Sample Worksheet 1: Verbs and Agreement
There are four noun classes in all dialects of Ket Lau, usually noted numerically:
Holy: gods and their domains
Hunter: ketal and things that eat them
Animate: things that can be eaten
Inanimate: things that can’t be eaten
There are a few nouns with classes you just have to memorise, but for the most part it’s simple and intuitive. Just ask yourself these questions:
Is it a god or does it belong to a god?
Is it a ket or a monster?
Is it alive, and something other than a ket, monster, or plant?
Is it anything else?
You need to know what class a noun is in because the rest of your sentence needs to be in agreement with that class.
Marhsaln (”Hunt”) is the god of the hunt, so they go in the first class.
Vhieg (”beast”) is not a god, but it is a monster that eats ketal, so it goes in the second class.
Mira (”prey”) is not a god, and it doesn’t eat ketal, but it is a living animal, and so it goes in the third class.
Iirem (”stick”) is not a god, doesn’t eat ketal, and is not alive, so it goes in the fourth class.
We’ll make a sentence: “Yesterday, I saw ________”. We’ll fill in the blank with our examples, above.
If you are speaking in a formal register, you’ll have the leading pronoun agree with the class of the object. If you aren’t, the verb itself will agree with the class of the object. We’ll look at a formal register first:
Sek · vhan · set · kuu · ta·Marhsaln
See · yesterday · it · I · Marhsaln
Sek · vhan · ete · kuu · ta·vhieg
See · yesterday · it · I · vhieg
Sek · vhan · ene · kuu · ta·mira
See · yesterday · it · I · mira
Sek · vhan · kit · kuu · ta · hiirem
See · yesterday · it · I · iirem
As you can see, these sentences follow the formula of: verb - tense - leading pronoun - subject - object marker - object, and the leading pronoun is in agreement with the class of the object.
In a sentence without an object, the leading pronoun will be in agreement with the subject, instead.
And in our informal register:
Sesk · vhan · kuu · ta·Marhsaln
See · yesterday · I · Marhsaln
Sekt · vhan · kuu · ta·vhieg
See · yesterday · I · vhieg
Seken · vhan · kuu · ta·mira
See · yesterday · I · mira
Seki · vhan · kuu · ta · hiirem
See · yesterday · I · iirem
Our formula is now: verb - tense - subject - object marker - object. The verb has combined with the leading pronoun, and now agrees itself with the class of the object.
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Let’s practice:
Match the noun class with the pronoun
Holy ene
Hunter kit
Animate ete
Inanimate set
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What noun class would a dog belong to?
What noun class would a pencil belong to?
What noun class would a dragon belong to?
What noun class would a flower belong to?
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The word “Lan” means “to wait”. Write the sentence “I’m waiting” in formal Teket Lau: ______________________________________________________________
The word “Rhatun” means “to smell”, and conjugates into these forms:
Rhasal
Rhaet
Rhaten
Rhaki
Write the sentence “I smell a beast” in informal Teket Lau: ______________________________________________________________