Core Ideas

This page teaches formal Mini-ma production. Older plain-Mini alternants may still be recognized when reading legacy material, but they are not treated here as equal standard options for new writing.

Mini-ma is built on a few simple ideas:

1. Words are flexible. The same word can act like a noun, verb, or adjective depending on the sentence.
2. Three small markers do most of the grammar:
   • i marks a verb
   • a marks a noun complement or direct object
   • e marks an adjective complement
3. Word order is regular:
   • modifiers come before nouns
   • adverbs usually come after the verb
4. Mini-ma prefers explicit forms:
   • plu for clear plural
   • sa for clear possession
   • ki for non-interrogative subordinate clauses
   • se for “if” and embedded “whether”
   • ke-man, ke-loke, ke-tempo, ke-rason, ke-modo for specific questions
   • di and oda for a clear this/that contrast
5. New meanings are often built with compounds:
   • regen-uti = umbrella
   • ke-rason = why
6. Some grammatical series are fixed standard sets, not open word-building patterns:
   • the question set ke-man, ke-loke, ke-tempo, ke-rason, ke-modo
   • the negative-indefinite set nulo-man, nulo-loke, nulo-tempo, nulo-modo, nulo-kosa
7. Mini-ma can also adopt a few high-value new words when there is a real gap:
   • tenu = light in weight
   • proba = likely, probable

Formal Mini-ma also has clear yes-no questions with ke?, quantity questions with ke mui, plural-address forms like tu-ale, reciprocal forms like muto, reflexive forms like mi-ego, subjectless imperatives that keep i, listed ordinals such as uno-loke, duo-loke, and san-loke, and a few formal discourse particles such as tamen, voka, and tema.

The Three Main Sentence Patterns

[subject] i [verb] (a [object])
[subject] a [noun]
[subject] e [adjective]

Examples:

mi i manja
I eat.

si a man
He or she is a person.

vasa e kula
The water is cold.

Parsing

Quick parsing trick:

• read the marker first
• i tells you to read the next word as the verbal center
• a tells you to read the next word as a noun complement
• e tells you to read the next word as an adjective or nonverbal predicate center

Minimal contrast:

Bob i manja
Bob eats.

Bob a manja
Bob is food.

Bob e manja
Bob is edible.

Common Reused Forms

Form	Main jobs in formal Mini-ma
a	object marker; noun complement marker
de	past helper; relation word
en	progressive helper; locative relation
go	future helper; goal relation
ke	interrogative base form
da	contingent conditional result marker

Quick parse rule:

• de, en, and go are helpers only when they come after i or no and before the main verb.
• After the main verb, or after a or e, they are relation words.