Gevey objects

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At its very heart, Gevey is a simple language. The world is made up of objects. These objects can do things to other objects, or they can have things done to them, or they can just be what they are, with no action affecting them at all. Some objects can link together with other objects to help make more complex, more clearly defined objects. Some objects will even posess other objects.

These objects can be real, or they can be imaginary. They can be people, or animals, or plants, or things, or ideas, or emotions. An object can represent a whole collection of similar objects, or it can represent a single thing.

Each object can be represented by a word. These words are called names, or labels, or nouns.

As can be seen, objects get up to a lot of different things. It is important in Gevey that the speaker and the listener/reader understand exactly what an object is doing to itself and to other objects. And it is essential that people know what that object is.

To meet this need, every noun in Gevey is made up of two parts: the noun stem and the noun complex. The noun stem is unique to each object - it is the part of the word which labels things. The noun complex, on the other hand, changes to show the relationship between that object and all the other objects with which it is interacting.

It is a peculiarity of Gevey that the noun stem and the noun complex do not always have to be joined together. When they are joined together, the complex is placed at the end of the stem. When the stem and its complex are seperated, the complex goes in front of the stem - sometimes with unrelated words placed between the two parts of the noun.

Noun stem alteration

Attaching and removing the noun complex to the end of the noun stem does have an effect on the stem - vowels are inserted and removed between consonants to ensure the word remains sayable. The rules for effecting these changes are quite simple, and are summarised on the linked Gevey noun stem alteration page.

Building noun complexes

Noun complexes are made up of several particles: status, case, gender and number. These particles are all joined together to make the complex, which in turn may or may not be joined to the noun stem. The order of the particles in the complex depends on whether the complex is detached - dissociated - from the noun stem, or attached (associated):

Dissociated noun complex particle order:
case particle + gender particle + status particle + number particle

Associated noun complex particle order:
gender particle + status particle + case particle + number particle

Objects and their gender

In their basic state, all objects are asexual - they have no gender. For example, 'fnuwje' can be used to describe both cows and bulls, 'tusre' is used for both male and female dogs. However, there are times when it is desirable for an object to express its gender.

Gender particles in the noun complex:

  • no gender (gender not important): no particle present
  • masculine gender: -est-
  • feminine gender: -af-

Object number

As was said earlier, an object can represent a single thing, or a collection of things. When the collection of things are all the same type of object, then the object is said to posess number. An object can be either singular (just one object of that type), paucal (between two and four objects of that type), or plural (more than four objects of that type).

Number particles in the noun complex:

  • singular: no particle present
  • paucal (2-4 items in the group): -im-
  • plural (for 5 or more items): -ec-

Object status

All objects in Gevey demonstrate a status. Status describes the current (in fact contemporary) state of being for the object. Care needs to be taken when applying status to an object, as status can radically change the way in which the object is interpreted by the reader or listener.

Object status particles in the noun complex:

  • inanimate status: -u-
  • simple status: -e-
  • external status: -o-
  • internal status: -a-

Learning how and when to apply status is critical for the successful study of Gevey, and is best done through observation and reading. A very simplistic summary can be found on the status of Gevey objects webpage.

Object causation

Closely allied to, but not determined by, object status is the concept of object causation. Gevey divides the world of objects into two groups:

It is important to understand that the distinction is whether an object could instigate an action, not whether it is instigating an action in any given situation. In fact the division between causative and applicative objects is very simple

Determining an object's causativity

An object will generally be applicative unless it is:

  • an animate person or animal (but not a plant)
  • a controlling thought or emotion capable of driving the action of a person or animal
  • a deity or other anthropormorphic manifestation

in which case, the object will be causative.

Object causation has no practical effect on the object's noun stem or noun complex. Instead, when an object is acting as the subject of a clause, its causative classification will have a direct effect on the clause's principal verb, determining the voice used by the verb.

