Outidic /ˈaʊtɪdɪk/ - Dr Outis' "Lingua Communis"

1. Introduction

Dr Outis did not give a dedicated syntax section. What I attempt to do here is to summarize what I understand to be the syntax of the language from what tells us and the examples he gives.

2. What we have seen in the previous pages

2.1 Normal Word Order

We have seen that the normal word order is Subject Verb Object, if that Object is direct. Indirect Object is expressed with the preposition po to, e.g.

• Ut edos sout po kun He gave a bone to the dog/ He gave the dog a bone.
• Em eleg po paideu I said to the boy/ I told the boy..

2.2 Position of Adpositions

We have seen that adpositions in Outidic, as in most European languages (exceptions being Basque, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian and Saami) are placed before their noun complement (noun, pronoun, or noun phrase), i.e. they are prepositions. The preposition and its complement forms a single structure, a prepositional phrase, which, in Outidic, functions grammatically as an adverb (but see particle o below).

2.3 Position of Adjectives

We saw also that adjectives are placed before the noun they qualify. e.g. meg dom a large house, but that the adjective may follow the noun if it is linked by the relative particle o, e.g. dom o meg.

Above we said that prepositional phrases in Outidic are adverbial in function; if we wish to use such as a phrase adjectivally, we must link it to the noun with the relative particle, e.g. kun o ne kep the dog (which is) in the garden.
Cf.:

• Kun akoiman ne kep The dog is sleeping in the garden ("in the garden" is adverbial),
• Kun o ne kep ou ain po em The dog in the garden is not mine ("in the garden" is adverbial)

2.4 Relative Clauses

The particle o (on before vowels) is used to introduce relative clauses. Examples of these are given in Section 4 of 'Other Pronouns'.

2.5 Questions

There are three types of questions:

1. Wh-questions (also known as open questions, variable questions, non-polar questions or special questions) e.g. "Where is the dog?", "Whose dog is it?"
2. Yes-no questions (also known as a polar questions, or general questions) e.g. "Is the dog in the house?"
3. Alternative questions e.g. "Is the dog in the house or has it gone in the garden?"

We have seens examples of all three types in previous pages.

The interrogative adjectives, nouns and adverbs (Outidic's wh-words) are given in the Table of Correlatives in Section 3.5 of 'Other Pronouns'. Only one example, however, is given: Tindrop kun-ut toutot ain? Whose dog is this? which shows that there is no inversion of subject and verb and we may assume that is a general rule in Outidic. Thus Where is the dog? will be Tintop kun ain?

In Section 3.3. of 'Prepositions, Conjunctions, Adverbs, Particles & Interjections' we read that:

• ra "introduces a question if there is no specific interrogative pronoun, adjective or adverb" e.g. Ra kun ain ne dom? Is the dog in the house?
• rale ... rale marks an alternative question, e.g. Rale kun ain en dom rale ut eban se kep? Is the dog in the house or did it go into the garden?

2.6 Exclamations

Dr Outis gave no specific forms for these. As in very many languages they are either statements, often preceded by an interjection (see Section 3.4 of 'Prepositions, Conjunctions, Adverbs, Particles & Interjections') or a question form uttered in an exclamatory form. Examples from previous pages include:

• A, dom ain pru-meg! Oh, the house is too big!
• Tin-paidik! How childish!

2.7 Commands

These are traditionally imperatives (2nd person), jussives ('3rd person imperatives') and hortatives (1st person plural). We have seen that Outidic uses its subjunctive mood for all these. Examples we found in previous pages are:

• imperative: Trek! Run! [perfective]; Trekan! Get running! [imperfective]
• jussive: Ut koiman! Let him sleep (on)! [imperfective]
• hortative: Emas ban! Let's go! [perfective].

We saw in Section 3.4 of 'Prepositions, Conjunctions, Adverbs, Particles & Interjections') that the particle tei modifies a command so that it becomes a wish.

3. Conditional Sentences

We have already seen in the table of conjunctions that the word for if is kei and been given two examples of conditional sentences, namely:

• kei um oban, em kai oban if you go, I shall go also.
• kei ut elab treus, ut oklazes if he took the treasure, he will be punished.

More, however, needs to be said about such sentences. But first we need some definitions.

