For those who’ve been following Globasa’s development, the concepts presented in the following reflection may feel somewhat familiar. While much of what I will share here has been spontaneously and sporadically discussed in various forums over time, I felt it was important to consolidate these thoughts into a single, succinct reflection. This should serve not only as a record but also as a resource for those seeking a clearer, big-picture understanding of Globasa’s overarching developmental approach.
Globasa’s vision and guiding principles (see also Globasa’s Early History) have consistently driven its systematic approach to language creation. Since Globasa’s publication in 2019, the central strategy has been to establish increasingly specific norms to guide decisions across all areas, including grammar, root-word selection (source and form), and word formation.
As I have remarked previously, the aim has always been for Globasa to essentially “build itself”, guided primarily by its foundational principles rather than by subjective preferences. Every change, adjustment, and addition to the language has been grounded in these established norms. Over time, this process has naturally evolved from broader disruptions to more refined adjustments, following an ever-tightening spiral toward greater stability.
Selection of Root-Word Source/Form
Refining the word-selection methodology has inevitably been a prolonged process. Initially, the focus was on developing a viable algorithm to reduce Eurocentrism in root-word selection. In the first year, this required entirely changing the source of some frequently used words. Over the years, increasingly detailed norms for root-word forms have gradually been introduced, requiring existing roots to align with these standards while eliminating inconsistencies and errors. As has been documented under Changes and Adjustments, fewer and less frequently used roots have been affected with each passing year.
Some of these norms are documented under Word Selection Methodology. However, others remain informal, having been discussed within the language development team over the years. We will likely document these at some point, certainly as the language development team gains new members down the road.
Understandably, there remains some room for subjective judgment, as the relative weight of individual norms has not been rigidly determined. Creating a system that completely eliminates variation would likely be overly complex and impractical, at least for us humans. But perhaps an AI model could eventually be recruited to assist us with word-form selection while utilizing an even more detailed set of norms to further reduce arbitrariness.
Grammar Adjustments
The most significant grammatical adjustments have included:
Eliminating stative verbs in favor of a copula.
Using relative clauses with hu to maintain SVO word order; forming declarative sentences with question words using ku.
Eliminating most truncations and introducing noun-noun compounds.
Other than that, we’ve introduced many minor grammatical adjustments along the way.
Verb Transitivity
Recently, discussions have focused on refining the classification of verbs, particularly in terms of transitivity. This issue was deliberately postponed until higher-priority areas of grammar had been addressed. Specifically, I had determined early on that settling on a detailed verb classification system (including norms for defining transitivity of new verbs) was a low-priority item because this area had a relatively low potential for disruption on one hand, and on the other, required careful experimentation. By allowing patterns to emerge organically, it has been more feasible to identify, adjust, and fine-tune the system where necessary. As expected, with the completion of the verb classification system, practical usage of verbs has remained largely unaffected by these adjustments, demonstrating the robustness of Globasa’s approach toward full stability.
Further Development
Looking ahead, the coming months will likely involve exploring and elaborating on certain established or loosely defined norms that require further attention to detail. The focus will be on identifying emerging patterns and ensuring that all relevant content aligns with these refinements. The guiding question remains: Is there a discernible pattern, and if so, what adjustments are needed to ensure consistency?
Here are some examples where further development of norms is required, leading us to even greater stability and “self-building” mechanisms:
How does Globasa render -ize (harmonize, etc.) and -ify (acidify, etc.) words? When do we use -gi/-cu, and when does the root word suffice? For example, should it be armoni or armonigi? Or is -gi optional in certain such cases (acidi vs acidigi)?
Furthermore, How exactly is -gi used? Is it as vast in usage as Esperanto’s -igi, or should it be narrower in meaning/usage? For example, should yamgi (feed) be replaced in favor of yamgibe? Or should there be a distinction in meaning, as in spoon-feed (a baby) vs offer/give food (to a dog)?
When do we use -tul and when does the root word alone denote the tool? This is similar to the question we’ve already addressed a couple years ago with regards to the use of -yen vs root words that denote people.
Doublets (ikono vs ikoni), homonyms (maux: animal or cursor-pointing device) or distinct root words (biskiti vs kuki). How do we decide what to go with? There are still very few of these, so probably no discernable pattern yet, but should we establish some norms soon?
Verb usage for roots that are intrinsically nouns, for example words for diseases and ailments: kancer (cause cancer or have/suffer from cancer)?
In Globasa there is a distinction between hu denloka (relative clause “where”) and denloka hu (subordinate clause “where”). Compare the following pair of sentences:
Hay multi dinidom hu denloka ren lala ji danse. There are many churches where people sing and dance. or There are many churches in which people sing and dance.
In this sentence, hu denloka refers to the churches, so this is a relative clause. Instead of hu denloka, we can say hu in da (in which). As described in the Grammar, we can even express this as a descriptive clause using feki instead of relative clause with either hu denloka or hu in da, but the relative clause options are clearer and generally a better approach/style than the descriptive clause. Descriptive clauses with feki should mostly be used when not dealing with relative clauses.
Hay multi dinidom denloka hu mi ogar. There are many churches where I live. Or There are many churches in the place where I live.
In this sentence, denloka hu refers to my town, not to the churches. Hence, we would refer to this as a generic subordinate clause, not a relative clause.
Furthermore, notice that subordinate clauses may be switched to the beginning of the sentence, something you can’t do with relative clauses.
Denloka hu mi ogar, hay multi dinidom. Where I live, there are many churches. Or In the place where I live, there are many churches
Now… if we were to switch denloka hu and hu denloka in the sentences above, we would get the following sentences:
Hay multi dinidom hu denloka mi ogar. There are many churches where (or “in which”) I live.
In this sentence, we would be claiming to live in churches!
Hay multi dinidom denloka hu ren lala ji danse. There are many churches where (or “in those places where”) people sing and dance.
Here, we’re not saying that people necessarily sing and dance in churches, but rather that many churches are located in towns where people like to or tend to sing and dance.
Again, notice how we can move the subordinate clause to the beginning of the sentence:
Denloka hu ren lala ji danse, hay multi dinidom. Where people sing and dance, there are many churches.
Currently, the use of he is restricted to the correlatives, but it occurs to me that it might be possible to use this particle everywhere for contrastive emphasis, an unresolved matter first discussed five years ago. See post and comments here.
