Compounds (e-)

Providing a root for every concept would be extremely impractical and isn’t great for memorization. Complex concepts are often built upon multiple primitive concepts, and compounds are used for this purpose.

Compounds allow the transformation of any string of valid Eberban words (particles, roots and borrowings) into a single unit. While a compound ignores the grammatical rules of the individual words, its meaning should (to a certain extent) be related.

A compound start with either e, en, er, respectively starting a compound composed of two, three, or more words. er-compounds stop when a single e is encountered (with a space or word boundary marker before it). Spaces can be inserted between any of the parts of the compound.

If the first word starts with a vowel (a borrowing or A/O particle) then the pause before this vowel is optional. NI particles needs to be prefixed by a pause or space to not be confused with the en start.

Compounds have unique and fixed meanings which are defined in the dictionary, and while the definition of each one can be arbitrary, they usually provide arguments taken from their individual components. Usually, the most important word is the rightmost one, and additional words are added to the left to help narrow down the meaning, yielding greater precision.

It is common to lexicalize a borrowing by making a compound with it. Cultural concepts are borrowed with endonyms, sounding similar to the original word.

A compound have the same transitivity as its last/rightmost component (transitive/intransitive + if that place is bounded with sharing/equivalence). If the compound transitivity should differ from that component, an extra word is added in the compound among the followings:

  • se: intransitive sharing
  • sa: transitive sharing
  • sai: transitive equivalence

Other particles that cannot be used directly as predicates are considered intransitive sharing.

e ber ban : [tca man] is the eberban language.

  • ber : [E:tce* man] reflects this language (eberban).
  • ban : [E:tce* man] is a language.

e uinglic ban : [E:tca ban] is the english language.

  • uinglic : borrowing of “english”.
  • ban : [E:tce* man] is a language.

e glon sa : [E:tce pan] plays game [A:tce* pan].

  • glon : [E:tce* man] is a game.
  • sa: We’re making a transitivite version of glon.