Since I don't think there's a "standard" modern dialect (and I refuse to recognize any and all claims of such
), I'll speak
only for my own using a very rough transliteration method:
mrzurnaci said:
What is the standard sentence structure/word order in our modern Syriac?
is it like Subject-Verb-Object like English example - Sam reads a book
Verb-Subject-Object like Classical Arabic and Classical Hebrew example - ???? ?????? ?????? or ?????????? ?????? ???-??????
Verb-Object-Subject
or Subject-Object-Verb like Armenian and Latin?
Word order tends to be pretty loose. For example, if I wanted to say "Joseph ate an apple," I could do it in a number of ways depending on what aspect of the sentence I wanted to emphasize:
- Yaawsip khilleh khaabooshaa (SVO)
- khaabooshaa khilleh Yaawsip (OVS)
- khilleh Yaawsip khaabooshaa (VSO)
The first one tends to be the "default," so I guess you could say it's mainly SVO. This is complicated, though, when you look at sentences like
aanaa aakhlinneh ("I eat it" or "I am eating it" or "I will eat it"): if you take out the optional pronoun "
aanaa" and you're left with
akhl-in-(l)eh ("eat-I-it"), you can see the ancient verb-subject-object word order preserved.
mrzurnaci said:
What is the Inflection (Past, Present, and Future tenses of) words that are not irregular?
like say with the root verb "to write" ?-?-?
such as
1st c. sg. (my)
2nd m. sg. (your)
2nd f. sg. (your)
3rd m. sg. (his)
3rd f. sg. (her)
1st c. pl. (our)
2nd m. pl. (your)
2nd f. pl. (your)
3rd m. pl. (their)
3rd f. pl. (their)
in both Singular and Plural forms
I can identify four main tenses, each of which can be modified with "
waa" to indicate an action further in the past (the names of the tenses are my own and aren't likely to be found in grammars):
(1) Present participle tense, variously translated as "I write," "I do write," "I am writing," or "I will write"; with
waa: "I wrote," "I did write," "I used to write," or "I was writing."
1st sg m:
kathwin[waa]
1st sg f:
kathwen[waa]
2nd sg m:
kathwit[waa]
2nd sg f:
kathwet[waa]
3rd sg m:
kaathiw[waa]
3rd sg f:
kathwaa[waa]
1st pl:
kathwikh[waa]
2nd pl:
kathweetoo[waa]
3rd pl:
kathwee[waa]
(2) Absolute passive participle tense, translated as "I wrote" or "I have written;" with
waa: "I had written."
1st sg m/f:
kthiw[waa]lee
2nd sg m:
kthiw[waa]lukh
2nd sg f:
kthiw[waa]lekh (note: it's clearly
-lekh in my dialect and not
-laakh like some other dialects)
3rd sg m:
kthiw[waa]leh
3rd sg f:
kthiw[waa]laah
1st pl:
kthiw[waa]lan
2nd pl:
kthiw[waa]lekhoo
3rd pl:
kthiw[waa]leheh
Note: the
kthiw- part changes depending on the gender/number of the "object" (really, the subject). This is because it doesn't literally mean "I wrote," but "he/she/they were written by me." The passive participle has to match up with the noun it's describing:
- masculine: kthiw- (e.g., kthaawaa kthiwlee = "book (is) written by me" = "I wrote the book")
- feminine: ktheewaa- (e.g., iggaartaa ktheewaalee = "letter (is) written by me" = "I wrote the letter")
- plural: ktheewee- (e.g., kthaawe ktheeweelee = "books (are) written by me" = "I wrote the books")
If the verb has no object (including intransitive verbs, which
can't take objects), then the masculine form is used as a dummy: e.g.,
dmikhlee ("I slept" or, very literally, "he is slept by me").
(3) Gerund tense, translated as "I am writing" or "I do write;" with
waa: "I was writing" or "I did write."
1st sg m:
kthaawin[waa] or
hon [waa] kthaawaa
1st sg f:
kthaawen[waa] or
hon [waa] kthaawaa
2nd sg m:
kthaawit[waa] or
hot [waa] kthaawaa
2nd sg f:
kthaawet[waa] or
hot [waa] kthaawaa
3rd sg m:
kthaawaa[waa] or
ho leh kthaawaa (with
waa:
ho waa kthaawaa)
3rd sg f:
kthaawaa[waa] or
ho laah kthaawaa (with
waa:
ho waa kthaawaa)
1st pl:
kthaawikh[waa] or
hokh [waa] kthaawaa
2nd pl:
kthaaweetoo[waa] or
hotoo [waa] kthaawaa
3rd pl: [supplanted by present participle tense] or
ho lah kthaawaa (note the weird short "a" in "
ho lah," contrast with the 3rd sg f) (with
waa:
ho waa kthaawaa)
(4) Emphatic passive participle tense, translated as "I wrote" or "I have written;" with
waa: "I had written."