Such sentences consist of two clauses:

• the protasis, antecedent or if-clause which expresses the condition (e.g. if you go, if he took the treasure)
• the apodosis, consequent or then-clause which expresses the result (e.g. I shall go also, he will be punished.)

Dr Outis used the terms protasis and apodosis; but I shall use antecedent and consequent as their meanings are more apparent.

The other thing to note is that conditional sentences may be divided into two types:

• Open conditions in which the fulfilment of the condition is regarded as a realistic possibility;
• Closed conditions in which fulfilment is seen as impossible, counterfactual or, at best, unlikely.

3.1 Open Conditions

Most languages simply use indicative mood in the antecedent, and whatever form is appropriate in the consequent (usually indicative also, but possibly subjunctive or some other mood if required by the meaning). Ancient Greek behaved so with open conditions in present or past time; for the future, however, a different word for if was normally used, namely, ἐάν (eán) ← ἐι (ei) + ἄν (án) with the subjunctive mood. But this was not universal and ἐι with the future indicative was sometimes found. Dr Outis decided that the peculiarity of the Ancient Greek future forms had no place in an auxiliary language; he decided, therefore, the indicative mood would always be used in the antecedent as, indeed, we saw with: kei um oban, em kai oban if you (will) go, I shall go also.

Note that in English we rarely use forms with shall or will in antecedents referring to the future; we are content to use the simple future instead. But that is not the case in Outidic; if the antecedent refers to the future, then the future indicative must be used, e.g. Kei obrekiz, emas ou oban If it rains, we shall not go.

Other examples of open conditions:

• Kei ut eleg keintot, ut epseudes If he said that, he was mistaken.
• Kei ou abrekizan, em obadizes se psol If it is not raining, I'll walk into the city.

3.2. Closed Conditions

These are marked in English and many western European languages thus:

• The tense in the antecedent is made more 'remote' by being 'stepped back into the past', and
• the consequent has a conditional form with would, could &c.

For example:

Past closed condition	If I had known that, I would not have gone there.
Present closed condition	If it were raining, I would not be walking into the city.
Past closed antecedent, present closed consequent	If it had rained last night, we would see more water in the barrel.
Future closed condition	If he should die, I would be very sad.

We have seen that Outidic does not have a 'conditional tense'; nor does it have a 'past of the past' (pluperfect). But what marked out such conditions in ancient Greek was the particle ἄν in the consequent, placed normally before the verb. Dr Outis kept this in his language; he was guided by ancient Greek also in assigning tense and mood to the verbs in closed conditions which in both the antecedent and consequent used

• The aorist indicative (past perfective) for past closed conditions;
• The imperfect indicative (past imperfective) for present closed conditions;
• The optative mood for future closed conditions.

Therefore, he likewise used past perfective in past closed conditions and past imperfective in present closed conditions. Outidic has no optative mood, but Dr Outis used its subjunctive mood instead for closed future conditions. Thus the four sentences in the table above are:

• Kei em egros keintot, em ou an eban se keintop.
• Kei ebrikizan, em ou an ebadizesan se psol.
• Kei ebrekiz zenuk, emas an eblepan ma-poul daut ne kad.
• Kei ut tan, em za-poul an lupizes.

4. Content Clauses & Reported Speech

In this section and the next we shall be mainly considering various types of what are traditionally called subordinate clauses; these (also known as dependent clauses or embedded clauses) are clauses embedded under a higher clause. The most important subordinate clauses are:

1. content clauses (often traditionally called noun clauses and, by some, complement clauses*), which we shall consider in this Section;
2. relative clauses (also sometimes called adjectival clauses) which modify a noun or noun phrase and have been dealt with in subsection 2.4 above;
3. adverbial clauses which are considered in section 5 below.

* The terms content clause and complement clause, however, are not strictly synonymous; for further explanation, click here.

Content clauses can have a number of different grammatical roles. They often serve as direct objects of verbs of reporting, cognition, perception, and so on. In Outidic as in English there are two main kinds of content clauses:

• declarative content clauses, which correspond to declarative sentences;
• interrogative content clauses, which correspond to interrogative sentences.