I had considered the universal use of he for contrastive emphasis, as illustrated in the set of sentences below, but at the time, this seemed problematic; at least at first sight, contrastive emphasis doesn’t appear to work the same way as the emphatic use/meaning of he for correlatives, where he seems to add/change meaning: ban (some, certain) vs he ban (any); moy (every) vs he moy (every single), etc.
However, it recently dawned on me that the change in meaning from say moy vs he moy is contrastive after all: every or every single (as opposed to almost every, for example). So the universal use of he for contrastive emphasis could in fact work by applying the particle right before the word one wishes to emphasize contrastively. As we can see in the following sentences, English can apply contrastive emphasis by merely stressing the desired word.
I’ve come across the unofficial emphatic use he in he unyum (the very first), which again seems to add meaning, but is in fact likewise contrastive: the first or the very first (literally the first, not the second or third).
He could also be used with pronouns since the empathic use of -self (I myself, you yourself, etc.) is also contrastive: he mi (I myself, as opposed to somebody else), he yu (you yourself, as opposed to somebody else), etc. This would replace the use of seli mi, seli yu, etc. Seli isn’t entirely logical anyway, since se is reflexive and therefore never used as a subject pronoun, so the use of seli mi (etc.) as subject pronouns is somewhat unusual. As a word, seli can just mean “of or relating to the self”.
In summary, he would be used contrastively for all pronouns no matter the function: subject, object or after prepositions.
Subject:
He yu le kasiru janela.
You broke the window. or You yourself broke the window. (Nobody else did.)
Object:
Te le oko he mi.
She saw me. or She saw none other than me. or It was me she saw. (It wasn’t somebody else that she saw.)
Preposition:
Te le gibe kitabu tas he imi.
He gave the book to us. or He gave the book to none other than us. or It was us she gave the book to. (Not to somebody else)
As we can see, English can express contrastive emphasis through a variety of mechanisms including applying additional stress to the desired word, inserting certain words or changing the grammatical structure of the sentence.
In Globasa, we could express contrastive emphasis merely by adding the particle he before the word we wish to emphasize, as seen in the examples above and the translated set of sentences below:
1. He mi le nilwatu loga ki te le cori misu pesa.
I (myself) never said she stole my money. (Someone else said that she stole the money.)
2. Mi le he nilwatu loga ki te le cori misu pesa.
I never (ever) said she stole my money. (I definitely did not, and would not, say that she stole my money.)
3. Mi le nilwatu he loga ki te le cori misu pesa.
I never (even/actually) said she stole my money. (Verbally, it was not said that she stole my money, but it was implied.)
4. Mi le nilwatu loga ki he te le cori misu pesa.
I never said (it was) she (who) stole my money. (I said that someone else stole my money.)
5. Mi le nilwatu loga ki te le he cori misu pesa.
I never said she (actually) stole my money. (I said that she took my money, but I wouldn’t describe it as stealing.)
6. Mi le nilwatu loga ki te le cori he misu pesa.
I never said she stole my money. or I never said the money she stole was mine. (I said that she stole someone else’s money.)
7. Mi le nilwatu loga ki te le cori misu he pesa.
I never said she stole my money. or I never said it was money that she stole from me. (She stole something else from me.)
For greater clarity, we could even allow the movement of the emphasized word to the front, along with he, followed by a comma and then the entire sentence without he.
For example:
He nilwatu, mi le nilwatu loga ki te le cori misu pesa.
Never ever, I never said she stole my money.
He cori, mi le nilwatu loga ki te le cori misu pesa.
Steal? I never said she stole my money.
I will run this by the language development team and if approved the adjustment should be effective by the end of the month.
There are a handful of verbs, categorized as transitive verbs, which I think could potentially function as intransitive verbs plus a preposition. Or, put another way, verbs that could optionally be followed by a preposition. In fact, we already have one such verb described in under Lessons for Beginners (ogar), although in this case there’s a slight distinction in usage.
diskrimina (anti) - discriminate against
ganxopu (in, intre) - interfere in/with
ikaw (fe, per, of?) - depend on
intikam (fe, anti?) - take revenge on
konflito (anti?) - conflict with
konkure (anti) - compete with
ogar (in) - inhabit, live in/at
panlan (anti) - rebel against
peda (per) - step on
rol (in) - participate in, take part in
sekso (ton) - have sex with
suferi (fe?) - suffer from
triunfa (in) - win, triumph in
tupyo (cel?) - vote for
turi (in) - travel (in)
In some languages, most of these verbs work perfectly well as transitive verbs, so there is no reason Globasa couldn’t work the same way, thereby simplifying things by not having to decide which preposition fits best.
I’m wondering if dur could be optionally omitted after intransitive verbs such as those in the following list, making the verbs appear to be transitive even though they are not.
anda (walk), danse (dance), dure (last), ergo (work), lala (sing), sampo (stroll), somno (sleep), suyon (swim)
Mi le danse (dur) tiga satu.
I danced (for) three hours.
Yu le ergo (dur) kekwanti din?
(For) how many days did you work?
I wouldn’t be surprised to see this omission of dur, just not sure if it should be tolerated or discouraged. Thoughts?
In my recent post on the various meanings of “for”, I suggested using fe in a series of sentences at the end of the post. As discussed on Discord, I realize that it would be best to broaden the meaning of tas instead, so as to simplify how the prepositional meanings are sliced. This broader meaning of tas was in fact already suggested by the use in Mi sen bon tas te (I’m good to her) in the post, as well as in another sentence with tas in Doxo: Dento sen tas mi (That’s for me).
The final sentences in the post should be:
Hin medisente funsyon tas insan.
Hinto sen bon tas yu.
Tas nini, risko sen day.
Tas mi, 40 daraje sen godomo termopul.
Hin kamisa sen godomo lil tas mi.
Hin apartamen sen godomo lil tas mi.
So the semantic role for the object of tas should be understood as receiver/recipient, but more loosely than previously suggested, just as the semantic role (destination) for cel is also loosely interpreted.
A different preposition could also be used in so far as the sentences can logically be expressed with an alternate shade of meaning. For example, the difference between “This shirt is too small for me” (Hin kamisa sen godomo lil tas mi.) vs “This shirt is too small on me” (Hin kamisa sen godomo lil per/fe mi.). The important thing is to hold onto the distinction between destination (cel) and recipient (tas).
