Parseltongue: And how to speak it

Chapter 11: Past/Present Tense

Traditionally, snakes did not need to distinguish events that are happening now from events that happened in the past. As such, Parseltongue verbs do not change to reflect the past tense. When Parselmouths needed to make it clear that an event has already happened, they normally use time words - like "earlier" (suu in Parseltongue) or "yesterday" (slu in Parseltongue) to reflect it. Over the years, snakes have picked up this habit as well! However, note that snakes do not use these words literally; they can use "yesterday" when they really mean "two days ago" or "earlier today" for example. It's something you have to intuit for yourself!

Time words are considered ne-words (adverbs); they therefore are positioned like adverbs in sentences (i.e. right after the verb).

If a sentence has multiple ne-words, then the time words normally go last. There is only one exception: if you are using sa, ​ʃe, or ha as a
​ne-word, it goes last of all!
​Earlier - Suu
Yesterday - Slu
EXAMPLE:
I might have dropped my book on the path earlier. (Original English)
I this book that path drop on earlier maybe. (Parseltongue glosses)
Ai tasi pard fasi fasar kaʃe sobne suu ha. (Parseltongue)

Here is a quick run-through of the word order used. Note that if the original English sentence has a subject, an object, and a prepositional phrase, the object takes the place of the subject - and the object of the prepositional phrase takes the place of the object!
Si-word: I (note that if "I", "you", or a name is used as a si-word, it is not attached to any subject, na-word, or ra-word).
Si-word: this. (the closest equivalent to 'my'; it modifies the word "book" and NOT the word "I"!)
Subject: book. (Note that 'book' would NOT be considered a subject in English!)
na-word: N/A (if a noun is modified by both a na-word and a ra-word, the na-word goes first!)
ra-word: N/A
Si-word: that.
Object: path.
na-word: N/A
ra-word: N/A
ʃe-word: drop. (Note that the basic form is used even though the sentence is in past tense!)
ne-word: on.
Time ne-word: earlier. (Note its position as the middle of three adverbs.)
Yes/No ne-word: maybe. (This is nearly always the last word in the sentence when used; if the speaker was certain they had dropped the book on the path, sa would take the place of ha here - and ​ʃe could reflect that the book was NOT dropped on the path.)