Sajem Tan/Conjunctions

As of June 24th 2016 there are seven conjunctions in Sajem Tan

xok > both

one of   xor exclusive or   Examples: Dyznekvah xok zhangu zlnathnyn xafolmdah Thethat. Wind attacked the chimaera with either a two-handed sword or a one-handed sword. Xafolmfeh sin xok vaslnulmfeh sin! Either attack or run away!

jo > both

if   implies therefore Example: sesuhtfeh fmolk zhu jo telzlnolnfeh dic thehvmeh tulnah If you sing annoyingly, my eyes will rain. If you sing, I'll cry.

mahn > clause

when while See Also: sno Examples: Vaslnulmdah zlnathnyn mahn xafolmdah Thethat. The chimaera ran away when Wind attacked. Xaxatum sin xyt dehah mahn sesuhtum tetan. We all must laugh when the tetan sings.

nu > both

inclusive or   at least one of these clauses is true at least one of these sub-noun phrases is the referent of the overall noun phrase See Also: xok

tyk > clause

so   as a result Example: dehahvmeh Sajem Tan zhejulnmunfeh Thefnolm tyk zo vesneneht zlo shasholcfeh fnit xyt duahkahm. our Common Honey enjoy-very Bear so it shared he partake willing all them-with Sesuhtfeh tetan, tyk xaxatfeh xyt dehah. The tetan sang, so we all laughed.

keh > both

and Xykuhkgu keh zhangu zlnathnyn xafolmdah Thethat. Wind attacked the chimaera with shield and one-handed sword.

ahn > both

one of

Conjunctions in Sajem Tan are infix conjunctions, that is, they come between their arguments rather than coming before or after both arguments. This basic use should be easy enough for English speakers. It remains to be seen whether, as in English, conjunctions can come at the beginning of a sentence and implicitly link it to the previous sentence.

What does the tribe think? Shall we allow this, or require a dummy "previous sentence" pronoun to precede the conjunction? E.g., Of the conjunctions used in the corpus, "keh" is attested between noun phrases and between clauses. "xok" is only attested between noun phrases, but it makes sense to use it between clauses. "mahn" is only attested between clauses and may not make sense between noun phrases. "jo" is used both between clauses and noun phrases, and, unusually, has been used between noun phrases as a sentence by itself -- acting as a sort of particle copula, in contrast to our verb copula zan-. "tyk" is attested only between clauses, and probably doesn't make sense between noun phrases. "ahn" and "nu" are not used in the corpus yet. But Spider is not sure they should be conjunctions in any case. As glossed, they sound like quantifiers which would precede their single argument, not come between two arguments. Do others of the tribe disagree? Here are some examples of conjunction use, some culled from the corpus, some newly composed.