Let’s review some of the ways of translating “for”.
The preposition cel means “to/for” when the object of the preposition is the goal. A good way to test if cel fits is to modify the sentence using “to get to”/”to reach”. It always denotes destination (physically, temporally, literally or metaphorically).
We left for Spain.
Imi le awidi cel Espani.
For a healthy life, one must eat well and exercise.
Cel seha jiwa, ren musi na bon yam ji na vyayama.
Since cel means “to get to/to reach”, it’s not difficult to see that the object of cel is very rarely an entity, such as a human being, although it’s possible to come up with such a sentence with the temporal/metaphorical sense of “to reach”.
For a happy marriage and a satisfied spouse, one must…
Cel hox gamiya ji truti gami, ren musi na…
The preposition tas means “to/for” when the object of the preposition is the receiver/recipient. Tas always denotes transfer and as such typically (or always?) requires a subject which does the transferring.
I brought this for you.
Mi le preporta hinto tas yu.
I’m good to her. (I transfer goodness to her.)
Mi sen bon tas te.
The preposition fol means “according to”. It can be translated as “for”, but only in this sense (“according to one’s opinion or view”).
For me, this is the most beautiful animal.
Fol mi, hinto sen maxmo meli hewan.
Now notice how the meaning of “for” in the following sentences is different from those described above: “This medicine works for humans”, “This is good for you”, “For children, the risk is great”, “For me, 40 degrees is too warm” (“For me” as in how it affects my body personally, rather than as an opinion in general).
As you can see, the object of “for” in these sentences is an entity in each case, so right off the bat this should give us a clue that cel probably doesn’t work. Tas doesn’t quite work either because we’re not talking about transfer. Neither does fol, since we’re not talking about one’s view/opinion. Instead, the meaning here is something like “in” or “in relation to”. Let’s try replacing “for” with “in”:
This medicine works in humans.
This is good in you.
In children, the risk is great.
In me, 40 degrees is too warm.
That seems to work well for the first three sentences. With the last sentence, it becomes more clear that the meaning is a bit more vague than the spatial “in”. With that in mind, we can see that the vague locative fe is the most of appropriate Globasa preposition here. A couple final sentences will demonstrate this further.
This shirt is too small for me.
This apartment is too small for me.
“In” definitely doesn’t work here. The first sentence could use “on” instead, whereas perhaps “around” would work for the second sentence. Furthermore, precisely because we could argue that the meaning of “for” in all these cases isn’t exactly locative, the preposition fe is again justified, since in its vaguest sense it means something like “in relation to”.
Hin medisente funsyon fe insan.
Hinto sen bon fe yu.
Fe nini, risko sen day.
Fe mi, 40 daraje sen godomo termopul.
Hin kamisa sen godomo lil fe mi.
Hin apartamen sen godomo lil fe mi.
There are other meanings of “for”, but I think those are a bit more clear or less likely to be confused about, so no need to review those here: dur (for a duration of time), por (in exchange for), kos (for a reason; due to/because of).
This is a follow-up to the post from last month on special transitive verbs (na lala lala, na yam yam, etc.). Let’s call these echo-object (transitive) verbs since the direct object, often or almost always omitted, echoes or mirrors back the noun/verb word. I will go ahead and add .ru, from rusoti (echo), to the b.oj classification for these verbs in the Menalari: b.oj.ru.
Specifying this type of transitive verb will avoid confusion when somebody can’t imagine one of these verbs having a direct object and feels the verb should instead be labeled as intransitive. Regardless of how uncommon said verbs add a direct object in practice, the importance of labeling all these verbs as such is that it tells us how they function in derivation, specifically with -do (which has been Xed, rather which has Xed) as well as with regards to an obligatory -gi (na hahagi bante: to cause somebody to laugh; na somnogi bante: to cause somebody to sleep, etc), as opposed to an optional -gi with intransitive verbs (na garakugi bante or na garaku bante: to cause somebody to drown, etc.)
At any rate, the main purpose of the follow-up is on how to deal with derived words using these root verbs. I had suggested in the post that perhaps something like lilhaha would be intransitive rather than act like lala, as an echo-object verb. However, I’ve since come to realize that any derived verb that’s merely qualified with either an adjective or a noun root (in other words, any content word) should work the same way. For example:
daypawbu (sprint), lilsomno (nap), lilhaha (giggle), lilbarix (drizzle), burbla (chatter)
ayse-barix (hail), ayse-eskeyti (ice skate), calun-eskeyti (roller skate)
All these verbs refer to a type of (a type of sleep, a type of rain, etc), so they should work the same way as the root verb, as echo-object transitive verbs.
With most prefixes, however, the verbs work differently as compared with the root verb:
fronkadam (progress), xorfley (take off), finfley (land), rujiwa (revive), awpawbu (run off/away)
These would have to be intransitive.
However, it appears that something like in- and ex- (at least with -nafasu) work much like the content words above, which merely qualify the verb, so innafasu (inhale) and exnafasu (exhale) should also be echo-object transitive verbs, like the root verb, nafasu.
Derived verbs that don’t end with an echo-object transitive root verb are not affected by the above considerations, for obvious reasons: Globasa’s head-final derivation tells us that the last/final morpheme in the derivation is what affects the word class.
Consider the following sentence:
The door was closed at 7 o’clock.
What does that mean? Is it stative or passive? Does it mean that when I arrived, at 7pm, the door had been in that state (closed), or does it mean that somebody closed the door at that precise time?
Globasa renders the first meaning as:
Dwer le sen klosido fe satu 7. (state)
The second sentence is rendered:
Dwer le beklosi fe satu 7. (passive voice)
A quick way to determine if the sentence is passive (be-) is to replace the verb “be” with “get”. If that works, the sentence is passive, if not, it’s stative.
The door was/got closed at 7 o’clock. (passive)
Dwer le beklosi fe satu 7.
The door was closed at 7 o’clock. (stative)
Dwer le sen klosido fe satu 7.
Another way to test it is to see if you can add an agentive “by…” phrase. If so, again, the sentence is passive. If the “by…” phrase doesn’t work, it’s stative.
The door was/got closed at 7 o’clock (by the manager).
Dwer le beklosi fe satu 7.
The door was closed at 7 o’clock (by XYZ).
Dwer le sen klosido fe satu 7.
