Grammar
Tsakonian has undergone considerable morphological simplification: there is minimal case inflection.
The present and imperfect indicative in Tsakonian are formed with participles, like English but unlike the rest of Greek: ενεί αού, έμα αού "I am saying, I was saying" < ειμί λαλών, ήμην λαλών.
- Ενεί (Enee) = I am
- Εσεί (Esi) = you are
- Έννι (Eni) = he/she/it is
- Έμε (Eme) = we are
- Έτε (Ete) = you are
- Είνι (Eeni) = they are
- Έμα (Ema) = I was
- Έσα (Esa) = you were
- Έκη (Eki) = he/she/it was
- Έμαϊ (Emai) = we were
- Έταϊ (Etai) = you were
- Ήγκιαϊ (Igiai) = they were
- φερήκου (males) φερήκα (females) (ferikou/ferika) = I bring
- φερήκεις (ferikis) = you bring
- φερήκει (feriki) = he/she/it brings
- φερήκουντε (ferikoude) = we bring
- φερήκουτε (ferikoute) = you bring
- φερήκουσι (ferikousi) = they bring
Read more about this topic: Tsakonian Language
Famous quotes containing the word grammar:
“Syntax is the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages. Syntactic investigation of a given language has as its goal the construction of a grammar that can be viewed as a device of some sort for producing the sentences of the language under analysis.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“I went to a very militantly Republican grammar school and, under its influence, began to revolt against the Establishment, on the simple rule of thumb, highly satisfying to a ten-year-old, that Irish equals good, English equals bad.”
—Bernadette Devlin (b. 1947)
“Proverbs, words, and grammar inflections convey the public sense with more purity and precision, than the wisest individual.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)