An Annotated ZC Grammar, Chapter 2 (DRAFT)
Saul Epstein 
Sat, 20 Dec 1997 09:43:11 -0600

I had this pretty much ready, so I figured I'd make one more
contribution 
before my potential two-week disappearance.

You're probably wondering of you missed Chapter 1. After Rob's long
post 
dealing with space and time in English, he and I discussed it some in
private. 
My initial impulse upon reading it was to reply to the list making
note of 
everything I considered to be in error, but I decided that would be 
counterproductive and instead tried to understand where he was coming
from and 
what he had meant in places.

Afterward, we both agreed that the most productive thing I could do
would be to post comments explaining my interpretation  of the ZC
Grammar, especially with regard to what Rob was trying to lay out in
his post.

So I skipped Chapter 1 (which deals with phonology rather than
grammar anyway) and went straight to C. 2, which includes the Vulcan
deixis system and which therefore bears directly on Rob's post. The
other part dealing so directly is C. 6,4, which I hope to address
eventually.

Source material is indented, while my comments are not. 

-------------------------------------------------------------

	CHAPTER 2 	WORD-CLASSES (Part of speech system)

		There are in Vulcan (V.) isolatable units which can be classified 
	as either free forms or bound forms. We can distinguish among six
word-
	classes.

A free form may stand on its own and has a distinct meaning when so
used. A 
bound form has distinct meaning only when attached to a free form.

	1a:	Action-words, e,g. Kroy (stop), Imroy (walk), Ran (kill), Spara 
	(eat), Tichoy (live), Matoy (die).

	1b:	State-words, e,g. Kya [kaia] (exist), Kyani (non-exist); e,g.
with 
	interrog. particle - Qa kya qa kyani - (interrog. exist, interrog. 
	non-exist) or loosely translated "To be or not to be". others: 
	Mata (be dead), Tich (be alive) etc.

Class 1 may be thought of as the verbs of Vulcan, should that be
helpful. As 
indicated, it includes single words for describing actions and
states. States 
function similarly to English "to be + adjective" or "to be +
imperfect verb." 
There seems at one point to have been a system for deriving actions
and states 
from each other, but it is uncertain whether that system still
operates.

	2a:	Sentient-entity words, e,g. t'hyla (Friend/lover etc), Sehlat 
		(Vulcan "teddy-bear"), Le'matya (Omnivorous Vulcan predator), 
		Horta (sentient silicon-based living thing).

	2b: 	Non-Sentient-entity words, e,g. Kreyla (Vulcan biscuits), 
		Ka'athyra (Stringed musical instrument) etc.

	This division does not correspond to carbon- vs. non-carbon based 
	dichotomy.

Class 2 may be thought of as the nouns of Vulcan, should that be
helpful.

	3:	Deictic words; there are five degrees of deixis:
		1. this here (visible), 	i-plak (this blood)
		2. this near (not visible)	e-plak (this blood)
		3. that there (visible)		a-plak (that blood)
		4. that there (not visible)	u-plak (that blood)
		5. that (distantial)		o-plak (that blood)

Deixis is a way of marking entities to locate them relative to the
speaker. 
This should not be confused with ways to locate an action/state or an
entity 
relative to another entity. The degrees of deixis indicate degrees of
distance 
from the speaker. So, the first degree locates an entity relatively
close to 
the speaker (possibly as close as something held in her hand) while
the last 
degree locates an entity relatively far from the speaker (possibly as
far as 
something in another galaxy). Modern English has a two-degree deixis
with an 
occasional deteriorated third degree, which makes direct translation
from 
Vulcan impossible.

Using two different degrees can be a short way of distinguishing
entities 
close to the speaker from those which are close to the audience. The
speaker 
is always "here," for instance, but the audience may be "there," in
which case 
entities nearer the speaker can be "these," while entities nearer the
audience 
may be "those."

Something to keep in mind: since the "not visible" paraphrase seems
to 
indicates that degrees 2 and 4 may describe things as close as 1 or 3
but 
which are hidden or obstructed from view, it upsets the progression
from near 
to far somewhat.

		Under Deictic words, we include in this description what is 
	generally described as the system of personal pronouns. This system 
	distinguishes between the categories of inclusive (we-speakers +
you-
	listeners) and exclusive (we-speakers - you-listeners) in 1st person

	plural. It also distinguishes between five degrees of Deixis in the
3rd 
	person. And it also has a special paradigm for honorific (suffix
-kan 
	(elder/more honorific) and -kam (to younger (affectionate)
honorific. 
	e,g. when Spock speaks with Savik he addresses her as Savikam).

In other words, a speaker explicitly includes her audience in
first-person 
plural expressions, or explicitly excludes her audience. This differs
from 
English, in which "we" can mean "some other(s) and I but not you" or
"[some 
other(s) and] I and you." 