Note: The agentive “by…” phrase need not be an entity. It can be “by doing something”, for example.
Now notice how English makes this distinction with “was open” (stative) vs “was opened” (passive).
The door was open at 7 o’clock. (stative)
Dwer le sen bukado fe satu 7.
The door was opened at 7 o’clock. (passive)
Dwer le bebuka fe satu 7.
Most major languages make this distinction, including Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi and others. As seen above, English doesn’t for the most part, unless the adjective is different from the past participle (open vs opened). Interestingly, Esperanto can easily make the distinction by avoiding the passive (which is identical to the stative phrasing) in favor of an Oni sentence (Oni fermis la pordon…). However, in practice the passive is often used, and sometimes, when the agent isn’t an entity, the passive is the only option since “oni” must denote an entity.
The language committee recently agreed on allowing more verbs to be (patientive) ambitransitive verbs. In Globasa, ambitransitive verbs are verbs that can function as either transitive or intransitive verbs. English has many such verbs (open, close, move, stop), which function the same way in Globasa, as explained in the grammar (under Verb Categories):
| [Content Words: Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives and Adverbs | 🔰 Xwexi (globasa.net)](https://xwexi.globasa.net/eng/gramati/inharelexi) |
As can be seen in the description, there are some ambitransitive verbs in Globasa not seen in English. For example, fall (intransitive) and drop (transitive) are expressed with one root in Globasa: sokutu.
The following three verbs were changed from transitive to ambitransitive during the recent discussion.
amusa (b.oj) amuse –> amusa (b.oro) amuse, entertain or have fun, entertain oneself
interes (b.oj) interest –> interes (b.oro) interest or have an interest, be interested
sangu (b.oj) hide (something/somebody) –> sangu (b.oro) hide (something/somebody or oneself)
The intention was to test these verbs before making the same switch for other verbs by establishing clearer guidelines for deciding which verbs should be ambitransitive, and perhaps reassigning other verbs as transitive or intransitive.
After a couple months of experimenting and trying different approaches, I finally came up with the following tentative guidelines. This is the simplest approach I could devise while simultaneously remaining conservative in the number of verbs adjusted.
Semantically, we can divide verbs into two categories, those that denote a feeling and those that denote an action.
interes (b.oro) feel interest (be interested) or cause to feel interest
wao (b.oro) feel amazement (be amazed) or cause to feel amazement
xyuci (b.oro) feel shame (be ashamed) or cause to feel shame
A distinction in meaning would be made between the root (X) and X-cu, as well as between the root and be-X. By adding -cu, the meaning would change to: become interested, become amazed, become ashamed. This is similar to the change in meaning between side (be sitting) vs sidecu (become seated; sit down). By adding be-, the meaning changes to include a specific or implied agent (be interested by, be amazed by, be shamed by) whereas there is no agent in the intransitive meaning of the verb without be-. Compare Mi le xyuci (I felt shame or I was ashamed) vs Mi le bexyuci (I was/got shamed, in other words, I was the victim of shaming).
Mi interes tem histori.
I’m interested in history. (Literally: I feel interest about history.)
Mi beinteres histori.
I’m interested by history.
Mi wao ki yu preata jaldi.
I’m amazed that you arrived early.
Mi bewao yu.
I’m amazed by you.
Crucially, this will include the verb fobi (intransitive: to feel fear or to be afraid; transitive: to cause to feel fear or to scare/frighten).
Mi fobi.
I feel fear (or, in other words, I’m afraid).
Mi sen fobipul.
I’m afraid.
Kayvutu fobi mi.
The monster scares me.
Mi sen fobido.
I’m scared.
Mi fobicu. (As described above, compare with Mi fobi)
I become/get scared/afraid. (Compared with: I’m afraid)
Mi befobi kayvutu.
I fear the monster. (Literally: I’m frightened by the monster.)
​
Intransitivity in ambitransitive verbs of action with no agent:
Sui le boyle.
The water boiled.
Dwer le klosi.
The door closed.
In both cases, the cause is not an agent, or an entity. Even if an agent had a part in the event, the focus of the cause isn’t the agent. It is worth noting that we could turn these into passive sentences, but as seen above in the case of verbs denoting a feeling, the meaning would be altered to include agency.
Sui le beboyle (misu doste).
The water was boiled (by my friend).
Dwer le beklosi (misu kuzin).
The door was closed (by my cousin).
In this case, we are assigning the cause to a particular agent, whether implicitly or explicitly.
Words in this category of agentless ambitransitive verbs include: klosi (close), buka (open), kasiru (break), sokutu (fall/drop), gulun (roll), xunjan (grow), evolu (evolve/develop) and a few others. Notice how in the intransitive meaning, the verb isn’t something that the subject does, but rather something that happens to it. This is what is meant by agentless.
Intransitivity in ambitransitive verbs of action with subject as both patient and agent:
Alimyen le harka.
The teacher moved.
Lalayen le esto.
The singer stopped.
These verbs are essentially reflexive in nature, since the subject, as agent, is performing an action on itself, as patient. However, rather than including all possible reflexive verbs or an arbitrary list of reflexive verbs, the list of verbs in this category should be small and limited to only those verbs that denote positional or locational movement of one’s body as a whole: harka (move), esto (stop), side (sit/seat), estay (stand), leta (lie/lay), sangu (hide), gulun (roll) and perhaps a few others. Notice that gulun appears not only in this list but also in the previous list of agentless verbs.
Under the above limitation for reflexive-type verbs, we would be dropping the verbs banyo (bathe) and duxe (shower), and a few others, which would have to be reclassified as transitive verbs. These verbs are reflexive but don’t fit the description above with regards positional/locational movement.
Mi banyo bebe.
I bathe the baby.
Mi banyo mi/se.
I bathe (myself).
However, I’m wondering if we could add this as a second reflexive verb category, the category of verbs that are most often reflexive. Two others would be: masturbate and train. One caveat for this category of verbs would be that -gi/-cu aren’t used as optional suffixes to denote transitivity and intransitivity, the way they’re used for all other ambitransitive verbs. Somehow, banyocu/banyogi don’t quite work. So perhaps the best solution here would instead be to categorize these verbs are transitive, but since they’re most often used reflexively the reflexive pronoun can just be optionally dropped. I think this is a better solution, as it avoids complicating ambitransitive verbs with something that very much feels like an exception.
