Ring E: 12/22: Jovian

Ask my mother, and she will gladly tell you how to cook her favorite dish.

In the kitchen, prepare beef, potatoes, water, corn- or wheat-flour, grease, spice [salt?], lots of onion, pepper, five taste seed (schizandra in many shops) and sauce (one may use ketchup).

Into a bowl, cut the beef, onion and potatoes, then, stir the water, grease, salt, pepper, schizandra and sauce. Make dough, and wrap clumps of the filling in it. Place them in a basket and deep-fry them.

Notes: I went ahead and took some liberties with some of the lesser-documented features of the source text. For example, I interpreted {compose|loaf} as "loaf raw material" = dough, {pungent|water} as "sauce" (it could have been soy sauce, vinegar, salt water, brandy or broth, but it had to fit with the ketchup addendum), and {ketchup in many shops} as "one may use ketchup (for the sauce)". The last one is a huge stretch, but I couldn't think of a sensible meaning for {sauce (ketchup in many shops)}.

Noun Phrases

In Modern Jovian, nouns only inflect for number, not for case. Only pronouns still have case inflections. For that reason, it is important that each noun phrase be marked with at least an article or a preposition, lest it be interpreted by default as a nominative before the verb or an accusative after the verb.

The 3rd person personal pronoun |is, ja, id| "he, she, it" doubles as the definite article e.g. |ja feima| "the woman" (literally: "she woman"). The indefinite article is |u, a, un|. Both are very irregular, thus their inflected forms are given in the vocabulary.

A peculiarity of Jovian noun phrases is the fronting of modifiers. An adjective or adjective-like pronoun can be moved BEFORE the noun phrase's first word (an article or preposition), where it loses all inflection. Observe:

  |a feima beola| OR |beole a feima| "a pretty woman"

With most pronouns, this construction is actually mandatory:

  |oene ni obe|  "by every means"
  |nuole u omme| "not a single man, no man"
  |mi yh mare|   "of my mother"

A possessive pronoun and a following article are often contracted:

  |mih pare| = *|mi ih pare| "my father (NOM)"

The oblique case combines the roles of the Latin dative and ablative cases.

Plural endings for the nouns include -s, -i (male), -ae (feminine), -a (neuter), -ei (e-thematic).

The oblique case combines the function of Latin dative and ablative. It is sometimes used instead of a locative or instrumental preposition:

  |ei Dowingu| "on Sunday"
  |esser ei coeglare| "to eat with the spoon"

Verbs

Jovian verbs always inflect for person and number.

The regular verb endings are the following:

The imperative is in all but the most irregular cases identical to the 3sg form.

The past participle ends in -ade, -ide for the regular verbs, and can be inflected like an adjective. Irregular and athematic verbs have less recognizable PPs; they are given in the lexical notation.

  |aware| "to love"
  |awade| "loved" (uninflected form)
  |maedel awada| "loved girl"
  |cerle awadu| "loved guy"
  |aemmaele awadun| "loved animal"

Most verb modulations are built with the help of auxiliaries, e.g.:

  |haere| + PP: perfect aspect/tense
     |hae facte| "(he, she) made, has made"
  |gare| + infinitive: conditional mood
     |ga venire| "(he, she) would come"
  |fire| + PP: passive voice
     |fi candade| "(it) is sung"
  |ire| + infinitive: future tense
     |jau uenger| "I will win"
  |ere| + |in| + infinitive: continuous aspect
     |sou in laubrare| "I am working"