1st sg m:
ktheewin[waa] or
hon [waa] ktheewaa
1st sg f:
kthiwten[waa] or
hon [waa] kthiwtaa
2nd sg m:
ktheewit[waa] or
hot [waa] ktheewaa
2nd sg f:
kthiwtet[waa] or
hot [waa] kthiwtaa
3rd sg m:
ktheewaa[waa] or
ho leh ktheewaa (with
waa:
ho waa ktheewaa)
3rd sg f:
kthiwtaa[waa] or
ho laah kthiwtaa (with
waa:
ho waa kthiwtaa)
1st pl:
ktheewikh[waa] or
hokh [waa] ktheewe
2nd pl:
ktheweetoo[waa] or
hotoo [waa] ktheewe
3rd pl: [supplanted by present participle tense] or
ho lah ktheewe (with
waa:
ho waa ktheewe)
The first forms of this tense (without the
hon/hot/ho leh) supplants the second tense I mentioned (absolute passive participle tense) when the object is defininte. Alternatively, the first tense (present participle tense) can be used with a preceeding "
qaam," e.g.:
- Maryam kthiwlaah kthaawaa ("Mariam wrote a book," absolute passive participle tense)
- *Maryam kthiwlaah leh kthaawaa ("Mariam wrote the book," absolute passive participle tense, ungrammatical)
- Maryam kthiwtaa leh kthaawaa ("Mariam wrote the book," emphatic passive participle tense)
- Maryam qaam kathwaaleh kthaawaa ("Mariam wrote the book," present participle tense)
- Maryam zwinnaah bethaa ("Mariam bought a house," absolute passive participle tense)
- *Maryam zwinnaah leh bethaa ("Mariam bought the house," absolute passive participle tense, ungrammatical)
- Maryam zwintaa leh bethaa ("Mariam bought the house," emphatic passive participle tense)
- Maryam qaam zawnaaleh bethaa ("Mariam bought the house," present participle tense)
This is the most messed up of all the tenses because it originally had a passive meaning; i.e.,
ktheewin[waa] now means "I wrote" but was originally "I am written." Confusingly, it
still has the passive meaning in some contexts: e.g.,
kpeenin means "I am famished" (i.e., "I'm hungry") and not "I famished" (i.e., "I made somebody hungry"). To get the latter sense, you would have to use a different stem (the "C" stem,
makpone, rather than the "G" stem,
kpaanaa), but that's a whole other beast altogether.
mrzurnaci said:
What are all the pronouns of Modern Syriac?
All the pronouns? The ones I can think of are:
(1)
Personal pronouns:
subjective:
1st sg m/f:
aanaa
2nd sg m:
aat (also
aatee, but not used by older generations as it's the feminine version)
2nd sg f:
aatee
3rd sg m:
aaw
3rd sg f:
aay
1st pl:
akhnan or (less commonly)
akhnee
2nd pl:
akhtoo
3rd pl:
aanee or (expressing a greater distance from the speaker)
aaneheh
objective:
1st sg m/f:
lee
2nd sg m:
lukh
2nd sg f:
lekh (again, clearly not "
laakh" as in other dialects)
3rd sg m:
leh
3rd sg f:
laah
1st pl:
lan
2nd pl:
lekhoo
3rd pl:
leheh
(2)
Demonstrative pronouns:
"this":
owwaa (m),
ayyaa (f)
"that":
aaw (m),
aay (f)
"that one over there":
owwaahaa (m),
ayyaahaa (f)
"these":
enneh
"those":
aanee
"those ones over there":
aaneheh
(3)
Possessive pronouns:
deedh- plus the usual suffixes as outlined above in the objective personal pronouns. Due to influence from other dialects, the stem
deedh- usually turns into
deey- or
dee'-. Note that these possessive pronouns can also be used as possessive adjectives:
- aaw bethee ("that is my house," possessive suffix)
- aaw bethaa deedhee ("that is my house," possessive adjective)
- aaw deedhee ("that is mine," possessive pronoun)
(4)
Reflexive pronouns:
jaan- plus the usual suffixes.
(5)
Intensive pronouns:
b-jaan- plus the usual suffixes.
(6)
Relative pronoun:
d- followed by the relative clause. Translated as "who," "which," or "that."
(7)
Interrogative pronouns:
"who?":
anee (in the set phrase "who is it?" used, say, when answering the door, the older form is often used:
man eeleh. Eventually,
man eeleh ->
manee leh ->
anee leh, which is how
man turned into
anee.)
"which?":
anee
"what?":
mo or
modee
"when?:
eemaa
"where?":
ekaa
"whence?":
mekaa
"whither?":
lekaa
(8)
Other random pronouns:
"no one, neither":
aapkhaa
"some, few":
khakme or (through metathesis)
khamke
"all":
kul- plus a suffix
"so-and-so":
flaan
"[number] of them": [number] plus
-ethne (e.g.,
trethne = "two of them,"
Tlaathne = "three of them,"
arbethne = "four of them," and so on)
mrzurnaci said:
But I only have one question, why is there no plural form for the 2nd and 3rd person female?
The modern dialect 2nd and 3rd person feminine forms merged with the masculine forms so that both genders have a common form for the plural. This isn't too different from other languages: English distinguishes three different genders for the third person singular ("he/she/it") but only one in the plural ("they") and French has different genders for singular definite articles ("
le/la") but the same form in the plural ("
les").