A verb like resta, and perhaps a few others, will need to be reclassified as intransitive as it doesn’t appear to fit into any of the above three categories for ambitransitive verbs.
In the coming weeks I will start to go through all root verbs, and if all goes well we will move forward with these guidelines. I will then make another announcement to confirm the adjustment and provide a list of all ambitransitive verbs in their respective category as described above, along with an indication of which verbs switched transitivity.
This is a follow-up to the post on word derivation theory from earlier this month.
Let’s go ahead and have -fil work similarly to -yen (as explained in the post linked right above).
Derivation with -yen
General Rule: -yen attaches to adjectives and to the verb aspect of most noun/verb words
meli - beautiful; meliyen - beauty
cori - steal; coriyen - thief
Caveat: -yen is attached to (mostly concrete) nouns never used as verbs as well as to the noun aspect of ambitransitive noun/verbs of feeling or state
mamo - breat; mamoyen - mammal
dexa - country; dexayen - citizen
xohra - fame; xohrayen - celebrity
I added mostly to concrete, since in the example above one could argue that some of these words never used as verbs are not always entirely concrete nouns.
Derivation with -fil
General Rule: -fil attaches to adjectives and to the verb aspect of most noun/verb words
bimar - sick; bimarfil - sickly
destrui - destroy; destruifil - destructive
Caveat: -fil is attached to mostly concrete nouns never used as verbs as well as to the noun aspect of ambitransitive noun/verbs of feeling or state
arte - art; artefil - artistic
dexa - country; dexafil - patriotic
fobi - fear; fobifil - fear-prone
Notice that a word like “art”, which is currently only used a noun according to the dictionary, could very well start to be used as a verb (meaning “to do art”), in which case, the current meaning of artefil would still be the same (tending towards art or tending to do art).
Two years ago, I wrote a post proposing the use of -day and -lil as suffixes. We didn’t move forward with the proposal. Since then, however, the use of noun-adjective compounds (globa-total, xetocubon, efetobon, xansebur as synonymous with total-globali, bonxetocupul, bonefotopul, burxansepul) have become well-established. These head-final adjectives (-total, -bon, -bur, etc.) aren’t functioning as suffixes, but rather than compound roots. As a result, forms like termoday (daytermopul: hot), cinonday (daycinonpul: brilliant, genius) and sotilil (lilsotipul: quiet) would work the same way and will now be official.
Since Globasa typically favors derived words over root words, it stands to reason that it would attempt to be on the logical side of the spectrum when it comes to derivation, logical as opposed to arbitrary. How logical? The question hasn’t been formally addressed, but over the years I think we’ve settled on something along these lines: the meaning of a novel affixed word should be transparent for most people at first sight; the meaning of novel compound word should be transparent for most people in context if not at first sight.
Now, one key component of word derivation in Globasa is the part of speech of its roots, especially noun/verb roots. Specifically, when attaching suffixes, is the suffix attaching to the noun or the verb aspect of the word? And if attaching to an ambitransitive verb, is it transitive or intransitive in the derivation? Here, as we have seen in recent posts on ambitransitive verbs, Globasa aims for as much derivational transparency as possible by eliminating almost all ambiguity. The rationale is that the semantic component of morphemes (the meaning of the root, roots or affix) in derivation already represents a large enough challenge on transparency, so there should be almost no arbitrariness in the function component of roots that would lead to derivational ambiguity.
Perhaps I should clarify by saying, significant derivational ambiguity. As seen recently, the one ambiguity that Globasa does allow in terms of root function is with the use of -do in ambitransitive verbs. In contrast, it would been unacceptable to have something like interesyen be ambiguous, as seen in another post. However, the way the word interesyen was used in a text when I encountered it recently was likely interpreted as interes (noun) + -yen rather than interes (verb) + -yen. In other words, “a person of/with interest”. Could this interpretation work after all? It could, but we would have to make it clear how so. Here’s where consistency and lack of arbitrariness come in.
Currently, -yen works in this way:
General Rule: -yen attaches to adjectives and in noun/verb words to the verb aspect
Caveat: -yen is only attached to concrete nouns never used as verbs
In order for interes (noun) + -yen to work, we would have to modify the caveat for -yen allowing us to attach it the noun aspect of noun/verb of feeling (amusa, interes, pilo, etc.) or even noun/verbs of feeling and state (amusa, interes, along with termo, cinon, etc). It’s a matter of establishing clear and consistent rules that don’t branch out into too many caveats, especially if the usefulness of said caveat doesn’t outweigh the complication. Is the caveat worth it, in other words?
With that in mind, I think the caveat in question does work in our favor. For one, words like interesyen (interested person or person of/with interest), xohrayen (famous person or person of/with fame) and cinonyen (intelligent person or person of/with intelligence) seem intuitive. In fact, they have already been used as such by the community, myself included. So even if we kept the current usage (interesyen/beinteresyen) so as to avoid a slightly more wordy caveat, we’re likely to continue seeing errors with words such as interesyen, xohrayen, cinonyen, talentoyen, piloyen, etc. Second, noun/verbs of feeling and state are in fact very similar to concrete nouns in that they are primarily nouns; in other words, they feel significantly more noun-like than verb-like.
With this approach, in order to make the distinction between “one who amuses” and “one who is/feels amusement”, instead of amusayen/beamusayen it’ll be amusayen/amusagiyen. The meaning “one who is/feels [noun of feeling/state]” is significantly more useful/common in most cases, so using [root]-yen instead of be-[root]-yen works better, yet another reason the longer but more intuitive caveat works.
General Rule: -yen attaches to adjectives and to the verb aspect of most noun/verb words
Caveat: -yen is attached to concrete nouns never used as verbs as well as to the noun aspect of ambitransitive noun/verbs of feeling or state
I will be taking a look at a few other suffixes and see what other useful caveats we can implement. There are only a couple of these tricky suffixes that come to mind: -fil, -abil.
This is another follow-up to the question about root words vs derived words.
In recent days, a proposal was put forward to introduce a root word for “battery” (energikaxa). With some hesistation we decided on the following:
The word form bateri, currently meaning “bacteria”, will instead be used for “battery”. The derived-word option for “battery” (energikaxa) has been adjusted to eletrikaxa, while “bacterium/bacteria” (bateri) has been adjusted to bakuteri (compare with: kakutus and plankuton).
