There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: Vidal, a new constructed language like Volapük
From: Michael Everson
1.2. Re: Vidal, a new constructed language like Volapük
From: BPJ
2a. Re: another indexing sketch
From: neo gu
3a. How do you get started?
From: Billy J.B.
3b. Re: How do you get started?
From: Virginia Keys
3c. Re: How do you get started?
From: H. S. Teoh
3d. Re: How do you get started?
From: Gary Shannon
3e. Something's fishy here...
From: Padraic Brown
4.1. Introduction
From: Brent Scarcliff
4.2. Re: Introduction
From: Alex Fink
5a. the genesis of the Greek 2sg pres act ind ending, anyone?
From: Matthew Boutilier
5b. Re: the genesis of the Greek 2sg pres act ind ending, anyone?
From: Brent Scarcliff
5c. Re: the genesis of the Greek 2sg pres act ind ending, anyone?
From: Matthew Boutilier
6a. Re: A Question on Suffixaufnahme Agreement
From: Anthony Miles
7a. Re: conditional sentences
From: Anthony Miles
Messages
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1.1. Re: Vidal, a new constructed language like Volapük
Posted by: "Michael Everson" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2013 8:10 am ((PDT))
I found out a little about Vidal. It's from France
some immigrant to America
took and interest, and evidently it is his letter that is in that Scientific
American. From some book in books.google.ie:
==========
Language, especially English, also ranked high on Widstrand's list of needed
reforms. Like many other foreigners in America, he felt he had been
handicapped, und made to appear ignorant, became he could not "jabber English
as natives." He read the language well before emigrating to America, and after
20 rears he could write it "like fury," but he still had trouble speaking "the
infernal English," He felt that foreigners had difficulty gaining "a proper
hearing'" and finding work. "It Is a great impudence," he once complained to
Ignatius Donnelly, "to ask people to learn anything so foolish as the English
language." He considered it one of the relics from old England that the
American republic should be rid of. It was, he said, "a disgrace to the human
intellect, a product of ignorance, mishearings and misunderstandings, a hellish
waste of time for children and others." Just to learn to spell it correctly
took more time than needed to raise food." In 1874 he sent Alexander Ramsey, a
memorial which favored abolishing English and offering a reward for the
invention of a better language. When the good senator introduced the memorial
in the United States Senate, he said that it came from "a gentleman of
learning, and research.""
Far superior to English, or for that matter any other language Widstrand knew,
was the Vidal language, described by its inventor in a book printed in Paris in
1844. It was a simple, regular language based on a small number of roots with
easy grammar and was pronounced as written. In Vidal all words beginning with
"b" were the names of animals; all "z" words were reserved for plants.
Adjectives were always words of one syllable beginning and ending with
consonants, and so on. Widstrand promoted Vidal as a unversal language and
praised its merits in the "Agathocrat". Still later, he sent a letter about it
to the "Scientific American". whero it was published in 1885.
==========
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Messages in this topic (77)
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1.2. Re: Vidal, a new constructed language like Volapük
Posted by: "BPJ" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2013 8:31 am ((PDT))
2013-04-29 17:10, Michael Everson skrev:
> I found out a little about Vidal. It's from France
some immigrant to America
> took and interest, and evidently it is his letter that is in that Scientific
> American. From some book in books.google.ie:
>
> ==========
> Language, especially English, also ranked high on Widstrand's list of needed
> reforms.
This guy was obviously a Swede. Do you have any more on him? The
gbooks URL?
/bpj
Messages in this topic (77)
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2a. Re: another indexing sketch
Posted by: "neo gu" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2013 12:13 pm ((PDT))
Apr28 Temporal Morphosyntax
The basis for all temporal relations is the set of 4 temporal conjunctions: AFT
("after"), BFR ("before"), DUR ("during"), and TMP ("when"). They all take link
arguments referring to the adjunct clause to which the time of the host clause
is relative. The adjunct clause begins with the nominalizer NOM, whose link is
used, unless the clause immediately follows the conjunction (in which case the
link is 0 and NOM is omitted). AFT and BFR can also take another link argument
referring to the degree of temporal displacement, expressed as a phrase where
the noun denotes temporal units.
PN Mary arrive AFT-k i-eat PN John-i [2] hour-k.
"Mary arrived 2 hours after John ate."
NOM-i PN Mary eat j-leave PN John-j DUR-i
"John left while Mary was eating."
