Skipped from Khan (Chapters 9–14)
9 · Syntax — putting words in order · a plain-language guide to Assyrian (Sureth) grammar
Khan's syntax runs to ~530 pages; the overwhelming majority is either fine-grained reference or already covered elsewhere in this guide. Skipped, with pointers:
- Khan's Ch. 9 (Syntax of Nominals): the forms are spread through this guide. Chapter 2 has the pronouns, the reflexive gan- and uydale "each other"; Chapter 5 the annexation "of"; Chapter 6 adjectives and comparison; Chapter 8 the quantifiers. Khan's §9.1, when kha "a" is said and when it is dropped, is no longer skipped: it is "A" or nothing in Chapter 9B. The detailed syntax of demonstratives, reflexives and quantifiers in discourse is still outstanding.
- Khan's Ch. 10 (Syntax of Verbs) — no longer skipped. It is distilled as Chapter 4B, "Verbs in use", beside the verbs chapter where it belongs. What stays skipped there is listed at the foot of that chapter: the discourse account of the copulas, the thirty-odd compound forms with ave, and the fine-grained object-marking rules.
- Khan's Ch. 11 (Syntax & Semantics of Prepositions) — no longer skipped: the range of b-, gu, al, ka, men and the verbs that each one comes attached to are now "The five big prepositions, up close" in Chapter 8, beside the forms table.
- Khan's Ch. 12 (The Clause) — largely no longer skipped. Khan's §12.6 is now Saying how you feel, his §12.11–12.13 are folded into Asking questions (polar questions, tags, and the bias particles khu and magar), his §12.14 is Naming the topic first and his §12.4 is Leaving the "is" out. What stays skipped is the discourse analysis: the information-structure account of where a subject goes and why (§12.5.2), the classification of copula clauses by predicate type (§12.1), the scope-of-negation rules (§12.10.2–4), and the prosody. The practical core of word order is Word order above.
- Khan's Ch. 13 (Clause Sequences) and Ch. 14 (Subordination): no longer skipped. The everyday core of Ch. 14 (relatives, kat complements, purpose, cause, result, and the basic if) is above. The rest is Chapter 9B, "Linking sentences": the connectives u-, va, -da, -ze, up, khina, ita, ina; verbs in a row; when, before, after, until, as, as if, however much; quoting and reporting; indirect questions; "I saw that…"; and every if combination. What stays skipped is listed at the foot of that chapter.