Beginner's Unit

Introduction
Pronunciation Guide
1: First Words
2: Simple Phrases
3: Greetings
4: Questions
5: Answers
Revision 1

Sarus Forum

Sarus 2 Dictionary

Lesson Four:

Questions
written by chluaid

In this lesson you will learn how to ask a Sarus question, using question words and introducing the Sarus question prefix.

Question words

As you've seen previously, reversing a word in Sarus generally reverses the meaning. However with most of these question words, there is no opposite so reversing the word changes the meaning to another question word.

• fr - when?
  rf - where?
  -- - -
• rm - what?
  mr - who?

The exception here is 'why?' whose opposite is (you guessed it) 'because'.

• rs - why?
  
• sr - because

This is the only question word whose opposite is not another question word.

Question prefix: RR

Questions in Sarus must use a question word. A question word can either be one of those we've already seen (what, why, who, etc), or it can be the question prefix 'rr' (pronounced 'rek')

If there is no question word or question prefix, it is just a sentence.

Unlike in English where we end our questions with a question mark, in Sarus we put 'rr' at the beginning. This prefix is the difference between a sentence and a question:

• dm t drr - you are going.
  rr dm t drr - are you going?
  - -- -
• dr t fmd - I am late.
  rr dr t fmd - am I late?
  -- --
• ml - here.
  rr ml - here?

Remember, this question prefix is not necessary when another question word is used, such as 'who is there?', or 'when are we going?'

'ing' verbs

You can turn any verb such as 'go' into 'going' by putting 't' before it. This literally means 'be go' but translates as 'going'.

• drr - go
  t drr - going
  -- - --
• fdt - eat
  t fdt - eating
  - --- -
• mdt - walk
  t mdt - walking

In the questions above, the question word is the first word. But this isn't always the case. In future lessons, you'll learn to deal with more complex sentences and questions. For example:

"He told me to ask you when are you going"

This is obviously a statement, but it contains a question. Likewise, some questions contain double questions.. such as:

"Do you know how old he is?"

We'll cross these intricate little bridges when we come to them, but for now you should know that questions don't necessarily start with a question word.

Did the last one (F) catch you out? I'm sure you figured it out easily. Even though we haven't learned the word 'there' yet, you knew it'd be likely to be the reverse of 'here'.

Whenever you come across a word in Sarus that you don't know, your first thought should be 'do I know its reverse meaning?'. This is of enormous value in learning Sarus.

--- --- ---

Now translate the following English sentences to Sarus. Notice that I haven't used a question mark (?) in the example. This is because 'rm' (what) is a question word. Marking a sentence with a question word is the same as marking a sentence with a question mark in English. In short, question marks are not used at all in Sarus.

This last question might have thrown you, but once again you just need to think about the opposite. "Do I know the opposite of this word?".. the opposite of 'coming' of course is 'going' which you already know - drr. Therefore:

• drr - go
  t drr - going
  --- --
• rrd - come
  t rrd - coming

© A Phillips 2006