There are also the temporal pronominals O ("now") and T ("then") which appear
on the conjunction in place of the clause link and the temporal pronominal SD
("the same day") which appears in place of the degree link. These can be used
to construct temporal adverbs:
TMP-O now
TMP-T at that time
BEF-O in the past
BEF-O-SD earlier today
AFT-T-SD later the same day
AFT-O [1] day tomorrow
When the clause link is 0, the conjunction DUR can be replaced by the aspect
prefix PRG on the adjunct verb.
PN John leave, PN Mary PRG-eat
"John left while Mary was eating."
When both the clause link and the degree link are 0, the conjunctions AFT and
BEF can be replaced by the aspect prefixes RET and PRO, respectively.
PN Mary arrive, PN John RET-eat.
"Mary arrived after John ate."
Verbs marked for aspect can also be used outside of temporal adjuncts.
TMP-T PN Mary PRG-eat. "(At that time,) Mary was eating."
Messages in this topic (2)
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3a. How do you get started?
Posted by: "Billy J.B." [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2013 1:09 pm ((PDT))
Hi everyone! I'm re-writing a small introduction on a small website (
http://linguifex.com/index.php?title=Linguifex:Getting_started) devoted to
the vice dealing with the whole "getting started" process for prospective
conlangers.
So far, I've mentioned playing around with sounds (what I've termed the
phonology/phonotactics/euphony approach), starting by experimenting with
grammatical ideas, and last but not least, what I've termed the "Shannon"
approach: writing sentences, translating a text, working off subtle
subconscious influences and then afterwards glossing it.
And now to my actual question, I was wondering if you have any other
preferred method(s) and/or *fonts d'inspiration; *I'd be delighted to hear
them (and include them in the introduction)!
Gratias vobis,
Billy
Messages in this topic (5)
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3b. Re: How do you get started?
Posted by: "Virginia Keys" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2013 3:30 pm ((PDT))
This is in tandem with playing around with sounds and grammar, but I really
like to mess around with the orthography and try different "looks" for the
written language.
Messages in this topic (5)
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3c. Re: How do you get started?
Posted by: "H. S. Teoh" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2013 4:48 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:09:50PM +0200, Billy J.B. wrote:
> Hi everyone! I'm re-writing a small introduction on a small website (
> http://linguifex.com/index.php?title=Linguifex:Getting_started)
> devoted to the vice dealing with the whole "getting started" process
> for prospective conlangers.
>
> So far, I've mentioned playing around with sounds (what I've termed
> the phonology/phonotactics/euphony approach), starting by
> experimenting with grammatical ideas, and last but not least, what
> I've termed the "Shannon" approach: writing sentences, translating a
> text, working off subtle subconscious influences and then afterwards
> glossing it.
>
> And now to my actual question, I was wondering if you have any other
> preferred method(s) and/or *fonts d'inspiration; *I'd be delighted to
> hear them (and include them in the introduction)!
[...]
I'm an artlanger, and I always have a conculture to go with the conlang.
Having a conculture (even if it's just a crude sketch of who the
speakers are and where they live) can help a lot when making linguistic
decisions.
For example, are the speakers of your conlang a highly-literate people
who love composing elaborate utterances on obscure philosophical topics?
Or are they a more practical people given to stating actions directly?
Or perhaps a reclusive people who like to make opaque references to
things only the inner circle would understand? While this alone does not
dictate linguistic structure, it surely influences it; said
highly-literate people would tend to preserve (or invent, via analogy,
etc.) convoluted sentence structures in order to express their
sophisticated sentiments, while a more practical people would tend to
favor (and thus better preserve) more simplistic constructions that gets
straight to the point. And a culture bent on exclusion would tend to
preserve / invent obscure idioms and references to specific events or
people that only a native speaker would understand.
(This doesn't mean, of course, that every idiom-heavy language comes from
a desire to be exclusive -- idioms arise in many other ways too. But
having some vague idea in this direction helps impart a unique flavor to
your conlang instead of just producing yet another cookie-cutter
language. And having a conculture to draw from makes a wonderful source
for coining idiomatic expressions. A culture in which horse-riding is a
major activity, for example, would have many horse-related idioms.)
And what kind of environment do they live in? A people who live in
arctic regions, for example, might have many more words for "snow" that
English does; a people who live in a volcanically-active region, like
the speakers of my conlang Tatari Faran, may have many words for various
volcanic phenomenon but only two for snow (e.g., just ice and frost in
TF). An advanced technological society would tend to have many words
devoted to technical terminology, as well as grammatical constructions
that allow very precise utterances, whereas a culture in which art is an
outstanding trait would tend to favor more poetic ways of expression.
