Lesson 1: What is this?

Dialog

Dialog 1

MIRAD	ENGLISH
1. Hos se his?	What is this?
2. His se drar.	This is a pencil.
3. Hos se hus?	What is that?
4. Hus se dresem.	That's a desk.
5. Hua dresem se aga.	That desk is big.
6. Hia drar se oga.	This pencil is small.
7. Hos se aga?	What is big?
8. Hua dresem se aga.	That desk is big.
9. Hos se oga?	What is small?
10. Hia drar se oga.	This pencil is small.
11. Hoa drari se oga?	Which pencils are small?
12. Hia drari se oga.	These pencils are small.
13. Ha dresemi se aga. Ha drari se oga.	The desks are big. The pencils are small.
14. Hua drari se oga. Husi se oga.	Those pencils are small. Those are small.

Determiners

In the above dialog, you see words that begin with the letter h. These are a special type of word called determiners, or more specifically deictic determiners. These are words which point out the context of something, for example, where something is located relative to the speaker. Such determiners can be pronouns or adjectives modifying a noun that follows. The h is pronounced just as in American English. The chart below show the deictic (pointing) determiners used in the dialog:

Dialog 1 Determiners

TYPE	PRONOUN	ADJECTIVE
INTERROGATIVE	hos?....what?	hoa....which
DEFINITE	has....it	ha....the
PROXIMATE	his....this	hia....this, these
DISTAL	hus....that	hua....that, those

Deictic ("pointing") determiners always begin with the consonant h and are followed by a vowel that indicates whether it is interrogative, proximate (near the speaker), distal (away from the speaker), and more categories that will be learned later. The final letter, if s signals that the determiner is a pronoun referring to a thing. If the final consonant is a, it means that the determiner is an adjective that modifies the following noun. In fact, all adjectives in Mirad end in -a.

This may seem a little confusing to the learner at first, because in English, this as a pronoun (this [ = thing]) is not distinguished from this as a adjective (this [desk]). The two are distinguished in Mirad (his (this [thing]) vs. hia drar (this pencil).

Mirad students who speak Latin-based languages like French and Spanish need to know that adjectives in Mirad do not agree in gender and number with the noun they modify. So, hia (this) and hia (that) do not change form no matter what the object or person noun they modify. The same applies to descriptive adjectives like aga (big) and oga (small).

Another matter that Latin-based language speakers need to realize is that adjectives in Mirad come BEFORE the noun they modify. Furthermore, deictic determiners acting as adjectives precede any descriptive adjectives. So, these¹ small² desks would be expressed in Mirad as hia¹ oga² dresemi.

Pluralizing Nouns and Pronoun Determiners

Nouns, which always end in a consonant, are made plural by suffixing the vowel i to the noun. dresem = a desk, dresemi = desks; drar = a pencil, drari = pencils.

The pronoun determiners has, his, and hus are also pluralized by suffixing the vowel i. For example, Hisi se oga.....these are small.

The adjectival determiners and descriptive adjectives modifying the noun do not change form, i.e. they do not agree in number as in English and Latin-based languages, eg. hua drar....that pencil vs. hua drari....those pencils. This includes the definite adjectival determiner ha....the, which never changes form.

Dialog 1 Pluralizing Nouns

SINGULAR	PLURAL
hoa drar?....which pencil?	hoa drari?....which pencils?
hia dresem....this desk	hia dresemi....these desks
hua drar....that pencil	hua drari....those pencils
hua aga dresem....that big desk	hua aga dresemi....those big desks
hua oga drar....that little pencil	hua oga drari....those little pencils
ha drar....the pencil	ha drari....the pencils
Hos?....What (thing)?	Hosi?....What (things)?
His.....This (thing).	Hisi.....These (things)
Hus.....That (thing).	Husi.....Those (things)
Has....It.	Hasi.....They, the things

Modifying Nouns with Articles

In Mirad, there is no equivalent of the English indefinite article a or an. This article is left unexpressed. So aga drar means a big pencil. oga drari means little pencils.

The equivalent of the definite article the, however, is rendered by the adjectival deictic determiner ha. So, the desk and the desks are expressed by Mirad ha dresem and ha dresemi. Again, ha does not change form when modify a singular or plural noun. The definite article ha (which is really the definite adjectival deictic determiner, is used exactly as the English article the (which is quite different from the use of the definite article in many other languages).

Adjective Opposites

Note that aga and oga are opposite in meaning. The stem vowels a and o spell the difference. If the stem vowel of a descriptive adjective is a, then its opposite will be o and the adjective with a will be the positive, greater, or better of the two values. In fact, there is an "in-between" values represented by the vowel e, as in the chart below:

Dialog 1 Three-Way Descriptive Adjectives

POSITIVE	INTERMEDIATE	NEGATIVE
aga....big	ega....normal	oga....small
aza....strong	eza....moderate	oza....weak

Verb to be in the Present

The verb form used in the above dialog is se, which is the simple present tense form of the verb infinitive ser meaning to be. The form se is used with singular or plural subjects and therefore means am, is or are. Mirad does not normally make a distinction between the the being of essence and the being of circumstance as does Spanish with ser and estar. (And, by the way, the similarity in form between the ser of Mirad and the ser of Spanish is purely coincidental. Vocabulary in Mirad is a priori, that is, created from scratch and not based on any existing human language.)

Lesson 1 Vocabulary

Nouns

• drar....pencil
• dresem....desk

Pronouns

• hos? / his / hus / has....what? / this (thing) / that (thing) / it (the thing)

Adjectives

• hoa? / hia / hua / ha....which? / this / that / the
• aga / ega / oga....big / normal / little
• aza / eza / oza....strong / moderate / weak

Verbs

• ser....to be

• se....is / am / are (simple present tense)