In the process of making these tentative decisions, I promised to review at least 500 derived words and applying the norms proposed in a recent post on this question. The goal was to assess the viability of said norms, and either move forward with them or otherwise adjust or temporarily limit them.
I reviewed the first 20 or so derived words under each letter of the alphabet. In this way, I reviewed over 500 derived words.
My findings were as follows:
dahun-kabiji - kale: keyle (?) (supported by 7 language families)
energikaxa --> eletrikaxa - battery: bateri (9 families)
hantapamtul - pistol: pistola (7 language families)
jamegitora - freezer: frizer (8 families)
samamenalexi - synonym: sinonim (at least 4 families)
samajensifil - homosexual: gey (8/9 families)
termokrasitul - thermostat: termostato (5/6 famil)
vyayamadom - gym: jim/gim (8 famil)
As expected, if we were to follow the proposed norms, a little over 1% of derived words would have root word synonyms.
Notice that we already have gey, introduced last year. It’s meant to be informal, so perhaps it’s not an exact synonym. We’ll also consider other root words that didn’t appear in my findings, but which we’ve seen in the previous post: komputer (computer), garaji (garage).
One conclusion/compromise the language development team reached was to adopt a conservative approach for the time being and only introduce very common words at this time. I suggested we stick with the 8-family threshold for now, which would eliminate keyle, termostato, sinomim and pistola for consideration at this time. That only leaves us with bateri, frizer and jim. As expected (see my comments in the last post), generally speaking, the more vastly international the word, the more frequent its usage. We’ve already decided “battery” is common enough to justify introducing bateri at this time. How about “computer”, “garage”, “freezer” and “gym”?
According to the Corpus of Contemporary American English, the most accurate frequency list I’ve found, the following frequency ranks can be considered:
computer: 691
hospital: 766
gay: 1638
battery: 2744
garage: 3389
sexy: 3717
gym: 3820
freezer: 7359
It would be ideal to have these frequency ranks for all our source languages, but unfortunately we don’t, so this is the best we can do for now.
With that, it’s safe to say we should also introduce komputer (supported by at least 8 families).
As seen in the previous post, we already have seksi (supported by 10 families) so perhaps garaji (supported by at least 8 families) would make sense as well. However, “garage” does seem like a word that would be a lot more common in developed countries, so we can probably assume that if we had access to accurate frequency lists in all our source languages, “garage” would be considerably less common on average. On that basis, “garage” should be dismissed for now.
“Freezer” is definitely the outlier, so frizer is also no-go, at least for the time being.
As for “gym”, I’m thinking we might introduce the word fitnes (fitness) and thereby be able to derive fitnesdom. The word fitnes could be introduced (supported by something like 6 families) as it’s probably not suitably rendered by jismu-bonjotay (jismu-bonjotay yon vyayama would be a more accurate definition).
I will be looking at all derived words in the coming months and introducing other frequently used and vastly international root words such komputer, hospital, gey, bateri and seksi.
As suggested under Word Proposal Process and as it’s well established as a practice, Globasa typically favors derived words (whenever possible/suitable) over root words. However, with the introduction of the word hospital (bimaryendom) four years ago, it has also been understood that Globasa is not opposed to using root words alongside certain derived words.
In this post from four years ago, I suggested tentative norms for determining which derived words are good candidates for demotion by root words: first, by considering length and/or syllabic complexity of the derived word in question, and second, by considering the scope of internationality of the potential root word to be introduced.
A third consideration which I didn’t mention was the usage frequency of the word. I feel this is important, because the more frequently used a word is, the easier it is to learn a novel root word. Conversely, it makes greater sense to hold onto derived words the less common they are. In the absence of a large corpus, we could simply to play it by ear and make an intuitive determination for how frequent a word might be. However, that approach leaves too much room for subjectivity, defeating the purpose of establishing norms that anybody could follow without having to make a subjective call. Instead, we could simply observe that the scope of internationality of a given word may serve as a general measure of how common the word is, thereby relieving us from the necessity of incorporating this third parameter.
At any rate, as a way to move forward with clearer norms and to determine what other derived words might be good candidates, I figured we could start by relying on current precedents and use those to deduce the norms. We could then start to consider some tentative root words, not adding them yet to the Menalari, but revisiting this in about a year to see if the approach is working to identify a small percentage of possible root/derived word pairs such as such hospital/bimaryendom. How small of a percentage? I would say no higher than say 1%. So if we currently have around 4,000 derived words, we shouldn’t have more than 40 root/derived word pairs.
One other note. Over the years, we have also replaced a handful derived words in favor of root words for reasons other than a derived word being too long or cumbersome. The derived word might’ve been unsuitable in other ways, such as yamdukan, which meant “restaurant” (restoran) but now means “grocery store”, or the introduction of eskol in place of xwexidom/alimdom. I would also include the recently added twala in this category, since twala wasn’t actually meant to be synonymous with banyokumax, but rather is a general word for any kind of suhegi-kumax, which can now be used in compounds where -kumax was previously used.
With that, as far as I can tell, besides hospital the only other root word that we’ve introduced as a synonym of a derived word is none other than seksi (seksopelne)! If I’m mistaken, and somebody can find another such root/derived pair, please let me know. But assuming that’s all we have, we can perhaps deduce the following.
Seksopelne is a four-syllable word with two complex syllables (with codas in this case), and seksi is sourced from ten language families. On the other hand, bimaryendom is a four-syllable word with three complex syllables, but hospital is sourced from only four language families.
Very well then, we can say that if a derived word is at least four syllables in length with at least two complex syllables, a root word sourced from at least ten language families may be introduced, of course, provided that the candidate root word is suitable: not more than three syllables long and not creating unsuitable minimal pairs. However, if the derived word has at least three complex syllables, then the source-language threshold for the root word is lowered to four language families. Derived words with a length of at least five syllables should also qualify with at least four (maybe even three) language families for the root word.
If ten feels like too high a threshold for words with two complex syllables, then perhaps we could lower that to eight, twice as many four, the threshold for words with three complex syllables.