Then there are the linguistic details to be decided on, like sound
inventory, phonotactics, grammatical constructions. Having a conculture
helps you to put yourself "in the native speakers' shoes" -- imagine
yourself in the speakers' environment, and imagine yourself interacting
with other speakers -- how would the language sound like? What kind of
greeting/farewell customs would they have? You may even "catch wind" of
the first real words in the conlang here -- words of greeting, perhaps,
customs of self-introduction, and so forth. Perhaps an opaque string of
sounds at first, which later may be reanalysed as some kind of calcified
archaic sentence structure. Here, you may "hear" an overall sound or
feel to the conlang (e.g. they speak in a highly-inflected tone of
voice; or they speak in a monotonous drone of staccato syllables, etc.),
that you can refer to from time-to-time to decide on various aspects of
the conlang. You can settle some phonological questions this way, and
perhaps even what grammatical constructions might be present. This
helps prevent "kitchen sink" conlangs which are just a haphazard
collection of arbitrarily-chosen features, with no mind paid to how the
different pieces fit together.
In Tatari Faran, for example, I wanted the language to have a vaguely
Austronesian-style phonetic inventory, so I chose a rather small set of
consonants and a relatively small set of vowels, and made sure to
include the glottal stop (ala Hawaiian). I also envisioned the speakers
as having a penchant for onomapoiea, so I coined a lot of words using
onomapoiea (e.g., _boha au'au_ ["bOha ?ao?ao] for a dog barking).
Recently, when I needed a way to express intensified adjectives (e.g.
big -> very big) I remembered the Austronesian feel that I was aiming
for, and decided to use reduplication (a frequent Austronesian trait)
instead of the more IE-style solution of having a word meaning "very"
that modifies the adjective. Tatari Faran also has a certain prosody
that basically was derived from the first few sentences I "heard" when
imagining myself interacting with the natives in their homeland. That
initial "impression" eventually led me to decide that TF should be
pitch-accented rather than stress-accented -- as that better accounts
for the prosody I envisioned.
So, in the end, I would just say that, at least as far as how *I*
conlang, it's ultimately all based on a conculture. I use the conculture
(and its various derived implications thereof) as a source of
inspiration when fleshing out the details of the conlang.
T
--
To provoke is to call someone stupid; to argue is to call each other stupid.
Messages in this topic (5)
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3d. Re: How do you get started?
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2013 4:51 pm ((PDT))
I'm most interested in syntax and grammar so I keep phonology and
orthography very simple. A lot of times I will start out the sketch of a
new grammar using an existing lexicon, either English, or
Spanish/Italian/Latin, or one of my older conlangs, just so I can focus on
the experimenting with the grammar and not get overwhelmed by the
non-grammar details.
--gary
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 1:09 PM, Billy J.B. <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi everyone! I'm re-writing a small introduction on a small website (
> http://linguifex.com/index.php?title=Linguifex:Getting_started) devoted to
> the vice dealing with the whole "getting started" process for prospective
> conlangers.
>
> So far, I've mentioned playing around with sounds (what I've termed the
> phonology/phonotactics/euphony approach), starting by experimenting with
> grammatical ideas, and last but not least, what I've termed the "Shannon"
> approach: writing sentences, translating a text, working off subtle
> subconscious influences and then afterwards glossing it.
>
> And now to my actual question, I was wondering if you have any other
> preferred method(s) and/or *fonts d'inspiration; *I'd be delighted to hear
> them (and include them in the introduction)!
>
> Gratias vobis,
>
> Billy
>
Messages in this topic (5)
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3e. Something's fishy here...
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2013 5:59 pm ((PDT))
...and it ain't the garum factory down the block!
http://news.yahoo.com/fish-sign-language-help-hunting-buddies-152909150.html
Padraic
Messages in this topic (5)
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4.1. Introduction
Posted by: "Brent Scarcliff" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2013 2:13 pm ((PDT))
Long time lurker, first time poster. Since Ill be meeting
many of you at LCC5, I thought I would briefly introduce myself -- and my
project -- here.
First, a bit about me. Im a UCLA-trained historical
linguist and mythologist with a background in the Indo-European, Austronesian
and Uto-Aztecan language families. I joined the LCS for the sense of community
it offers and the opportunity to get a fresh perspective on my own work.
