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Sentences

The structure of morphemes, phrases and sentence constituents.

Morphosyntactics​

Hîsyêô is considered an isolating language because all words are a single morpheme. Some examples of isolating languages are Yoruba, Vietnamese, and Thai.

What Is A Morpheme?

A morpheme is a single unit of meaning. In English, the word "cat" is a single morpheme but the word "cats" is two morphemes: "cat" + "s" where the "s" is the morpheme that signifies that a noun is plural. The word "intwined" is three morphemes, "in" for the meaning of interconnectedness, "twine" for the verb that means to wrap or weave with a twine-like object, and "ed" for the past participle of the verb (the modifier form in past tense).

Hîsyêô is also considered an analytic language, which means that prepositions, particles and modifiers (grammatical relations) are separate words that provide the additional meaning to words (instead of inflection or affixes that are used in synthetic languages). English is mostly an analytic language although there are some instances of affixes (such as "-ed", "-ing", "-s"). There are no prefixes nor affixes in Hîsyêô, all meaning is provided via separate words in known as prepositions and particles.

Constituent Word Order​

The order with which you setup a clause or sentence is called constituent order. Sentences are made up of verb and noun phrases that exist within prepositional phrases. Let's ignore what prepositional phrases are available for the time being and just zoom out and think about subject phrases (with noun phrases within), action phrases (with verb phrases within), and thematic phrases (with noun phrases within). Many languages require that you order your sentence in a particular way such that each element along the way can be understood as a specific part of a sentence. Some of the most prevalent constituent orders that occur in natural languages include: subject-object-verb, subject-verb-object, verb-second, and topic-comment. In addition to these sentence structure types, there also exists some languages that have no strict word order. Instead they use morphological elements or particle words to identify the different parts of the sentence. In these languages, the order in which the parts of a sentence are provided may indicate the subject or theme of a sentence.

Hîsyêô has a mostly free constituent order because all sentence parts are marked by a preposition. The order of your sentence puts the first provided element as the topic and each successive constituent as comments about the topic in order of importance. That said, there are three irregularities that reduce the freedom slightly.

Irregularity #1: First Constituent Agent Elision​

If the first constituent of a sentence is the agent, the preposition (û) can be elided (skipped) and the noun phrase provided unmarked. However, if the agent's nucleus is a base verb, it must be preceded by the preposition so that it's clear that you are referring to the noun derivation of that verb.

Because of this elision rule, sentence structure does lean towards a preference of subject-verb-object.

Irregularity #2: Verb-Object Syntactic Alignment​

Direct objects are always introduced by a free-standing verb. There is no way to provide a direct object before providing the verb. Additionally, you can't follow a verb immediately with another verb phrase (just like you can't immediately follow any other preposition by another preposition).

This means that a sentence structure that mirrors the English passive voice is not strictly supported. However, there is a way to raise the object to the subject position by providing the object in the subject preposition and supplying the agent and verb in a subject complement subordinate clause.

zowo hônyo côt cênbô tô hokôlî nîo ogolol noyo. A bear is biting me.

noyo li fos zowo hônyo côt cênbô tô hokôlî nîo ogolol. I am being bitten by a bear.

Irregularity #3: Verb-Connector Syntactic Alignment​

If a verb is preceded by a connector, it is interpreted as the noun derivation. Only when followed by a preposition particle does the connector signify a new sentence.

This means that there's some difficulty when expressing compound sentences that hinge on a change in verb but there are ways around it.

nîmû fôlun xe dênêmêk kon xobo yodo kon bôkôfoc ko. "Do you want to practice hitting or blocking?"

nîo buswen mokon yodo îskô ko. "Do they need food or drink?" (Instead of "Do they need to eat or to drink?")

mênyûu onô bi ôhêl bi môcîbo kelo kelo kôto kôto hoî bitûn mûlû.  "The kids were playing and talking all night."

