9.3 The one little linker: *-et / kat / t-*
9 · Syntax — putting words in order · a plain-language guide to Assyrian (Sureth) grammar
This is the workhorse of Assyrian sentence-building, and the single most useful thing in this chapter. One small particle lets you glue a whole clause onto a noun or onto another clause. In English we split this job across several words — who, which, that, so that, because — but Assyrian mostly uses one linker, which shows up in a few different coats depending on what's next to it:
- as -et (or just -t) tucked onto the end of a noun,
- as the free-standing word kat,
- as t- when it fuses with a following "is/are" (the copula from Chapter 3).
It's the very same little particle you already met as the "of" linker in annexation (betat malka "the house of the king," Joining two nouns (Chapter 5)). Seeing it link two clauses is the same instinct, extended. Don't memorize the coats as separate rules — just know that this one linker is doing all of it.
9.3.1 "the man who / the thing which / …" — relative clauses
A relative clause is a mini-clause that describes a noun ("the man who sells fish," "the thing that I want"). The noun it describes is the antecedent. In Assyrian the relative clause follows the noun, and the linker sits between them.
Coat 1 — glued to the noun as -et:
- an-nashet baye ati — "those people who want to come"
- a-mendit bakhta odale — "the thing that a woman does"
- aha mendit ana bayen tanenne — "the thing that I want to say" (= "what I want to say")
Coat 2 — the free word kat:
- khati ka-da yala byayela, kat-nuyne zabunele — "my sister loves the lad who sells fish"
- kul-mendit bayet, b-yavvennukh — "I'll give you everything that you want"
(These two are interchangeable; *kat is common in the Urmi heartland, the glued -et everywhere. Georgia-Assyrian uses a third form, t-i — recognize-only.)*
Coat 3 — fused with "is/are" as t-: when the describing clause is "…who is X," the linker and the copula melt together into t-:
- kachala t-ile malka — "the bald man who is the king"
- an-sarbaze t-iva mennu — "the soldiers who were with him"
Relative clauses in use. Watch the same linker across different heads and subjects:
- aha ktavat zvinni — "the book that I bought"
- nasha kat tile — "the man who came"
- bakhta kat pyayela lakhma — "the woman who was baking bread"
- an-mendyanet kamta mireva katu — "the things that he had told him earlier"
9.3.2 "I know that / I said that" — complement clauses
The same kat introduces a whole clause as the complement (the "what") of verbs like know, say, want, hear, believe. English uses "that"; Assyrian uses kat — or often nothing at all.
- beddayele kat Akhikar metle — "he knows that Axiqar died"
- malka yuvvel dastur kat kulle panennun — "the king gave an order that I eradicate everyone"
- bakret shkella menni kat tamrenna — "she made me promise that I'd bury her"
And very commonly, no linker at all — you just run the two clauses together, exactly like casual English "I know he's coming":
- yattenva malka etle shula menni — "I knew (that) the king had work for me"
- merri bakhtu raba honanteva — "I said (that) his wife was very clever"
For everyday speech, feel free to drop the kat after "say / know / think." It's rarely wrong to leave it out.
9.3.3 "so that / because / so…that / when" — kat doing adverb work
Because kat started life as the preposition ka- ("to, for") plus the linker, it naturally stretches to cover purpose, cause, result, and time. Same word, read from context:
Purpose — "so that / in order to":
- kha-bezza beshvakena, kat-napasu la-katta — "they leave a hole so that his breathing isn't cut off"
- mayuna kat katlile — "they bring him (in order) to kill him"
Cause — "because / that" (giving a reason, often after "thank you," "sorry," "glad"):
- basima raba kat aten-da shemyalukh — "thank you that / for you listened too"
- raba pshamevakh kat m-ida yuvvovakh — "we're very sorry that we've lost it"
Result — "so … that": pair it with ukhcha "so much / so" earlier in the sentence:
- ukhcha narahat vayele kat hech kha-khabra letle — "he gets so embarrassed that he has nothing to say"
Time — "when":
- kat bitayele ka-daha akhel, aha bemkhayele b-sepa — "when he comes to eat her, he strikes with the sword"
Which coat, when? You don't have to keep these apart consciously — it's genuinely one word. If you can hear "for/to" behind it, it's the free kat; if it's welding a describing clause straight onto a noun, you'll often hear the glued -et; if the next word is "is/are," it fuses to t-. When in doubt, say kat — it is understood in every one of these jobs across mainstream Assyrian. The other joining words ("when", "before", "until", "as if", "however much") and the small words that carry a story along are in Chapter 9B, "Linking sentences".
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