As for my project, its the reconstruction of Ancestral
(working title), a proto-language spoken along the Indian Rim from East Africa
to Sumatra in the Late Pleistocene. Its very much a work in progress, but
youll find it at:
http://www.earthylanguage.com/
I think its two most interesting features so far are its pervasive
use of apophony (which encodes dynamicity) and its case system (which marks the
initiative, causative, assistive, permissive, instructive and instrumentive
roles in the same manner).
I would welcome any comments. In particular, Im interested
in any natural languages its features remind you of and your thoughts about how
its
phonology and grammar might develop in a variety of daughter languages.
I hope to see you in Austin.
Brent
Messages in this topic (68)
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4.2. Re: Introduction
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2013 4:13 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:03:35 -0700, Brent Scarcliff <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Long time lurker, first time poster. Since I'll be meeting
> many of you at LCC5, I thought I would briefly introduce myself -- and my
> project -- here.
>
> First, a bit about me. I'm a UCLA-trained historical
> linguist and mythologist with a background in the Indo-European,
> Austronesian
> and Uto-Aztecan language families. I joined the LCS for the sense of
> community
> it offers and the opportunity to get a fresh perspective on my own work.
Welcome!
> As for my project, it's the reconstruction of 'Ancestral'
> (working title), a proto-language spoken along the Indian Rim from East
> Africa
> to Sumatra in the Late Pleistocene.
Well, I'm finding it hard to buy that scenario.
As far as we know, in deep early history before large political and economic
structures were around, people only tended to have social interactions, of the
sort regular enough to guard against divergent developments and maintain a
common language, with a few hundred people of their village or tribe or
whatnot. So it would already be noteworthy, symptomatic of a recent takeover
or episode of expansion or something, to find the same variety of language
being spoken in like twenty different villages; to have the same language
spoken over an arc of over ten thousand kilometers beggars belief, for me.
I've seen arguments advanced that early humans should've had a much slower
linguistic rate of change than we moderns do: for instance, JBR
<http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/pleisto.html> ascribes this to a cultural
shunning of innovation. IMO that's bang on realistic for a Pleistocene
culture, overall, but I'm not sure I believe this implication of it: what we
observe nowadays is that sound change in progress, to take an example, is
sufficiently unconscious that it takes special efforts, like a writing system,
or the work of the Vedic phonologists (or the existence of already diverged
dialects!) to even nòtice it, so that one might be able to shun it. Small
cultures with great emphasis on adhesion to traditional ways don't seem to
escape it.
(Then there's the more common line about the language still being a genetic
rather than a cultural artifact at that stage, but that brings its own much
bigger set of problems!)
Your line about development in isolation leading to regularity also doesn't
really ring true for me. As I understand it, the correlation is actually that
large, well-connected languages are more regular, because all those
second-language learners smooth over the difficult bits; little secluded
languages, without this pressure, are free to twist themselves into all kinds
of intricacies.
> It's very much a work in progress, but
> you'll find it at:
>
> http://www.earthylanguage.com/
Are the "The Department of _____" pages for something completely different?
> I think it's two most interesting features so far are its pervasive
> use of apophony (which encodes dynamicity)
Yes! In fact your phonology has a striking number of commonalities with my and
Sai's gripping language <http://000024.org/conlang/gripping.html>, which is
also very fivey (but not for the reason you might expect!). Both of them have
five "vowels" which form and are used as a scale -- your vowels; our thumb
positions -- and both have twice ten normal and one not-fully-qualifying
"consonant" -- your consonants sorted by form vs. flow, plus /?/; our
finger-chords sorted by knuckledness, plus no fingers in contact. (We've no
analogue of your fortis / lenis distinction, though; our ten is (4+1) choose 2,
yours is 5 times 2.)
The lexical five-tuples in the gripping language, which you can see a few
examples of in the linked lexicon spreadsheet, are much more motley than yours
all deriving from the single dynamicity scale. A few of our fives encode
dynamicity, but not with the same regularity as yours (for instance,
"pregnant"); more of them just encode points on scales between pairs of
opposite scalar predicates ("hot / warm / tepid / cool / cold", that kind of
thing).
> and its case system (which marks
> the
> initiative, causative, assistive, permissive, instructive and instrumentive
> roles in the same manner).
Yes, the case system is an awesome deployment of your scale. Kudos.
> I would welcome any comments.
I do very much like the idea of an attempt to build everything up from a single
set of sound symbolisms.
> In particular, I'm interested
> in any natural languages its features remind you of and your thoughts about
> how its
> phonology and grammar might develop in a variety of daughter languages.
Most of the morphosyntax documentation, excepting some things like the case
system, seems too little fleshed out to inspire me (at least) to possible
developments. Examples throughout in Ancestral, plus (or failing that, just)
an understandable-to-outsiders gloss, would be nice.
As for the phonology: when I looked at your chart of IPA values, some of them
surprised me. The biggest mismatch was that what I was expecting to be [K],
you seem to take as ingressivity! Also things like palatal vs. retroflex,
epiglottal vs. glottal.
Then there's the use of superscripts, as if every consonant can be used as a
secondary articulation: I have no idea what things like e.g. "[g] with a
[t]-ish secondary articulation" or "[S] with a [b]-ish secondary articulation"
is. This makes it hard to interpret.
> I hope to see you in Austin.
See you there!
Alex
Messages in this topic (68)
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5a. the genesis of the Greek 2sg pres act ind ending, anyone?
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2013 5:47 pm ((PDT))
conlangers:
are there any armchair indo-europeanists, or philologically informed
classicists, among you who happen to remember how the following is supposed
to have happened?:
PIE *bher-e-si > öÝñåéò "thou bearest"
(cf. Skt *bharasi*)
by the strict sound changes, the intervocalic sigma should drop out and
leave **öÝñåé, and i am wondering whence the new final -s.
i have been combing through Sihler's *New Comparative Grammar of Greek and
Latin* to no avail; this book is huge and i'm not all that familiar with it
yet.
if you wouldn't mind refreshing my memory on the 3SG analog too, i'd
appreciate it:
PIE *bher-e-ti > öÝñåé "(s)he beareth," and not **öÝñåóé (at least in
Attic, with palatalization of the *t when before front vowels, after *-s-
has been lost)
(cf. Skt *bharati*)
i'm sure there are other places i could try, but i thought this might be
quickest.
many thanks!
matt
Messages in this topic (3)
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5b. Re: the genesis of the Greek 2sg pres act ind ending, anyone?
Posted by: "Brent Scarcliff" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2013 6:14 pm ((PDT))
According To Buck:
*bher-e-si > öÝñåé (as expected) + ò (by analogy with Ýöåñåò)
> Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:47:37 -0500
> From: [email protected]
> Subject: the genesis of the Greek 2sg pres act ind ending, anyone?
> To: [email protected]
>
> conlangers:
>
> are there any armchair indo-europeanists, or philologically informed
> classicists, among you who happen to remember how the following is supposed
> to have happened?:
> PIE *bher-e-si > öÝñåéò "thou bearest"
> (cf. Skt *bharasi*)
> by the strict sound changes, the intervocalic sigma should drop out and
> leave **öÝñåé, and i am wondering whence the new final -s.
>
> i have been combing through Sihler's *New Comparative Grammar of Greek and
> Latin* to no avail; this book is huge and i'm not all that familiar with it
> yet.
>
> if you wouldn't mind refreshing my memory on the 3SG analog too, i'd
> appreciate it:
> PIE *bher-e-ti > öÝñåé "(s)he beareth," and not **öÝñåóé (at least in
> Attic, with palatalization of the *t when before front vowels, after *-s-
> has been lost)
> (cf. Skt *bharati*)
>
> i'm sure there are other places i could try, but i thought this might be
> quickest.
>
> many thanks!
> matt
Messages in this topic (3)
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5c. Re: the genesis of the Greek 2sg pres act ind ending, anyone?
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2013 6:20 pm ((PDT))
YES, that's exactly what i wanted to hear. and also probably optative
ÏÎÏÎ¿Î¹Ï as well (*bhér-oi-s). thanks!
matt
On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 8:14 PM, Brent Scarcliff <[email protected]>wrote:
> According To Buck:
> *bher-e-si > ÏÎÏει (as expected) + Ï (by analogy with ÎÏεÏεÏ)
> > Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:47:37 -0500
> > From: [email protected]
> > Subject: the genesis of the Greek 2sg pres act ind ending, anyone?
> > To: [email protected]
> >
> > conlangers:
> >
> > are there any armchair indo-europeanists, or philologically informed
> > classicists, among you who happen to remember how the following is
> supposed
> > to have happened?:
> > PIE *bher-e-si > ÏÎÏÎµÎ¹Ï "thou bearest"
> > (cf. Skt *bharasi*)
> > by the strict sound changes, the intervocalic sigma should drop out and
> > leave **ÏÎÏει, and i am wondering whence the new final -s.
> >
> > i have been combing through Sihler's *New Comparative Grammar of Greek
> and
> > Latin* to no avail; this book is huge and i'm not all that familiar with
> it
> > yet.
> >
> > if you wouldn't mind refreshing my memory on the 3SG analog too, i'd
> > appreciate it:
> > PIE *bher-e-ti > ÏÎÏει "(s)he beareth," and not **ÏÎÏεÏι (at
> > least in
> > Attic, with palatalization of the *t when before front vowels, after *-s-
> > has been lost)
> > (cf. Skt *bharati*)
> >
> > i'm sure there are other places i could try, but i thought this might be
> > quickest.
> >
> > many thanks!
> > matt
>
>
Messages in this topic (3)
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6a. Re: A Question on Suffixaufnahme Agreement
Posted by: "Anthony Miles" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2013 7:28 pm ((PDT))
On Fri, 26 Apr 2013 22:34:32 -0400
Anthony Miles <[email protected]> wrote:
> This is the order I took for Siye from my reading on Sumerian, and I
> do mean directly from the grammar description:
> NP â N Adj Gen Relative-Clause Possessive Numeral Case
A real example would be
é šeš lugal-ak-ak-a
house brother king-GEN-GEN-LOC
in the house of the kingâs brother
> 3.AN-3.AN-eat.PFV-PL-have.resolved.to-DIR.UP-PFV-POS.REALIS-POSS-DU-PN-COM
So you're transferring the suffixes to the verb? I don't think that
happens in natural languages.
R: You're right; /yiyolokananame/
3.AN-3.AN-eat.PFV-PL-have.resolved.to-DIR.UP-ASP(ECT).PFV-POS(ITIVE).REALIS-RELATIVE
is a verb, not a participle. The participle, which can take number and case
marking, is /yokananayam-/
eat.PFV-have.resolved.to-DIR.UP-ASPECT.PFV-POS.REALIS-NMNLIZER
. Unfortunately, the participle does not play well with relative clauses, since
the relative clause uses personal and number agreement. On the other hand,
Siye's participles seem to be primarily derivational, so
/yiyolokananamekani/ could be a newer, still primarily verbal participle
derived from
/yiyolokananame/, the relative form of the verb, and /ikani/, a resumptive
pronoun referring to /tupikani/
> bird white-PN-COM mountain-POSS-DU-PN-COM
Why COM twice? I'd expect something like (Sumerian's separating GEN from
other cases is unusual)
bird white all mountain-DU-GEN-COM
Sumerian would use bird-bird for 'all the birds'.
R: I know Sumerian's separation of GEN from the other cases is unusual.
Sumerian is where I started the project, however, and IMO the separation makes
Siye flow better. /tuki/ /white/ takes the suffixes instead of /tupi/ /bird/
because it is an adjective modifying /tupi/ /bird/. Pantic number /-ka/ is a
grammatical number in Siye. /lupate/ /Mountain/ takes the case and number
suffixes because it is functioning as a noun /lupate/ /mountain/ rather than an
adjective /lupate/ /mountainous/. In this case, the adjective /mountainous/
would not work because there is no way to indicate duality on an adjective
modifying a Pantic noun. It agrees with /bird/ because the subject phrase is
"all the birds of the two mountains", not "all the birds". Since Siye
Suffixaufnahme works forward, leaving out the /-kani/ would lead a reader to
believe that the prepositial phrase belonged with the object /tupikelo/ rather
than the subject /tupikani/.
One of the reasons I wanted to add more agreement is that my composition
involved long sentences and agreement would reduce the noise. Siye always had a
case system, to balance out some limitations I placed on the number of
agglutinative slots in the verb.
Since the comitative applies to the entire relative clause, rather than the
noun alone, perhaps a better translation would be
/tupikaya lupatemesoya tupikelo yiyolokananameni/
bird-PAN-ERG mountain-POSS(ESSIVE)-DU-ERG bird-DIM-PL-ABS
3.AN-3.AN-eat.PFV-have.resolved.to-DIR.UP-POS.REALIS-RELATIVE-COM(ITATIVE)
Messages in this topic (3)
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7a. Re: conditional sentences
Posted by: "Anthony Miles" [email protected]
Date: Mon Apr 29, 2013 8:29 pm ((PDT))
<snip>
R: Here are the same sentences in Siye:
"If John sang, Mary danced."
