7. Pırı jí ꝡeı! / I'm so annoyed!
In this lesson, we’ll learn about the “topic” paricle bï and learn how to say some, every, and no.
Conversation
Ráqsu complains about a bad day to Síoka.
Ráqsu: Oro, níchaq bï, huı tú raı ꝡeı!
Síoka: Obe… Ma faq sá huı móq?
Ráqsu: Bo tú hora sá huı! Ké hoeı bï, bo jí sía chaı.
Síoka: Akoı.
Ráqsu: Ké dıochu bï, zueq tú koqpıuta da.
Síoka: Pırıge° hú tue ꝡeı. °annoying
Ráqsu: Ké seum bï, zaq sá nharu°. °storm
Síoka: Ma bo níchaq máo sá gı?
Ráqsu: Nho… ké nuaq bï, tıjuı jí súq.
Vocabulary
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| … ꝡeı | “what a …! how …!” |
| níchaq | today (pronoun) |
| chaq | ▯ is a day |
| hora | ▯ is an hour |
| hoeı | ▯ is a morning |
| faq | ▯ happens |
| tue | ▯ is a situation |
| dıochu | ▯ is a midday |
| seum | ▯ is an evening |
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| bo | ▯ has ▯ |
| raı | ▯ is anything |
| huı | ▯ is bad |
| zueq | ▯ is broken |
| koqpıuta | ▯ is a computer |
| zaq | ▯ appears / shows up |
| oro | ugh, tsk |
| obe | oh, wow |
| akoı | poor thing! |
Topic and comment: bï
You can start a sentence with a noun and bï to specify a “topic” that the rest of the sentence is a “comment” on. It’s like the subject and body of an email.
Níchaq bï, pırı Ráqsu.
As for today: Ráqsu is annoyed.Ké zu bï, de ké toa.
As for the language: the words are beautiful.
This word is in the only tone we haven’t seen yet: the glottal tone, marked by two dots on the first vowel of a word. It’s only used for particles: everyday verbs are never in the glottal tone. It’s pronounced as a low tone with a little “glottal stop” in the middle, like in “uh-oh” or “nuh-uh”.
Níchaq bï, pırı Ráqsu.
More articles: sá tú sía hú
The articles sá, tú, sía mean “some, each, none,” respectively.
Zueq sá koqpıuta.
Some computers are broken. / A computer is broken.Zueq tú koqpıuta.
Each computer is broken.Bo sía poq tú raı.
Nobody has everything.
The determiner hú means “the … just mentioned”.
Cho jí hú kıq.
I like that movie. (that we are talking about)
Universe of discourse
When we say tú poq, we don’t mean “each person in the whole universe, in all of history and the entire future.” Quantification is limited to the universe of discourse: some implicit set of “all the things we are talking about.”
Quantification
The articles sá tú sía are quantifying articles. A phrase like tú koqpıuta implies a quantifying phrase like for each computer x… around its clause. The phrase itself then refers to this variable x.
= [For each koqpıuta x] Zueq tú koqpıuta.
= [For each koqpıuta x] Zueq x
We’ll use the logical symbols ∃ “there exists”, ∀ “for all”, and ¬ “not” in logical formulas. Specifically, we’ll use the notation below to indicate a quantification over a limited domain given by some other formula:
[∀x: koqpıuta(x)]
Read: “for each computer x…”
Similarly, sá means “for some x …” and sía means “for no x …”.
Faq sá huı.
[∃x: huı(x)] Faq x.
Something bad happened.
Geq jí sía poq.
[¬∃x: poq(x)] Geq jí x.
I met nobody.
If there are multiple quantifying articles in a sentence, the earliest one has its corresponding quantifier on the outside.
Sıom tú poq sá zu.
[∀p: poq(p)] [∃z: zu(z)] Sıom p z.
Each person studies some language.
Vague verbs
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| raı | ▯ is anything |
| nu | ▯ is such, is like that |
| hao | ▯ is you-know-what |
The word raı is a verb that is always true of anything. So tú raı is “everything”, ní raı is “this”, and so on.
Faq ké raı nha.
It‘ll happen.Bo sía poq tú raı.
Nobody has everything.
If you use an article without a following verb, it means the same thing as using raı.
Bo sía poq tú.
Nobody has everything.
The word nu refers to some property that’s under discussion. It’s like a demonstrative verb.
Nu máo jí.
I’m like that too.Zao jí sía nu.
I know no such things.
Hao is a verb that means: “you know what I mean.” You can use it when a more specific verb isn’t really necessary, because you trust the listener to fill the gap.
In English, it corresponds to vague descriptions or even missing words:
Zueq ké hao da.
The thingy is broken.Hao úmo ba.
Let’s.