Description:

The base meaning of slek is to eat. In the language's pseudohistory, it joined the concrete gender when verbs and nouns merged into terms, based on its phonology with a stressed low vowel, and acquired the meaning of 'food' when used as a noun. It presumably displaced whatever word meant 'food' before the merger. It has an earthy, informal sense and is an impolite word to use to refer to fancy food. Comon borrowed the word 'wisin' from French 'cuisine' during the middle period, and this is used in almost exactly the same way as slek to refer to fancy food and fine dining.

Verb:

• Paradigm: skurun (transitive)
• Auxiliary: te

As a verb, slek is a transitive verb with an ergative subject that is the eater and an absolutive object that is the thing eaten. It is very common to express this verb in the antipassive with se to emphasize that someone or something is eating without being specific about what is being eaten. In that case, it takes a single argument in the absolutive which is the eater, and can express the thing eaten perphrastically using the prepostion y (null preposition).

The sense of 'feed' is created periphrastically with a causitive construction using 'wero', to make. You can also say 'give food' using happat. The former implies that you made sure the eating occurred, the latter that you merely facilitated that it could occur.

A sense of 'to prey on' rather than 'to eat' can be derived using the intensifying prefix ro-'. The term roslék as a verb is a skurun verb like slek, with an ergative predator and an absolutive prey. It has the implication of 'kill and eat'.

Examples:

Ja pikki tene slek a skitrem
The cat ate the mouse

A pikki se slek.
The cat is eating

Je tene wero si a pikki se slek.
I fed the cat. (I made the cat eat)

Je hanne a slek ija pikki.
I fed the cat. (I gave the cat food)

The head term 'happat' was dropped from the last example after 'hanne' but could be included. Similarly, one might omit 'werta' from the example before.

Noun:

As a noun, slek is a general word for food, and implies the food is probably not expensive or fancy.

The derived form 'slekysyn' is a word for diet.

The derived terms 'roslékca' and 'roslékka' mean 'predator' and 'prey' respectively.