The _basic_ word order is IO DO V S. Often though, IO V DO S is found, because core nominals prefer to come after the verb. That's a little oversimplified, but it should work for this text.Nouns:
Animacy is an inherent property of almost any given noun. Animate includes humans and most animals, including body parts (and some other things that make their way in, esp. nouns related to animate things). Inanimate nouns include plants and most other things.Any noun can be specific or general. This is something like definiteness or indefiniteness is English, but is more based on the info in a speaker's head, and less on what the listener is expected to know. Specific nouns are those whose identity is known by the speaker, and matters. General nouns are those whose exact identity is not known by the speaker and/or is unimportant/irrelevant.
All nouns have some case (except for quotations, though they act as noun phrases, and they can be a subject or object), which is used to mark the semantic role in the sentence. These are the cases used in this text.
AGENT - the willing causer of a state or actionThere is also a subject/direct object/indirect distinction, but this has nothing to do with case roles or semantics. It is purely syntactical: usually, whatever noun phrase is furthest to the right is the subject, and the next to the left is the direct object. If a noun phrase is omitted, it is as if it is still there; e.g., if the subject is omitted, the direct object remains the direct object, and if the verb governing them is finite, must still agree with both.
PATIENT (this is the default case, with no marker) - the experiencer of a state or action
AGENT-PATIENT - this is what it looks like: a combination of the above two cases, for when they are both applicable to one noun
FOCUS - what the state or action is focused on (often corresponds to object in English)
LOCATIVE - in/at ___
ALLATIVE - to ___
CONSTRUCT - ___ of. There are several ways of marking possession, but the only one used in this text is the older and rarer one, used for some inalienable posessions. The suffix -t goes onto the possessed, followed directly by the posessor, which becomes part of the word. In fact, several nouns can be strung up this way, all in one word. There is another construct case marker, -(e)r, but it is used in this text not on a noun, but on a verb, and is explained further down
SENSER - like the patient case, but only used for experiencers of the senses. It usually is used instead of a patient case with certain verbs, but with other verbs can be used for one noun, alongside another noun which is the patient, to show that the former is affected by the verb (though slightly less directly)The case indicated on a subject of a finite verb applies to the noun as it is to be interpreted with that verb. The same case role is extended to any non-finite verbs coming before the finite one. If a non-finite verb requires t he noun to be in a different case however, that case ending goes onto that _non-finite verb_ (yes, verbs take cases too).
Verbs:
The last verb in a sentence is finite and the others are non-finite. A finite verb form is the only one that can mark tense, and then it is only between past and nonpast (the latter is the citation form, used in the glossary above), and it is only if it is dynamic. Obviously, context is important to comprehension.The distinction between dynamic and static verbs is an important one. Dynamic verbs encompass all of a) entrance into, b) being in the midst of, and c) exit from a state or some type of action. Static verbs only express b). Finite dynamic verbs agree with subject, direct object, and indirect object (though you don’t have to deal with the last one here), and finite static verbs agree only with their subject. Non-finite verbs don’t agree in anything, and are understood to have the same subject as the finite verb at the end of the sentence. The agreement that does take place is for animacy and number. This is in fact the only place where number is marked, so for any noun which a verb does not happen to agree with, number must be figured from the context. There is one other category for agreement, namely for "I", i.e., first person singular. When the subject of a verb is "I", the marker is -0, zero. Pronouns tend to be dropped whenever possible, and it is a possibility even for "I", when there is no overt marker.
One time sentences are not OVS is when the V is a finite static verb. These actually wrap around the noun. The first part becomes a separate word before the noun, and the second gets tacked onto the noun as an ending. Any verbal endings go onto the first part. These verbs cannot take objects in the same that others can - they must do it in a roundabout, VOS way. The first part of the verb takes the construct ending -(e)r, and then the object comes afterwards.
There is no real passive or middle voice, and there is no distinction between transitive or intransitive verbs. Any verb can be either, depending on whether or not an agent is expressed, and may be translated completely differently in English depending on which arguments are present.
There are no conjunctions, but if you get more than one verb phrase in a row, "and" or "but" is usually implied.
Relative Clauses:
If a clause is to become relative, the noun being relativized must become the subject, if it is not already. Then, it is dropped, and the identical noun in the matrix clause takes on the case marker of the dropped noun in the relative clause (in addition to whatever marker it already has), and the rest of the rel clause comes before the noun.
Pronouns:
There is a pronoun for "I", and 10 others classified by animacy, number, specificity, and respectfulness (not by 1st, 2nd, 3rd person). Context and interpretation are important to understanding who’s being talked about. Anyway, they’re dropped as often as possible, as already mentioned.