Stage 0 — First Contact

Not the formal system — what the language does.

Three sentences

Here are three real sentences from the Tonesu corpus. Not invented — actual sentences from recorded exchanges. Read them over. See what you can work out before reading on.

(1)   lo-mu  de
      The unit is damaged.

(2)   la-mi  ki  pa-li-pu  ta-ti-be
      I'm going to the city.

(3)   to-si  —  la-tu  ki  pa-li-pu  ta-ti-be
      Are you going to the city soon?

What do you notice? What's similar across these sentences? What changed between (2) and (3)?

What's happening

`lo-` and `la-`

These two prefixes are the most fundamental signals in Tonesu.

lo- marks what is being described or affected — the patient.

la- marks who acts — the agent.

In sentence (1), only lo- appears. The unit (mu) is in a state of decay (de). No actor — just a thing and its condition. This is how Tonesu describes states: put the patient first with lo-, then state what's true of it.

Sentence (2) introduces la-mi: la- (agent marker) + mi (I, the speaker). Now there is an actor. That actor moves — ki means motion, going somewhere. The destination is pa-li-pu: pa- (place marker) + li-pu (city, literally: people-established). When: ta-ti-be — at the upcoming time, soon.

Sentence (3) is identical to (2), except:

la-mi (I) has become la-tu (you — tu is the second-person root)
to-si — has been placed in front

to-si is a knowledge-seeking signal — knowledge (to) + signal (si). It turns a statement into a question by marking the whole proposition as "information I'm seeking." The — marks the pause before the proposition follows.

Word order

The core frame is:

la-[agent]   [verb]   lo-[patient]

In sentences (2) and (3), there is no lo- patient — the motion has a destination (pa-li-pu), not a thing being acted on. Both patterns are normal.

Time and place markers (ta-, pa-) float freely. They can appear anywhere in the sentence; their role is always clear from the prefix.

Roots introduced

Eight roots carry most of the meaning in these sentences. These are the building blocks of Tonesu vocabulary.

Root	Core meaning	Where it appears
`mu`	artifact, device	`lo-mu` — the unit (a made thing)
`de`	decay, damage, break	predicate in (1): "is damaged"
`mi`	I, the speaker	`la-mi` — I as the acting agent
`tu`	you, the addressee	`la-tu` — you as the acting agent
`ki`	motion, movement	verb in (2) and (3): "go"
`li`	person, people	in `li-pu` — city (people-established)
`be`	grow, approach, emerge	in `ti-be` — the approaching time
`to`	knowledge, thought, pattern	in `to-si` — inquiry / question marker

Structural markers — not vocabulary roots, but present in every sentence:

Marker	Role
`la-`	marks the agent (who acts)
`lo-`	marks the patient (what is described or acted on)
`pa-`	marks place
`ta-`	marks time

In ordinary writing, hyphens are dropped: lomu, lami, palipu. The hyphenated form you see above is the analytic notation — it shows the morpheme boundaries explicitly. Both forms are used in this section: analytic for learning, solid for natural reading.

Two exercises

Exercise 1 — Fill in the blank

What root completes this compound?

The result should mean: a signal that seeks knowledge — a question.

Answer

to-si — knowledge (to) + signal (si).

to characterizes the signal: it's knowledge-seeking. Head-final rule: si (signal) is the head; to describes what kind. In sentence (3), to-si — is placed before the full proposition. It marks the whole thing as "information I'm seeking." Result: a question.

Exercise 2 — Fill in the blank

Sentence (2) says I'm going to the city. Fill in the blank to say you're going to the city:

Answer

la-tu — the second-person root is tu.

la-tu  ki  pa-li-pu  ta-ti-be

Tonesu has no conjugation. Who acts is encoded by swapping the root after la-. Everything else stays the same.

Reference

When you're ready to go deeper into what you've just seen:

Quick start — the full language at a glance
Primitives — all CV roots with meanings and usage
Grammar — the la- / lo- / lu- system in full