Let’s test these norms with the following derived words:
ixgaludo or ixgalupul - busy
Let’s say we consider that ixgalupul has two complex syllables (putting ixgaludo aside, which would not be a candidate at all, with only one complex syllable). Okay, we would have to find a root word sourced from at least 10 language families. There’s no such word. The closest is the Arabic/Turksih/Swahili option (mexgul or xugul), which is in fact a derivation of the source for Globasa’s ixgalu.
komputatora - computer
This one is five syllables, so it qualifies with a source word from at least four (or three?) language families. Komputer would surely be it. I’m not even going to bother finding out the number of language families.
termomosem - summer
Four-syllable word with two complex syllables. Can we find a root word sourced from at least ten language families, or even eight? No. Also, I think all seasons would have to make the cut, otherwise it would be odd.
komfortapul - comfortable
Three complex syllables, so this one would qualify with a root word sourced from just four language families. There’s one, rahat, but we already use that root for “rest”.
somnokamer - bedroom
Root word sourced eight/ten language families? No options.
mobilkamer - garage
Root word sourced from eight/ten language families? Garaji would fit the bill with I think ten language families.
Thoughts? Does this sound like a reasonable approach moving forward?
Currently, the prefix se- is defined as self- and therefore the derived words are mostly defined as nouns: self-defense (sebawe), self-analysis (seanalisi), self-sacrifice (sedabihu), etc. I’ll be adding “oneself” as an additional meaning, so now we can use all these and such words as verbs, with the understanding that se- can instead be detached and used as a direct object reflexive pronoun. That means I’ll also be adding reflexive verbs like sebanyo and setreyna.
Te sebanyo. or Te banyo se.
He bathes (himself).
On the other hand, se- doesn’t always work for the English prefix self-, specifically when it means “by itself” (as in self-evident) as opposed to just “(reflexive) self”. To address this, I’ve also added the root word awtonom (autonomous), so now the prefix awto- can either mean automatic or autonomous (by itself), as discussed some time ago on Discord. This will allow us to make the distinction between the two meanings of self-. Think of the difference in Esperanto between sin- (se-) and mem- (awto-).
Note: I recently noticed an etymological error on my part, so we had to change wajen to wazen (weight).
As suggested in an earlier post:
wazenje (b.oj) - weight; to weigh (have weight of)
wazenmeter (b.oj) - scale (device for measuring weight); to weigh (measure the weight of)
Mi le wazenmeter pingo. I weighed the apples.
Oto wazenje 1 kilogramo. They weigh 1 kg.
Other -je words (termoje, kunganje, gaoje, laoje, lungoje, etc.) work the same as wazenje. It doesn’t matter whether the root word attched to -meter is a noun or an adjective. It is as if -meter already has a built-in -je: -(je)meter, so we can freely say termometer or velosimeter instead of termojemeter or velosijemeter.
Notice, too, that -meter would logically not be used with all -je words; for example, laometer would mean “a device for measure somebody’s age” and “to measure somebody’s age”. I suppose perhaps in a sci-fi story.
laoje - age; have age of
So now we have an alternate way of saying How old are you?:
Yu laoje kekwanti nyan? or Yu sen kemo lao? How old are you?
Mi laoje 48 nyan. or Mi sen lao fe 48 nyan. I’m 48 years old.
As explained in an earlier post, ambitransitive verbs function as transitive verbs in derivation. However, as suggested in a subsequent post, when attaching the suffix -do, ambitransitive verbs function not only as transitive verbs but are ambiguous and function as intransitive verbs as well.
kasirudo janela - the window which has been broken (EO: rompita fenestro), or the window which has broken (EO: rompigxinta fenestro)
One way to look at this is that this works well because -do may be applied to either transitive or intransitive verbs, as seen under Xwexi: Gramati. What hasn’t yet been spelled out is that Globasa’s -do can be regarded as a short form of le-be-X-ne (Esperanto’s -[ig]ita) for verbs labeled as transitive or le-X-ne (Esperanto’s -[igx]inta) for verbs labeled as intransitive.
Alternatively, we can observe that the suffix -do gets away with this ambivalence in meaning and ambiguity with ambitransitive verbs because, as explained under Xwexi: Gramati, -do is attached primarily to the noun aspect of the noun/verb, as can be seen with a noun like paranoy (paranoia), which hasn’t been assigned a verb meaning but nevertheless has worked well with the use of -do to generate the word paranoydo (paranoid, or in a state of paranoia). Based on the series of recent posts, we now know that the logical meaning for paranoy as a verb would be “to be paranoid” or “to cause to be paranoid”, working much like fobi (fear; be/feel afraid; frighten) and pilo (fatigue; be/feel tired; tire), but this is after the fact of having established the use of noun+ -do in paranoydo.
Both of the above interpretations for -do work.
Semantically speaking, the ambiguity with ambitransitive verbs is fine, as can be seen above, where one might not know or care how the window came to be broken (the window broke, by accident or due to its quality, or the window was broken, intentionally).
By the way, the use of le- and xa- with -ne, as seen above to explain -do usage, has not been established in Globasa but would be perfectly logical and could in theory be used to generate derivations equivalent to all Esperanto participles. In practice, though, I think the use of relative clauses would be preferable to the less easily parsed agglutinated forms: alimyen hu da le ergo vs leergone alimyen (the teacher who worked).
I will first give an example definition of the adjustment, and then explain its rationale and give example sentences to illustrate the adjustment as well as how it fits in with already established grammar.
The adjustment is subtle but important:
current – bardi - transitive: chill , make cold , cool (down) ; intransitive: get cold , become cold
new – bardi - transitive: chill, make cold, cool (down); intransitive: be cold
The noun-verbs termo and bardi are ambitransitive verbs, as seen in the Menalari. Currently, they are regarded as agentless verbs and as such they mean “to become warm/hot” and “to become cold” in their intransitive form, and “to cause to be(come) warm/hot” and “to cause to be(come) cold” in their transitive form.
These (and other similar verbs) should instead be regarded as verbs of state/status (a new subcategory of ambitransitive verbs) and work like verbs of feeling. Verbs of feeling, you might recall, are like pilo, which means “to feel fatigue(d) or to cause to feel fatigue(d)”. On the other hand, “to become fatigued” would be xorpilo, which can also be expressed as sencu (or, xorsen) pilodo.
So if we have verbs of state work like verbs of feeling, bardi should mean “to be cold” or “to be in a state of cold” – in short something like “to have cold(ness)” – in its intransitive form, instead of “to become cold”. I think this would be a significantly more useful intransitive form. The transitive form would essentially remain intact.
And now some example sentences to illustrate how verbs of state would work the same as verbs of feeling.
