking whether you want to go" or "I'm doing it the same way as you do it".
And by the way, let me know if you want some Pekseili lessons or something. :P
And, is there something that you want me to explain further? :)