Tydotsuy discourse particles

Relationship between sentences

The following words express relationships between sentences:

lopys "wait, earlier I meant..."

Indicates a correction from something earlier in the conversation, from at least more than one sentence ago. Goes at the beginning of the sentence. The correction is focused with pys (see below). If it's correcting the previous sentence that either the speaker or the listener said, just the focus marker is used.

es "yeah"

Indicates agreement with another person in the conversation. Goes at the beginning of the sentence usually.

elh "however"

Indicates that the sentence contrasts with or is contrary to an expectation established by a previous sentence. This is a focus particle (see below); if there isn't a specific part of the sentence that should be the focus, then this goes right before the verb.

eta "therefore"

Placed at the beginning of a sentence, indicates that the sentence follows logically from the previous sentence. Placed right before the verb, this acts as an inferential evidential for tense/aspect/mood/verb class combinations that don't otherwise mark it.

Common mood

Common mood, formed with the prefix eth– or the modal thee, is used to indicate that the proposition expressed by the sentence is already known to both the speaker and the listener. The most common use for this would be in what would in English be subordinate clauses.

It is also used in certain focus-related constructions; see below.

Focus

Focus particles

Focus can be indicated by putting a focus particle in front of the focused item (noun phrase, verb, adjective):

pu and sa

These words are used in negative sentences and questions, respectively. They imply that the rest of the sentence is true if the focused element is replaced by something else. Pu cannot be used before the article puo, and sa cannot be used before the article sa; in those cases, the article is replaced with a= or al=.

pys "no, it's"

Used when one is correcting a previous statement they made, or disagreeing with a statement that someone else made, to mark the part of the statement they disagree with. When used on its own, this can be used to disagree with the previous statement (whether it's positive or negative).

elh "however"

Marks a part of the sentence that either contrasts with or is contrary to an expectation established by a previous sentence. When used on its own, this can be used to agree with what's said by the previous statement while disagreeing with something that might by implied by it; the speaker can then go on to explain why ze disagrees.

spis "also"

Implies that the rest of the sentence has also been established to be true with the focused item replaced with something else, and that the sentence is true with the specified item as well. For a meaning similar to "again", this particle can be used to focus on the time.

Common sentence focus

To focus on one element of a sentence, while implying that existence of something that fills that role in the sentence is already known to the conversation participants, a structure using the common mood can be used. Take the sentence, put it into the common mood, and replace the focused item with the pronoun hwih. At the end of the sentence, put the focus particle and the focused noun. The focus particle can be pu, sa, pys, or elh (with the meanings above); if none of those apply, then it's aa (though this particle is omitted before the articles a= and al=)

If the focused item is already a topic of the conversation, then instead of focusing it, one can make it the subject of the sentence, use the verb ese, and then follow it with a verb using the common mood and then the rest of the sentence.

Not... but...

With pys and elh, one can include the original word they're correcting from by putting the word or phrase on either side of the existing word or phrase (including the focus particle) and preceding the incorrect word or phrase with pu.

Topics

A few ways topics can be expressed:

• Primarily for topics that apply to multiple sentences: oshthyy "about" (Hwih shloshtyy topic; sentence...)
• For stative verbs or topical locations: altha "have" (Topic altha sentence...)
• For active verbs: esla "happen" (Topic esla sentence...)

If the topic is the object of the verb, a pronoun needs to go where the object normally would.

Voice

The following constructions serve voice-like purposes:

• The "give" passive is used on verbs whose subject is low-volition (particularly verbs of experience) to turn the second argument into a subject. It uses the verb olyy.
• Using a transitive verb as intransitive.
• The pronoun noy and the particle bwese.