Verbs of Feeling
Mi pilo. = Mi sen pilodo.
I feel fatigue. = I am fatigued/tired.
To pilo mi.
It causes me to feel fatigue. or It tires me.
Mi xorpilo. = Mi sencu/xorsen pilodo.
I become/get tired.
Verbs of State mirroring Verbs of Feeling
To bardi. = To sen bardipul.
It is in a state of cold. = It is cold.
To termo. = To sen termopul.
It is in a state of heat. = It is warm/hot.
Mi bardi to.
I make it cold.
To xorbardi. = To xorsen/sencu bardipul. = To bardipulcu.
It becomes/gets cold.
Mi termo to.
I make it warm. or I heat it.
To xortermo. = To xorsen/sencu termopul. = To termopulcu.
It becomes/gets warm.
I think bardi and termo are the only nouns of state that the Menalari explicitly gives verb forms to, but while ironing out this detail, we can proceed with allowing all other nouns of state to work this way: cinon, xohra, etc.
Te cinon. = Te sen cinonpul.
He has intelligence. = He is intelligent.
Te xohra. = Te sen xohrapul.
She has fame. = She is famous.
Te le xorxohra. = Te le xorsen/sencu xohrapul. = To le xohrapulcu.
She became famous.
As we’ve known for quite some time now, “tired” can be expressed as either pilodo or pilopul. So far, we haven’t established a distinction. However, a distinction is clearly suggested by this new development, which means that verbs of feeling could also be regarded as verbs of state (!) with with pilodo as the adjective form when regarded as a verb of feeling, and with pilopul as the adjective form when regarded as a verb of state.
Mi pilo. = Mi sen pilopul.
I have fatigue. = I am tired (full of fatigue).
As an addition to the grammar, we could therefore tentatively establish a nuance between -pul adjectives (without a specific or identifiable cause) and -do adjectives (caused by something in particular).
Mi sen pilodo.
I’m tired (as a result of something that cause me to feel this way).
Mi sen pilopul.
I’m tired. (Why? No reason, I just feel tired.)
Mi pilo.
(ambiguous) I’m tired or I feel tired.
Mi sen depresido.
I am depressed. (I’ve been depressed or been put into a depressed state by a particular cause, a life circumstance or physiological chemistry.)
Mi sen depresipul.
I am/feel depressed. (no particular cause)
Mi depresi.
(ambiguous) I am or feel depressed.
Likewise, in verbs of state there is distinction between -do and -pul adjectives.
termopul - warm/hot (in that state without specific cause)
termodo - heated (in that state as a result of a cause)
The following words are currently in the Menalari:
poetess - fempoemayen (analyzed as fem-poemayen: female poet)
invisible - okonenible (analyzed as oko-nenible: impossible to see)
stingy, ungenerous - gibenenfil (analyzed as gibe-nenfil: uninclined to give) or nengibefil (analyzed as nengibe-fil: inclined to not give)
What’s going on here? Apparently, nen- immediately precedes the modified morpheme. With a suffix like -fil, nen- can modify either the verb or the suffix and the meaning is essentially synonymous. But with suffixes like -abil and -ible, we cannot modify the verb with nen- and expect the derived word to be synonymous with the word in which nen- modifies the suffix: oko-nenible (impossible to see) vs nenoko-ible (possible to not see).
But how about fem-/man-? Apparently, fem-/man- is always placed at the start of the derived word, meaning that if modifies whatever comes after, as a whole. Shouldn’t it be poemafemyen instead, so that fem-/man- immediately precedes the modified morpheme, in this case the suffix -yen? We could certainly say poemafemyen, but I think it’s fine to always have fem-/man- at the start of the derivation, as the default usage. Why? Because we know that semantically fem-/man- typically modify living beings, not inanimate objects like poems. But wouldn’t a word like femeskolkef mean “a principal for an all-girls school” rather than a “female principal”? No. That would be femyen-eskolkef.
At any rate, if poemafemyen can be tolerated (as an alternative to the standard fempoemayen), couldn’t we also tolerate placing nen- at the start of a derivation with the rest of the word modified, as opposed to just the verb? Couldn’t we say nenokoible as an alternative to okonenible, with nenokoible analized as nen-okoible (not-visible) rather than as nenoko-ible (possible to not see)? In other words, does something like “possible to not see” actually mean anything useful that we need to make a distinction between that and “impossible to see”? Perhaps, but I honestly fail to see a useful distinction, so unless we can discern it, I think we can allow okonenible and nenokoible (nen-okoible, not nenoko-ible) to be synonymous.
By the way, when used with verbs, the English prefix un- means pos- rather than nen-: unlock, unbutton, uninvite, unsee, etc. So something like “possible to unlock” or “possible to unsee” would be expressed with pos-, not nen-: poskufluible (possible to unlock: unlock-able) vs kuflunenible (impossible to lock: un-lockable); posokoible (possible to unsee, which is different from “possible to not see”, whatever that means) vs okonenible (impossible to see: invisible) or (?) nenokoible (not possible-to-see: invisible).
So unlike nen-, pos- would definitely need to always immediately precede the modified word. In this case, there would be a useful distinction between something like posinvitafil (tending to uninvite: loves to uninvite people, presumably after inviting them) vs invitaposfil (averse to inviting: hates to invite people).
In conclusion, we’ll keep the Menalari as is for now, but let’s keep an eye on nen- usage. If words like nenokoible become prevalent, even if not the norm, we’ll likely add those as synonyms at some point, which would parallel -fil pairs like gibenenfil and nengibefil.
The difference between be-X-ne and X-do is subtle but important.
See Content Words under Passive Adjectives
X-do can be roughly translated as “in an inactive state of X” or “which has been X-ed” for transitive verbs and “which has X-ed” for intransitive verbs.
Mi le kari yongudo mobil. I bought a used car. (used: which has been used; in Esperanto this would be roughly equivalent to -ita for transitive verbs and -inta for intransitive verbs.)
The use of -do with intransitive verbs is not as common but here’s an example:
Uncudo Nasyonlari = United Nations (united: which has/have united)
The circumfix construction be-X-ne is less common than X-do and means “which is X-ed or being X-ed”.
Mobil beyongune fal misu gami sen neo. The car used by my wife is new. (used: which is used or being used; in Esperanto this would be roughly equivalent to -ata)