Null Constituents​

When an independent clause lacks a constituent like an agent/causer or patient/causee, such a clause is said to have a null subject. This means that the subject can be inferred through the surrounding sentence, prior sentences or any other contextual cues.

When an indendent clause lacks a verbal constituent but contains a subject constituent and other thematic constituents,the clause is said to have a null copula. This means that the relationship between the subject and the thematic constituents can be inferred through the surrounding sentence, prior sentences or any other contextual cues.

nîmû (li gô) hoî ulyô ko. Are you there?

(noyo) (li gô) hoî ôfo. I am here.

(nîmû) (li gô) hoî zik? Where are you?

(noyo) (li gô) bi cônkôk hoî ôfo. Right here.

(nîmû) (li gô) til zik dên noyo? Why are you against me?

(noyo) (li gô) nênko fos noyo kôî li gô (misli ulyô). Because I can be.

In the last sentence, the subordinate clause inside of the nênko preposition phrase could not have its verb elided because we needed to apply the epistemic verb particle.

Phrase Word Order​

Each constituent has a preposition and a phrase (either an adverb or a noun). Within any given phrase there is always one word that is the main contents of that phrase. This is known as the nucleus of the phrase. In Hîsyêô, the nucleus is the first word in a phrase. Regardless of whether the base type of the word is a verb, noun, or adjective, the word always takes on the form that the preposition particle demands. The nucleus of a verb phrase is the direct object (a noun), the nucleus of a subject or semantic phrase is a noun. The nucleus of a manner/material phrase is an adverb. Hîsyêô technically has a nucleus in the middle of a phrase because determiners go to the left of the nucleus and adjectives to the right.

Sentence Types​

Simple​

A simple sentence consists of a single independent clause with no dependent clauses.

nîo mokon sî yoûtî kûôxi. He ate some fruit.

û oûtô gîsgûl onô li kobût. The bicycle is broken.

hoî lono mîhûon û noyo cînlî sî dênêmêk kîôsô noyo. On Wednesday, I had my athletic exam.

Compound​

A compound sentence consists of multiple independent clauses with no dependent clauses. These clauses are joined together using conjunctions.

nîo îskô sî yoûtî xîmu lêkin bi môcîbo fôlun xe îskô eswen. He drank some water but was still thirsty.

nîo li sî gîk hoî niwos nîo ûn li sî conzodo. She got home and went to sleep.

li bôkbûn bînê nîo wuîtsî cizî hoî sokofû sêl onô. It was storming so he stayed in the basement.

nûs kôî li nô mût gubuyo kon mokon yodo û nûs kôî côûfon hoî niwos nûs. We can go to the restuarant or make dinner at home.

Complex​

A complex sentence consists of one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.

nîo nocîdo sî kelo nênko fos nîo li sî bîcûon. He lost the game because he was tired.

nênko fos nîo li sî bîcûon, û nîo nocîdo sî kelo. Because she was tired, she lost the game.

kûu xokûlû noyo hôn fos nîmû li nô lôtfen. Please call me, if you go.

hôn fos nîmû li nô, kûu xokûlû noyo lôtfen. If you go, please call me.

Compound-Complex​

A compound–complex sentence (or complex–compound sentence) consists of multiple independent clauses, at least one of which has at least one dependent clause.

nîo li sî nô til xe ogolol ônî dûngo nênko fos ondo sî côûfon bitûn til kon mokon, bînê zowo mokon sî côûfon nîo. He went to grab a fork because dinner was ready to eat and then the dog ate his meal.

noyo sûko yôk ûnfûnô lêkin û noyo ke mokon ni hôn fos noyo bît buswen (xe tûu ni). I don't like vegetables but I'll eat them if I have to.

umo wohî onô xe sûn dûî zomo îlê xokôn cok, xokûlû sî noyo hoî hêlxun eswen bînê noyo xokûlû nîo bi dukwêlit. The woman from two blocks down called me earlier so I called her back.