More information on the effect of subject causation on Gevey verb voice can be found on the voice of Gevey verbs webpage. The number and status of the subject will also have a direct effect on the subject's principal verb - these effects are detailed in the Gevey verbs webpage.

Object case

The status, gender and number particles all help to describe the object in its (or their) contemporary state. Case particles are different from the other particles in that they are used to describe how the object interacts with other words in a clause or sentence. Depending on the work an object is doing within a clause or sentence, and the interaction between that object and other objects and actions, the appropriate case particle will be added to the object's noun complex.

A fuller discussion of the various roles that an object can undertake in a clause can be found in the object role in a Gevey clause webpage.

Object case particles in the noun complex:

The full list of noun complex case particles is as follows. Note that the accusative case dissociates the noun complex from the noun stem, with the complex being placed in front of the noun stem as a separate word:

subject nominative case no particle present
direct object accusative case y-
indirect object systemic dative case -s-
motive dative case -ks-
temporal dative case -ljs-
spatial dative case -bz-
posessive object genetive case -n-
modifying object noun compounding no particle present

The grammatical case of an object (either a noun or a pronoun) is decided by the object's role within the clause or sentence - ie what is it doing? An object will take one of five roles within a clause or sentence:

Subjects, direct objects and indirect objects are known as primary objects because they are affected by the action of the principal verb in the clause or sentence. The other objects are known as secondary objects because the action of a principle verb will have no effect on them.

A set of regular noun formation tables is available for quick reference

Notes on primary objects

Details on when an object takes on the role of subject, direct object or indirect object can be found on the object roles within a Gevey clause webpage.

All indirect objects are dative objects. However, dative objects come in a number of different flavours. The purpose of an indirect object is to help explain how, where, when why, or with what or whom, the interaction between the subject and the direct object takes place. To decide which flavour of particle should be included in the object's noun complex, the following simple questions needs to be answered:

All indirect objects will always have an associated preposition, which will generally be joined to the front of the indirect object by an apostrophe. Also, if the principal verb is a spatial or motive verb (ie the action is describing relative space between subject and direct object, or the relative movement between subject and direct object respectively), then the direct object will also have an associated preposition, which in the case of nouns is joined directly to the direct object's dissociated noun complex. Further information on the interaction between nouns and prepositions can be found on the prepositions webpage.

It may seem like there is no set word order in Gevey - that a subject, direct object, indirect object or even the action can be placed anywhere in the clause: at the start of a sentence, in the middle, or at the end. Unlike in Ramajal, word order in Gevey is not used to determine whether an object is the subject, direct object or indirect object. More information on the purpose of word order in Gevey is given on the focus webpage.

Notes on secondary class objects

A genetive object will usually (but not always) go after the object it posesses. The exception is when a genetive object posesses a direct object noun (but not a direct object pronoun); in this case, the genetive object is almost always placed between the noun complex and the noun stem.

Note that a genetive object must posess another object. When the object being posessed is not included in the sentence, then it must always be replaced by the appropriate personal pronoun (usually ke or ku in the correct case). In these situations, the genetive object and personal pronoun will be concatenated into a single word. When this leads to the formation of a difficult to pronounce consonantal cluster at the point of the join, the letter e is placed in between the conjoined words (but this action is not a grammatical rule, and the insertion of the additional letter will vary from word to word, and from speaker to speaker).

Modifying objects are used for noun compounding, which is described in more detail in the word compounding webpage.

Notes on mass objects

Mass objects differ from other objects in that their plurals measure mass or volume rather than quantity. They do this by using quantitative coordinating conjunctions, as follows:

The quantitative words will normally go immediately before the associated form noun, and between the noun complex and stem of dissociated nouns if that space is not already occupied - otherwise it goes in front of the noun complex. Prepositions (if present) will continue to attach to the noun, not the quantitative:

Mass objects can still take the normal plural suffixes to indicate more than one type of mass object is present.

This page was last updated on Tecufintuu-33, 530: Yaezluu-31 Gevile