Lesson 10: AR & IS
Oravia usually tells you when something happens with a time expression: yesterday, next week, or a general word such as lar and lis. The verb itself can stay plain.
Grammar
Start with the time expression
A few useful time expressions are:
litamar — yesterday
litamis — tomorrow
lar — once / at some unspecified time in the past
lis — one day / at some unspecified time in the future
litamar, i mo e moalen
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*Yesterday, I ate a banana.*lis, i mo e moalen
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*One day, I will eat a banana.*The time word carries the past or future reference, so that mo itself stays bare.
-ar and -is
Use -ar when an action is already complete by the time you are talking about:
i moar
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*I have eaten / I already ate.*Use -is when an action is still later than that point:
i mois
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*I have not eaten yet / I am going to eat.*With the present as the reference, these can look a little like past and future. The distinction becomes clearer when you compare two events.
A quick picture:
[ action-ar ] → reference point → [ action-is ]
-ar points to something already on the earlier/completed side.
-is points to something still on the later/not-yet-started side.
Before and after another event
Start with two events in the same past scene:
litamar, nim i mo cali haya i anvu
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*Yesterday, I was eating when they went.*Now add -ar to the first event:
litamar, nim i moar cali haya i anvu
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*Yesterday, I had already eaten when they went.*The eating is complete by the time of the going.
What changed?
Compare the two sentences. Everything is the same except mo → moar. That one suffix tells you the eating was already finished at the second event.
Or put -is on the second event:
litamar, nim i mo, haya i anvuis
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*Yesterday, when I ate, they had not gone yet / they went later.*Notice that this avoids a lot of complicated verb tenses in languages such as English.
Vocabulary
Building blocks
GEH (subcluster) — sales. Mnemonic: Goods Exchange Hands.
YO — colors. Mnemonic: Yellow, Orange.
YAR — light. Mnemonic: RAY backwards.
LEA — landscape. Mnemonic: English lea, “meadow.”
REL — up, high. Mnemonic: rise / elevate.
Words
| Oravia | Meaning | Breakdown |
|---|---|---|
| gehna | buy | GEH sales + NA giving |
| yoyar | white | YO colors + YAR light |
| leayo | garden | LEA landscape + YO colors |
| iliro | think | ILI cognition + RO thinking |
| borel | ceiling | BOR house structure + REL up/high |
Try liyar
You already knew LI = time. Now you know YAR = light.
What time of day does liyar suggest?
Reveal
**liyar** = **morning, daytime**.Put it together
From earlier lessons
moalen = banana
anvu = go
cali = when
litamar, i mo e moalen
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*Yesterday, I ate a banana.*a borel a yoyar
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*The ceiling is white.*i iliro ca a leayo a yaltan
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*I think the garden is big.*litamis, nim i boemoar cali haya i mo
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*Tomorrow, I will have already cooked when they eat (cooking, with -ar, completed by the time of the other action).*lis, i anvu en leayo
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*One day, I will go to the garden.*Your turn
Write a sentence with litamar, litamis, lar, or lis. Then add -ar or -is only if you want to make the ordering relative to another point explicit.
Mini Review
Quick review: