Lesson 2 — How to make a sentence
Baslamo sentences can be put together in a variety of ways, with a few rules:
- The one doing an action, or the subject, always goes first,
- Adjectives always come after the word they modify, and
- The one experiencing an action, or the object, always has a preposition before it.
For now, the object preposition will always be e.
Statements
With these rules, the basic structure is as follows:
| Type | Example | English |
|---|---|---|
| subject, verb, object | me li jati e baslamo | I'm speaking Baslamo |
| subject, object, verb | lel e ovose li esa | He's eating (a) fruit |
| noun, adjective | taga ven | a warm day |
You'll notice that the verbs in these sentences have li before them. This word describes an action that's unfinished or still happening, and always goes directly before the verb. However, you can get rid of this word in situations where it's easy to tell what the verb is, and it'll maintain the same meaning:
- me sin e salam. — I see a person.
- lel dop e me ka? — Can they help me?
But be weary of verbs that don't take an object!
- salam ega — The man is annoyed. / The annoying man.
- tajam utika — The animal flees. / The cowardly animal.
Questions
Questions are made by putting the question particle ka at the beginning or end of a sentence; sort of like a spoken question mark.
- lel li kan e kitap. — He has a book.
- ka lel li kan e kitap? — Does he have a book?
- lel li kan e kitap ka? — Does he have a book?
The question mark itself can be omitted, but it's best to keep it.
Negatives
You can negate a specific word in a sentence by putting ma before it.
- inaki li esa e mis. — The dog eats the meat.
- ma inaki li esa e mis. — The dog isn't eating the meat.
- inaki ma li esa e mis. — The dog isn't eating the meat.
- inaki li esa e ma mis. — The dog isn't eating the meat.
Wait, how do you say "the" and "a"?
You don't! Or, more exactly, there's no dedicated word for either of these. If you want to refer to one thing, you could use un, meaning "one":
- mama — the parent, a parent
- un mama — a parent, one parent
And if you want to refer to some specific object, you could use lel, which means "this" or "that":
- umal — the apple, an apple
- lel umal — that specific apple
What does lel even mean?
In the examples above, we saw lel translated as "he", "they", and "that"; all of these meanings are correct! More precisely, lel means he, she, it, or they, as well as this and that. We'll see more of lel and related words in Lesson 5, as it's one of the doskamolas. Here's a few examples of the versatility of lel:
- lel li meti e kitap. — He/she/they place down the book.
- lel kitap li e mea! — This/that book is mine!
- tes sin e lel salam ka? — Do y'all see this/that person?
Some words to start with
Now that we know how to put sentences together, here's a few words you can play around with:
- me, te — I/me, you
- mes, tes — we/us, y'all
- lel — he/she/it/they and this/that
- esa — to eat, to drink; food, nourishment
- jati — to speak, talk; speech
- sin — to see, look at
- kitap — to read; book
- salam — person, man, woman
- mama — parent, mother, father
Don't forget the important sentence-building words li and e!