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2.4 : Derivational Morphology, inter alia

2.4.1 : Evidentiality

One of the more interesting, or at least more exotic aspects of Degaspregos is its system of evidentiality. Evidentiality is a system within a language which tells the hearer how the speaker came about the knowledge that he is trying to communicate.

This means, for instance, that if I were to say that I saw a boy being bitten by a dog, that I would use one ending to indicate that my means of coming to know the fact was visual, but another entirely different one if it were only aural (as if I were to hear growling and the cry of the boy).

In this way, one who is speaking can be very much more clear about how exactly it is that he came to know it, and thereby what level of trust we can place in him. This system is, though, unlike many languages which have it, not an obligatory aspect of the language; the ending is used (one which is tacked onto the end of the fully inflected verb) optionally. The following lists the varying levels of evidentiality in use by Degaspregos: 

  Level       Explanation                                 Suffix
  ======================================================================
  Cognitive   : user knows the action through direct        -abi
                experiential knowledge, either visual
                or aural (q.v.).
                  Kwonos wirapaisom elkatabi : 
                  [I *saw*] the dog hurting the boy. 

  Apparental  : user draws his statement from evidence,     -ani
                but did not see directly.
                 Kwonos wirapaisom elkatani :   
                 [Because of the shreaded clothes,
                  the bruising, and the cuts, I think] 
                  the dog hurt the boy. 

  Indirective : user has heard reports that the action      -adi
                occurred.
                  Kwonos wirapaisom elkatadi :
                  [My friend said] the dog hurt the boy.

  Probabil-   : user thinks the fact likely, but doesn't    -agi
  ative         know for sure.           
                  Kwonos wirapaisom elkatagi :      
                  [There's a good chance] the dog hurt 
                  the boy.
In addition to this, additional suffixes may make even more specific what kind of evidence. These are suffixes used only in conjunction with those above. 
 
  Visual      :  source (whether personal or not) is visual -wi
                   Kwonos wirapaisom elkatadiwi :
                   [My friend saw that] the dog hurt 
                   the boy.
                   (indirective + visual)  

  Aural       :  source heard it, but didn't see.           -ri
                   Kwonos wirapaisom elkatagiri :
                   [Because of the noises in the yard,
                   I think] the dog hurt the boy.
                   (probabilitive + aural)

2.4.2 : Clitics

Clitics in Degaspregos serve in a very minimal way. They are simply affixed to the end, much like the evidentiality markers above (which are actually also clitics).

-ke relation including the addressee, "meosike" [="we AND you"]
-le relation excluding the addressee, "meosile" [="we but NOT you"]
-(a)-toi definite article, English "the". Used relatively sparingly.
-sema indefinite article, English "a/an". Used relatively sparingly.
-kwe occupies similar semantic space as "and", but indicates a close, tightly bound relationship (such as "'n'" in English "Boys 'n' girls"); this also serves to disambiguate phrases like "old men and women" where either "old (men and women)" ("senasi wirosi gwirosikwe") or "(old men) and women" ("senasi wirosi e gwirosi") could be meant.
-ne question forming clitic; not only does this transform statements into questions, but the word to which it is attached becomes the point in question: "Amat'ne meom?" ("Do you love me?"), but "Amat teos'ne meom?" ("Do you love me?")
-pe Y is not inherently part of X (Y may or may not imply X); e.g. "ergos wirosope" [="a man's work"]; [2]
-re Y is inherently part of X (or will always imply it); e.g., "awosore pleukaptos" [="a bird's wing"]; [2]

[2] Note that cultural changes may make what was once (thought of as) inherent to that one that is now no longer so (e.g., Men were once assumed to be the providers of the family, so one writing at that time could have written "ergos wirosore" but the corresponding female version "gwirosore ergos" could at that time be only in reference to her separate subordinate station at that time.)

2.4.3 : Derivational Morpheme list

The following is a list of the derivational morphemes which Degaspregos use for word formation and construction.

One important thing to remember: when using verbal prefixes of motion or having pseudoprepositional functions, metaphorical usages must be indicated as such by

Morpheme Type of Affix Usage
-a- suffix used to separate two consonants otherwise disallowed by the phonology
-abil- suffix denotes one able to do something: "ergabilas" = "able to work" ("workable" would be more "deigabilesas", or "able to be done")
-ark- suffix denotes a type of rule or governmental apparatus
eks- prefix "out-", movement out or away; [1]
-id- suffix offspring (in the pattern of "Agamemnon Atreides", or "Agamemnon of the house of Atreus")
-ism- suffix like English -ism, indicates the practice or following of an idea or philosophy
-kw- suffix denotes transitivity, roughly equiv. to English -ize, -ify
-pais- suffix denotes a child(-like) quality or thing
pros- prefix "toward", "forward", "ad-"; [1]
pseudo- prefix object X is false or a misnomer
prefix indicates very old, or original quality or thing; same as German "ur-";
ni- prefix "under-", "nether-" [1]
-ter- suffix indicates human relationship
suffix indicates a group of things collected together;
-or- suffix agent of action, person who carries out the action of a verb;
-(a)-stel- suffix place where X is a characteristic feature; e.g., biblastelos: library;

[1] These forms are used to derive verbal pseudoprepositional functions, such as "ekseinein", to go out (to outgo); one must be very careful to know when using these in metaphorical usages (such as English "to outdo", "to recover"), and in such cases to use the metaphorical morpheme.

2.5 : A Word about Adjectives

It would perhaps be strange to talk about a language and not go into any detail as to how it goes about describing things. Degaspregos, in this respect, is pretty much a reflection of the reality of PIE in that adjectives receive separate treatment from other parts of speech. Just as nouns are marked for their "nouniness", so adjectives are too, but because there is an integral relationship between adjectives and nouns**, adjectives must agree with their antecedents in case and number (that is, if number is indicated; if it isn't, number should not be indicated). Adjectives take the ending -a-, and add after this the other possible endings just like nouns.

*(This is in fact somewhat of an overgeneralization. At some very very early stage of Proto-Indo-European, it is quite likely that there was no fundamental distinction between any part of speech. The grammar simply consisted of a set of roots plus derivational suffixes plus grammatical suffixes (called "endings" in the literature). So, in this respect, Degaspregos reflects a later stage of Indo-European languages, and even then, the distinction between nouns and adjectives was at best a fuzzy one, as one can see from any simple analysis of Latin adjective declensions.)

**(This is by no means the only way to do it, though. In many African languages, it can be said there is no such thing, per se, as an adjective. Many of these languages use verbs to do all the descriptive work. The only equivalent in these languages of a sentence like "The sky is red" is "The sky reddens". Neither in fact, do adjectives have to agree with their antecedents, but in Degaspregos they do, because of the compensatory gain in the fluidity of syntactic construction.)

2.5.1 : Comparative and Superlative of Adjectives

Adjectives in Degaspregos form comparatives, as with many IE languages, by adding suffixes. Degaspregos takes this one stage further, though, in that both negative and positive forms can be seen, which is to say, that both "less" or "more" and "least" and "most" are encoded, depending on which of the four suffixes one uses. The forms are as follows: 
       akas "sharp"
       akastas  (-st-)    =     "sharpest"     (positive superlative)
       akaras   (-r-)     =     "sharper"      (positive comparative)
       akas     (-)       =     "sharp"        (finite state)
       akapras  (-pr-)    =     "less sharp"   (negative comparative)
       akapstas (-pst-)   =     "least sharp"  (negative superlative)

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