This requires an imperfective irrealis protasis (-m-e-sum), and an imperfective
irrealis apodosis (-m-e-su).
Som isipunamesum, Lom umhilotesupusumtamkimesu.
Som-0 i-si-pu-na-m-e-sum
John-NOM 3.AN-speak.IMPFV-SG-DIR.UP-ASP.IMPFV-IRREALIS-CONDITIONAL
Lom-0 um-i-lotesu-pu-sum-tam-ki-m-e-su
Lom-NOM
REFL-3.AN-dance-SG-CAUS-CON(TINUATIVE)-DIR."STATIONARY"-ASP.IMPFV-IRREALIS-CONCLUSIVE
"If John had sung, Mary would have danced."
This requires a perfective irrealis protasis (-n-e-sum), and a perfective
irrealis apodosis (-n-e-su).
Som iyepunanesum, Lom umhilotesupusumkinesu.
Som-0 i-ye-pu-na-n-e-sum
John-NOM 3.AN-speak.PFV-SG-DIR.UP-ASP.PFV-IRREALIS-CONDITIONAL
Lom-0 um-i-lotesu-pu-sum-ki-n-e-su
Lom-NOM REFL-3.AN-dance-SG-CAUS-DIR."STATIONARY"-ASP.PFV-IRREALIS-CONCLUSIVE
My addition:
"If John had not sung, Mary would not have danced"
This requires a perfective negative irrealis protasis (-n-e-ku-sum), and a
perfective negative irrealis apodosis (-n-e-ku-su).
Som iyepunanekusum, Lom umhilotesupusumkinekusu.
Som-0 i-ye-pu-na-n-e-ku-sum
John-NOM 3.AN-speak.PFV-SG-DIR.UP-ASP.PFV-IRREALIS-NEG-CONDITIONAL
Lom-0 um-i-lotesu-pu-sum-ki-n-e-ku-su
Lom-NOM REFL-3.AN-dance-SG-CAUS-DIR."STATIONARY"-ASP.PFV-IRREALIS-NEG-CONCLUSIVE
"John is heavy enough for the chair to break."
This requires an imperfective positive realis verb in the main clause (-m-a),
and an imperfective irrealis verb in the potential result clause (-m-e-ki).
Som kipopu ikimpukima, kemsumnaki umhenupusumnumeki.
Som-0 kipo-pu i-kim-pu-ki-m-a
John-NOM heavy.one-EQ(UATIVE)
3.AN-to.be-SG-DIR."STATIONARY"-ASP.IMPFV-POS.REALIS
kemsumnaki-0 um-e-nu-pu-sum-nu-m-e-ki
chair-ABS
REFL-3.IN-make.IMPFV-SG-CAUS-DIR.DOWN-ASP.IMPFV-IRREALIS-PURPOSE/RESULT
"John is so heavy, the chair would've broken."
This requires an imperfective positive realis verb in the main clause (-m-a),
and a perfective irrealis verb in the contrafactual result clause (-n-e-ki).
Som kipopu ikimpukima, kemsumnaki umhekepusumnuneki.
Som-0 kipo-pu i-kim-pu-ki-m-a
John-NOM heavy.one-EQ(UATIVE)
3.AN-to.be-SG-DIR."STATIONARY"-ASP.IMPFV-POS.REALIS
kemsumnaki-0 um-e-ke-pu-sum-nu-n-e-ki
chair-ABS REFL-3.IN-make.PFV-SG-CAUS-DIR.DOWN-ASP.PFV-IRREALIS-PURPOSE/RESULT
"John is so heavy, the chair broke."
This requires an imperfective positive realis verb in the main clause (-m-a),
and a perfective realis verb in the result clause (-n-a-ki).
Som kipopu ekimpukima, kemsumnaki umhekepusumnunaki.
John-NOM heavy.one-EQ(UATIVE) 3.AN-to.be-SG-DIR."STATIONARY"-ASP.PFV-POS.REALIS
kemsumnaki-0 um-e-ke-pu-sum-nu-n-a-ki
chair-ABS REFL-3.IN-make.PFV-SG-CAUS-DIR.DOWN-ASP.PFV-POS.REALIS-PURPOSE/RESULT
Messages in this topic (3)
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