Ifs, Ands, & Buts

Here's some useful words and how they work (and why some work differently than in English).

If X, Then Y.

Elessic Verbs have no distinct conditional or subjunctive forms, instead relying on words like ŝu ("if"), aid ("then"), and yed ("whether") to form conditional statements. Because of this, these words cannot be left off. "Wish" statements are marked as conditional because the Verb forces them to be conditional, no extra marking necessary.

And(s)

English has only one way of saying "and,"  but Elessic has several. The basic form is i, which functions as in English. If the preceding word ends in consonant, the form hi is used instead to prevent confusion with the Genitive Case.

There are two other "ands," which don't have corresponding uses in English. One is the "disassociative and," it. it is used to indicate that (unless restated for the second noun/verb phrase) modifiers of the first noun/verb phrase do not apply to the second. Take the example phrase "They sell red mushrooms and candy." In English, it is ambiguous as to whether both the Mushrooms and the Candy are red, or if only the Mushrooms are red. If translated using i, then both are red. If translated using it, then only the Mushrooms are red. This is more useful in complex statements, or with certain verbs, but I'm not going to do examples for that right now.

There's also the "causative and," if, which links two verb phrases to indicate that the first phrase causes the second phrase. "I got hungry and hit my head" is ambiguous as to whether or not the hunger caused me to hit my head. In Elessic, the two are unrelated unless if is used.

But

"But" is expressed by the word had, which functions as in English.