Truncated Morphemes

A special feature of Globasa is the use of truncated morphemes. Truncated morphemes are function words or affixes with a shorter form and typically a narrower or a broader meaning than their corresponding parent words. Truncated morphemes are not derived words per se, and in fact are best regarded as entirely independent root words that are similar in form to certain content words as a way to facilitate the process of learning them. As a result, truncated morphemes need not arise through a systematic pattern.

A similar feature is found in natural languages. In the world's creole languages, for example, it is common to see function words arise out of content words from the parent language. In fact, this is how most natural languages have evolved and generated function words and grammatical morphemes. For a fascinating discussion on this topic see The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention, by Guy Deutscher.

The following function words are truncated morphemes:

• cel (to, for, in order to) from cele (goal, purpose)
• dur (during) from dure (duration)
• fal (done by) from fale (do)
• fol (according to, alongside of) from folo (follow)
• ger (would) from eger (if)
• har (with, having) from hare (have)
• kom (than) from kompara (comparison/compare)
• kos (due to, because of) from kosa (cause)
• kwas (as if) from kwasi (seeming)
• pas (through) from pasa (pass)
• sol (only) from solo (alone)
• tas (to, for, indirect object) from taslum (receive)
• tem (about, regarding) from tema (topic, theme)
• ton (together with) from tongo (together)
• wey (around) from jowey (surroundings)
• yon (with, by means of, by) from yongu (use)

The following prefixes are truncated morphemes:

• aw- (away) from awsenti (absent)
• awto- (auto-, automatically) from awtomati (automatic)
• du- (continuous/habitual aspect) from dure (duration)
• fin- (end/finish) from fini (end, finish)
• fron- (forwards) from fronta (forehead, front)
• ja- (immediately adjacent) from jara (neighbor)
• pre- (here/there) from presenti (present)
• pos- (opposite) from opos (opposite)
• ru- (retro, backwards) from ruke (back, rear)
• xor- (start, begin) from xoru (start, begin)

The following suffixes are truncated morphemes:

• -cu (intransitive) from cudu (obtain, acquire, get, take)
• -gon (geometric figure with specific number of angles) from gono (angle)
• -gi (transitive) from gibe (give)
• -je (degree) from daraje (degree)
• -sa (language; animal cries) from basa (language)