0 · Grammar words in plain English

0 · Grammar words in plain English · a plain-language guide to Assyrian (Sureth) grammar

This guide tries hard not to assume you know linguists' vocabulary. When a technical term is unavoidable, it's explained the first time it appears — and here they all are in one place, in plain terms, so you can flip back any time.

The basic sentence pieces

Subject — who's doing it. In "the boy opened the door," the boy.
Object — who or what it's done to. In "the boy opened the door," the door.
Predicate — the thing you say about the subject. In "she is tired," "he is upstairs," the underlined part is the predicate. (Matters in Assyrian because the little "is/are" word — the copula — comes right after it.)
Transitive / intransitive — a transitive verb takes an object ("she opened the door"); an intransitive one doesn't ("the door opened," "she slept").

The little grammar words

Copula — the word for "am / is / are" (and "was / were"). "She is happy." Chapter 3 is all about it.
Particle — a small unchanging helper word (like "will," "not," "let"). Assyrian sticks several onto verbs.
Habitual — the "usually / generally" version of a verb: "he opens the shop every day" (not right now, but as a rule).
Deictic ("DYKE-tik") — a pointing word, from the Greek for "to point." "Here it is!" / "there it is!" are deictic. Think this/that/here/there.
Polar question — a yes/no question ("are you coming?"), as opposed to one built on a question word ("where are you going?"). Assyrian asks them with no reordering at all — just intonation. See Yes/no questions (Chapter 9).
Experiencer — the person a feeling happens to. English usually makes them the subject ("I am cold"); Assyrian very often does not, which is what Saying how you feel (Chapter 9) is about.
Extraposition — naming what you are about to talk about, then saying something about it with a pronoun pointing back: "my brother, his car broke down." Ordinary in Assyrian, not casual. See Naming the topic first (Chapter 9).

The verb machinery

Root — the bare skeleton of consonants a verb is built from, usually three: p-t-kh for "open." Vowels and endings get poured in around them.
Stem — the root with its vowels filled in, ready for endings: patekh- (present stem), ptikh- (past stem).
Pattern (linguists say binyan) — one of a few fixed shapes a root can be cast in, each with a flavor of meaning (plain, intensive, causative). See The three patterns (Chapter 4).
Infinitive — the "to _" dictionary form of a verb: "to open," "to eat." The name you'd list it under.
Verbal noun — the noun made from a verb: "an opening," "the eating." In Assyrian these are real everyday words with a gender and a plural — khalta "eating, food," plakhta "work," dmakhta "sleep." See The three patterns (Chapter 4).
Progressive stem — the special shape a verb takes to build "is ___ing": beptakha "in the act of opening." In Pattern I it is a word of its own; everywhere else it is simply the infinitive.
Imperative — the command form: "Open!", "Eat!", "Come!"
Weak radical — a slot in a root filled by nothing, or by a y or a v — letters that dissolve into the vowels around them. It is why akhel "he eats" has the past khelle, with no a- in sight. See Weak verbs (Chapter 4).
Suppletion — when one verb borrows its other halves from a different root altogether, the way English does in "go / went." azel "he goes" has the past kheshle. See The irregular verbs (Chapter 4).
Deontic — the grammar word for "let / may / ought" — language about what should happen rather than what does. Assyrian builds it with khush- and shuk-. See The tense particles (Chapter 4).
Irrealis — a form that presents something as imagined, possible or wished-for rather than as fact: "he may have opened it." See The participles (Chapter 4).
Ergative — a way of marking who did what. In the Assyrian past tense the endings that mark the subject on a present-tense verb mark the object instead, and a second set carries the doer: ktilenle "he killed me." The label is Khan's; the flip is in Objects on the verb, in full (Chapter 4).
Light verb — a verb carrying little meaning of its own, used to turn a noun into an action: "take a bath," "have a look." Assyrian does this constantly — juvvab yavvel "to reply," literally "to give an answer." See Phrasal verbs (Chapter 4).
Realis / irrealis — whether a form presents something as fact (realis: "he opens") or as merely wished-for, intended or considered (irrealis: "let him open", "should I open?"). Assyrian's bare present does both, and Chapter 4B's opening section says which is which.
Performative — saying it is doing it: "I promise," "I apologise." Assyrian puts these in the progressive — raba makhleta betlaben "I beg your pardon." See beptakhele (Chapter 4B).
Evidential / indirective — a form that marks how you know. Assyrian's perfect can quietly say "I did not witness this myself" — so khilule can mean "he ate it, apparently." See ptikhele (Chapter 4B).
Passive — when the thing done to is made the subject: "the wall was painted." Assyrian has no passive ending; it uses the verb payesh plus the resultative participle. See The passive (Chapter 4B).

The participles and the tenses they build

Participle — a verb turned into a describing word. English has two: the -ing kind ("a running tap") and the -ed kind ("an opened door"). Assyrian has matching ones, and it uses them to build fancier tenses.
Resultative participle — the "-ed / done" describing word: ptikha "opened / in an opened state." It describes the result of the action ("the door is opened"), and Assyrian uses it (plus the copula) to say "has done."
Active participle — the "-er / one who does" word: patkhana "an opener, one who opens." Describes a doer.
Perfect — the "has / have done" tense: "I have opened it" (it's done, and the result stands). Built from resultative participle + copula.
Past perfect — the perfect pushed back: the result standing as of some moment in the past. Built from resultative participle + past copula: ptikheva "it had been opened (by then)."
Pluperfect — the "had done" tense: "I had opened it (before you arrived)." One step further back than a plain past, and built differently — past stem + -va + ending: ptekhvale. English translates it and the past perfect the same way; Assyrian doesn't. The difference is set out in The ten tenses, side by side (Chapter 4).
Progressive — the "-ing / in the middle of doing" tense: "I am opening," "she was cooking."
Past perfective — the plain, finished past: "I opened it." ("Perfective" just means viewed as a single completed whole — the everyday past.)

Linking sentences

Clause — one verb with its partners: "he eats", "I saw her", "when he came". A sentence can hold several.
Conjunction — a joining word between clauses: "and", "but", "because", "when". Chapter 9B is about them.
Enclitic — a word too small to stand alone, leaning on the end of the word before it, like the 's in "it's". Assyrian's -da and -ze "too" are enclitics. See -da and -ze (Chapter 9B).
Condition — the "if" half of an "if… then…" sentence; the other half is the result. Linguists call them the protasis and apodosis. See "If", in full (Chapter 9B).
Indirect question — a question folded into a statement: "tell me who you are", "I'll see what I can do". Assyrian keeps the question word and changes nothing else.
Reported speech — giving what someone said in your own words rather than quoting: "he said he was coming".
Concessive — an "although / even if" clause: something that should have stopped what happened, and didn't.

You never need to memorize these labels to speak. They're only signposts for the tables. If a term ever trips you, this page is where it's spelled out.