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Sentence Structure Semantics
Independent Clause Structure
Most of the time L'ewa sentences have only one clause. This can be anything from a single verb to a subject, verb and object. However, sometimes more information is needed. Consider this sentence:
The dog which is blue is large.
This kind of a relative clause would be denoted using hoi, which would make
the sentence roughly the following in L'ewa:
le wufra hoi blanu xi brado.
The particle xi is needed here in order to make it explicit that the subject
noun-phrase has ended.
Similarly, an incidental relative clause is done with with joi:
le wufra joi blanu ke brado
the dog, which by the way is blue, is big.
Questions
There are a few ways to ask questions in L'ewa. They correlate to the different kinds of things that the speaker could want to know.
ma
ma is the particle used to fill in a missing/unknown noun phrase. Consider
these sentences:
ma blanu?
what is blue?
ro qa madsa ma?
you are eating what?
no
no is the particle used to fill in a missing/unknown verb. Consider these
sentences:
ro no?
How are you doing?
le wufra xi no?
The dog did what?
so
so is the particle used to ask questions about numbers, similar to the "how
many" construct in English.
ro madsa so spalo?
You ate how many apples?
le so zasko xi qa'te glowa
How many plants grow quickly?