In some languages, e.g. Classical Latin, we should have to add a third one: jussive content clauses. In Ancient Greek, however, the infinitive normally showed reported commands and requests, just as it does in English. It will be no surprise, therefore, that Dr Outis also does so in Outidic. However, we included reported commands & requests in this section for the sake of completeness.

4.1 Declarative Content Clauses

These begin with to ← ὅτι (hóti) and may serve various grammatical functions. They often serve as direct objects of verbs of reporting, cognition, perception, and so on; e.g.

• Ut anoizan to kun ain ne dom. = She thinks (that) the dog is in the house.
• Ut alegan po utas to utas oban se psol raumer. = He is telling them (saying to them) (that) they will go to the city tomorrow.

They may serve as complements of adjectives or nouns, e.g.

• em ain pliden to utas opoz ren su emas. = I am hopeful (that) they will make peace with us.
• em akset neir to ke nat se dut pan tenas okoin ne ren su elas. = I have a dream that from east to west all nations will dwell in peace with one another.

Thirdly, they can serve as subjects; in this use in modern English, they are commonly postponed to the end of their main clause, with an expletive it standing in their original place as subject; e.g.

• to emas omem tou mer ain psoud = That we will remember this day is important/ It important (that) we remember this day.
• To ut eleg keintot alupizan eme = That he said that upsets me/ It upsets me (that) he said that.

A major difference between Outidic and English and many western European languages is that Outidic has no shift of tense in the subordinate clause if the verb in the main clause is in a past tense. In this Dr Outis followed ancient Greek practice and that of Slav languages. Cf.

• Ut enoiz to kun ain ne dom. = She thought (that) the dog was in the house.
• Ut eleg po utas to utas oban se psol raumer. = He told them (said to them) (that) they would go to the city the next day.
• ut ein pliden to utas opoz ren su ut. = He was hopeful (that) they would make peace with him.
• To ut eleg keintot elupiz eme = That he had said that upset me/ It upset me (that) he had said that.

4.2 Interrogative Content Clauses

Interrogative content clauses, often called indirect questions, can be used in many of the same ways as declarative ones; they do not begin with to but with an appropriate interrogative particle, adjective, pronoun or adverb. cf.

• Emas ou agrosan rale utas oletan rale ou. = We do not know whether/if they will be coming or not.
• Ut arotan utas tintait utas eleg keintot. = She is asking them why they said that.
• Ke tintop utas elet ou ain grosot. = From where they came is not known/ It is not known where they came from.

They may also occur as objects of prepositions, e.g.

• Eme anoizan pre tintot utas eleg. = I am thinking about what they said.

Remember that, unlike English, there is no shift of tense if the main verb is past; cf.

• Emas ou egros rale utas oletan rale ou. = We did not know whether/if they would be coming or not.
• Ut erot utas tintait utas eleg keintot. = She asked them why they had said that.
• Ke tintop utas elet ou ein grosot. = From where they had come was not known/ It was not known where they had come from.
• Eme enoizan pre tintot utas eleg. = I was thinking about what they had said.

4.3 Reported Commands & Requests

As we observed above, Dr Outis did not use a subordinate clause for this (as. e.g. Classical Latin did) but used the infinitive as in both Modern English and Ancient Greek, e.g.

• Ut eleg po utas ou plain letai. = He told them not to come again.
Ut erot eme banai se keintop raumer. = She asked me to go there tomorrow.

5. Adverbial Clauses

An adverbial clause is a dependent clause that functions as an adverb, i.e. the clause modifies a separate element within a sentence or the sentence itself. In the Table of Correlatives on the 'Other Pronouns' page we saw that the correlative pronouns had associated adverb forms: adverb of place; adverb of time; adverb of manner; adverb of cause. We shall find that similarly there are adverbial clauses of place, time, manner and cause; indeed, we an example of an adverbial clause of time and adverbial clause of place in subsection 4.5 of 'Other Pronouns'. To these we should add adverbial clauses of purpose, result, comparison, concession and condition. We considered the latter in Section 3 above and will not deal further with them here.

5.1 Adverbial Clause of Place

5.2 Adverbial Clause of Time

In subsection 4.5 of 'Other Pronouns' we found: top o treus-um ain ne ut, keintop ain kai krad-um = where your treasure is, there your heart is also.