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Lesson 4

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on August 29, 2007 at 12:34:55 pm
 

LESSON FOUR — Ke

 

Briefly, Ceqli ke works exactly like Esperanto "ke." It gives a phrase the status of a noun, so that it can be the subject or object of a verb.

 

zi dwel franzohaym.

You live in France.

go jan ke zi dwel franzohaym.

I know that you live in France.

 

But it has a more generalized use, too. Used before a verb alone, it makes it into an infinitive, so to speak, so it can be the object of another verb:

 

go fey ke tomofuq.

I can drive.

 

Without the ke, the fey could be interpreted as modifying tomofuq.

 

go fey tomofuq.

I ably drive.

 

Of course, in the terse version of Ceqli, the ke is often left out, and context makes the meaning clear. For full preciseness, you'd have:

 

go fey ke tomofuq.

for the first meaning, and

go fey sa tomofuq.

for the latter.

 

Note:

go fey ke tomofuq.

can be regarded as short for

go fey ke go tomofuq.

which is what you might say to a computer or a Martian, in what is called "precise" Ceqli. This is a common Ceqli phenomenon — having a long, precise way of saying something, and an alternate terse but potentiallly ambiguous version, understandable by context. A good example is the common usage of ciq, from the Mandarin, which means "invite," but which can be translated as "please" in most cases.

 

go ciq ke zi danho.

I invite that you enter. This can be pared down to:

ciq danho

Please come in.

 

XE

 

xe is most always a suffix, indicating a "sentence modifier."

 

hawtalixe, to curpe smerho.

Luckily, the thief died.

 

This differs considerably from

to curpe hawtali sa smerho.

The thief died in a lucky manner.

 

Not so! Not lucky for the thief at all. xe words do not modify words within a sentence, but modify the sentence as a whole, usually expressing the speaker's attitude, but other uses are possible. Note that the difference in English is expressed by word order and pauses:

 

Luckily, the thief died.

The thief died luckily.

 

Other examples:

 

gomenxe, goda bu ten banana.

Sorry, we have no bananas.

da fu sta heym sperxe do swarkomka.

He'll be home, hopefully, at dinnertime.

 

 

xe also is used to form what you might call "evidentials," thus. Paired with the word de, meaning "from," it can express the source of the speaker's knowledge.

 

janzo, boldexe, pa pogan jeusa kam.

John, it is said, lost his job.

 

to kiqo pa ten karahar, pomnidexe.

The king had a beard, as I remember it.

 

xawdexe, to felin pa kom zisa kala.

The cat ate your fish (I saw it happen).

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