	SINGULAR:

	1. 	th'	I				th'kan(m) I-hon.
	2. 	s'	you				s'kan(m)  you-hon.
	3,1.	iw'	he (visible)			iw'kan(m) he-hon.
	3,2.	ew'	he (not visible)		ew'kan(m)
	3,3.	aw'	he (visible: see above)		aw'kan(m)
	3,4.	uw'	he (not visib. see above)	uw'kan(m)
	3,5. 	ow'	he (distantial)			ow'kan(m)
	3,2,1	iwl'	she (visible)			iwl'kan(m)
		ewl'
		awl'
		uwl'
	3,2,5 	owl'	she (distantial)		owl'kan(m)
	3,3,1 	in' 	it (visible)
	3,3,2  	en'	it (not visib. see above)
		an'
		un'
	3,3,5	on'

	PLURAL

	1.	the's'	we (inclusive)			the's'kan(m) we hon.
	   	the'	we (exclusive)			the'kan(m)
	2. 	se'	you				se'kan(m)
	3,1	iwe'	they (m,vis.)			iwe'kan(m)
		ewe'
		awe'
		uwe'
		owe'
	3,2.	iwle'	they(f,vis.)			iwle'kan(m)
		ewle'
		awle'
		uwle'
		owle'
	3,3.	ine'	they (n,vis.)			ine'kan(m)
		ene'
		ane'
		une'
		one'

	e,g. plaks'ran (leukocupricytosis) lit.  "blood you kill"

I will have something to say about these pronominal particles in the
future, 
relating to their potential different appearances as bound vs. free
forms.

	4: QUALIFIERS

	4,a. Qualifiers of entity-words, e,g. Krup (blue), Sbah (red), e,g. 
	"Spock'at krupat'oram u-plak" (Spock{gen. poss} green
that-invisible-
	blood), or (That green blood of Mr. Spock) and "Kirk'at sbah
i-plaplak" 
	(This red [precious] blood of Kirk)*. Other qualifiers are e,g.
near, 
	distant, large, small etc.

Entity qualifiers may be thought of as the adjectives of Vulcan,
should that 
be helpful.

	4,b. Qualifiers of action/state words. e,g. Brax (fast) as in e,g.
"Brax 
	imroy" (walk fast), or, "Brax imimroykah" (walk very fast!!)**.
	
Likewise, action/state qualifiers may be thought of as the adverbs of
Vulcan, 
should that be helpful. It is worth noting that qualifiers are not
marked to 
agree with what they qualify in terms of an action/state's aspect
(see c. 
6,4), or an entity's syntactic relationship to others (see cc. 4-5),
but 
instead depend on a dD or attribute-head compounding rule described
in the 
Addendum ("More on Vulcan"). In short, the unmarked words immediately

preceding an entity or action/state are its qualifiers.

	* cf. explication of colours: Literally; Krupat'oram< (blue)+at'or 
	(0,7+0,3) + ram (Yellow)=blueish green (Colours will be dealt with 
	later, numbers too).

	** See below for intensive reduplication.

	5: NUMBER WORDS.

	Vulcan has pentagonal system. Also there are many words expressions 
	dealing with calculative vocabulary of the Vulcans and only the most

	basic is given below.

	1=ri'		6=ti'
	2=ra'		7=ta'
	3=ro'		8=to'
	4=re'		9=te'
	5=ru'	     10=tu'

	0=i'

	Vulcan has also specific words for fractions from 0,1 to 0,9;

	0,1 = ir, 0,2 = ar, 0,3 = or, 0,4 = er, 0,5 = ur,
	0,6 = it, 0,7 = at, 0,8 = ot, 0,9 = et.

	e,g. 2,156 = ra'irurit
	    10,461 = tu'eritir (said at great speed).

	On the pentagonal system is based the system applying to
entity-words 
	expressive specially of quantities from 1 to 5; thus we have
singular, 
	dual, trial, quatral and quintal. In Archaic Vulcan there are traces
of 
	these systems in the verb, expressed by incorporation of numeral
forms. 
	e,g. (you-2 stop-emphesis-command): in modern Vulcan; "s'ra'
krokroykah" 
	in ancient Vulcan; " s'ra' krokroyRAkah"  or e,g. (you-3-humans
walk-
	fast) in mod. Vulcan; "s'ro' qomiro' brax imroykah" {ancient; 
	imroyRAkah). "qomiru" = five humans, BUT ti'qomie = six humans.

The comments comparing ancient to modern Vulcan seems to be saying
only that 
Vulcan used to mark action/states to agree with the number of the
subject, as 
well as marking the pronoun representing the subject, but that the
language 
now only marks pronouns.

	6: PARTICLES.

	Particles are free (emphasis, interrogation-words etc) or bound
forms 
	used prefixed, infixed or suffixed with free forms as auxiliaries:
"qa" 
	interog. prefix e,g. "qaram" = interrog + kill;  "nirsh" =no, not,
"a:" 
	=yes.

It seems that "qa," without undergoing any change in form, may be
either a 
free particle or a prefix, while "nirc" is a free form negative
particle which 
becomes "ni-" when used as a prefix. Likewise, "aa" is a free form
positive 
(or affirmative) particle which becomes "-a" when used as a suffix.
All of the 
examples suggest that when these particles are bound they must be
affixed in a 
particular position. So bound "qa-" and "ni-" are always  prefixes,
while 
bound "-a" is always a suffix.

	7: CONJUNCTIONS ETC.

	ong = and e,g. Spockong Kirkong (Spock and Kirk)
	azh = or  e,g. "Spockazh Kirkazh" (Spock or Kirk)
	niazh = neg. or e,g. " Spockniazh Kirkniazh" (neither Spock
		nor Kirk)
	ni-+-a not A but B e,g. niSpock Kirka (not Spock but Kirk)
	uks = but
	etc.

Rob Zook has given a much fuller treatment of these and the meanings
of their 
possible combinations, so I direct the reader there.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

This is only a draft, by the way.

--
from Saul Epstein
liberty*uit,net
www,johnco,cc,ks,us/~sepstein
"Surak ow'phaaper thes'hi thes'tca'; thes'phaadjar thes'hi
suraketca'."
							-- K'dvarin Urswhl'at