Occidental for English Speakers: Lesson 13

Let’s talk about word formation in Occidental.

You know the word "evident" in English? "We hold these truths to be self-evident..."

Occidental helps us to understand what this word truly means.

?We want to see you|Noi vole vider te

So vide means "see".

The prefix ex- means "from out of".

ex + vide = "from out of see"

The ending -nt is the same as the English -ing.

ex + vide + nt = "from out of seeing".

So we have "exvident". But in Latin, ex in front of a consonant squashes the x and it becomes e. Occidental squashes the -x- as well.

?It is evident|It es evident

Guess what: You just learned how to use the "-ing" ending of all verbs!

In the very first lesson, I said that you don’t need to say these "-ing" verbs to express the present tense.

That is still true. But now you have the option if you want to express a sort of present continuing/current action.

Just remove the final -r and add -nt.

?I am eating|Yo es manjant

You may have noticed that this form of the verb is used to describe things, though. Think of this more like an adjective.

The word for dog is can

Think of "canine" of course.

?The eating dog eats|Li manjant can manja

See how that works? The word "eating" sort of describes the dog.

?I am thinking|Yo es pensant

The word "thinking" is describing yourself. You are thinking.

This is technically called the "present participle" if you want to look it up.

Now what if you want to talk about the act of doing something? For example, "Thinking is good".

In this case, you are using "thinking" like a noun. When we do this, we simply add an -e after the -nt.

?Eating food is good|Manjante nutriment es bon

The verb for to mean or to signify is significar

If a sign means something, it "sign-ifies"

Literally: "What it means"

?What does it mean|Quo it significa

If something is meaningful, then it is "signifying".

?It is significant|It es significant

Amazing, right?

The word for amazing is astonant

Think of "astonishing".

?The movie was amazing|Li film esset astonant

If you remove the -nt and add an -r, you get the infinitive verb for "to astonish" or "to amaze".

?It amazes me that you are thinking|It astona me que tu es pensant

There are many more -ant / -ent words that we use in English without even thinking about it. For example, accelerant, existent. These words in Occidental have an internally coherent meaning!

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NOTE: This appears to be the last lesson so far. The course is not marked as finished so there should probably be more lessons in the future. In the meanwhile, you might want to check out some of the other courses we have:

Introduction to Latvian	a course of Latvian with 5 lessons produced by Linas
Introduction to Lithuanian II	a course of Lithuanian with 5 lessons produced by Linas
Forming the Future Subjunctive	a course of Portuguese with 3 lessons produced by Linas

You can also return to the main page of the labs to see all of the courses we have here.