jerrasōr
Sentence 5 of the LCC2 Relay Text, concerning a talking rock:
temle jerrasōr ien tō la liēn makīþa matēnnā mapēnne lā;
jerrasōr means reply, and if it looks like it is related to jasōra, that’s because it is. Anyway, temle jerrasōr “He replied to me”: tō la liēn makīþa matēnnā mapēnne lā, which easily translates into “Because I am a mean talking rock!”
temle jerrasōr ien tō la liēn makīþa matēnnā mapēnne lā;
He replied to me, “Because I am a mean talking rock!”
Tomorrow, sentence 6!
jaþīña
We’re still on sentence 4 of the LCC2 Relay Text:
telme jakēña mo makīþa matēnnā ien tō wā terle jasōra xiēn jē jaþīña tōkēñ;
jaþīña means “path” and in this story refers to the path the narrator was taking before s/he tripped over that talking rock. xiēn jē does not occur only in titles, and it still means “concerning” or “about”. tō wā terle jasōra xiēn jē jaþīña tōkēñ is therefore “why didn’t you tell me about the path” i.e. why didn’t you warn me about where I was going so I wouldn’t have tripped over you.
telme jakēña mo makīþa matēnnā ien tō wā terle jasōra xiēn jē jaþīña tōkēñ;
I asked the talking rock, “Why didn’t you tell me about the path?”
Tomorrow, sentence 5!
jasōra
We’re still on sentence 4 of the LCC2 Relay Text:
telme jakēña mo makīþa matēnnā ien tō wā terle jasōra xiēn jē jaþīña tōkēñ;
jasōra means “word” and in the context of being an object of se, it means “say” or “tell”, so terle jasōra is literally “from you to me (in the past): word” or “you told me” or “you said to me”.
telme jakēña mo makīþa matēnnā ien tō wā terle jasōra xiēn jē jaþīña tōkēñ;
I asked the talking rock, “Why didn’t you tell me… ”
P.S. the stative form ansōra would mean “currently talking“.
tōkēñ
We’re still on sentence 4 of the LCC2 Relay Text:
telme jakēña mo makīþa matēnnā ien tō wā terle jasōra xiēn jē jaþīña tōkēñ;
I’m starting this clause with the last word for a reason. Namely, the tōkēñ at the end is related to the tō at the beginning. tō here is essentially the same tō as here, a conjunctive particle meaning “because”. It is not actually required for the sentence to be grammatically correct, but, hey, redundancy is good!
tōkēñ is this particle glommed on to the interrogative mood marker kēñ to ask “why” something. The initial tō here is followed by the clause-level modifier wā which negates a clause, so altogether tō wā … tōkēñ (or wā … tōkēñ) is “why not” or “why isn’t” or “why didn’t”.
telme jakēña mo makīþa matēnnā ien tō wā terle jasōra xiēn jē jaþīña tōkēñ;
I asked the talking rock, “Why didn’t…”
jakēña
Sentence 4 of the LCC2 Relay Text is:
telme jakēña mo makīþa matēnnā ien tō wā terle jasōra xiēn jē jaþīña tōkēñ;
jakēña is the object of se, and means “a question”. It is related to the interrogative mood marker kēñ. telme jakēña is I asked him/her/it. mo makīþa matēnnā is a renaming of who I asked, namely the talking rock. tō wā terle jasōra xiēn jē jaþīña tōkēñ is the question. More on that tomorrow.
“I asked the talking rock…”
jalā
This looks like a noun, but it isn’t. In the third sentence of the LCC2 Relay Text, concerning a talking rock, it occurs between a relative pronoun ien and the relational la. The only things that can occur in this position are conjunctions, clause-level modifiers, and peripheral phrases headed by some sort of prepositional particle. jalā functions as a clause-level modifier and indicates complete agreement with the statement one is responding to.
temle ke makīþa matēnnā ien jalā la liēn makīþa matēnnā;
The talking rock said to me, “Yes, I am a talking rock.”
Notice that the talking rock does not use the reduced first person pronoun.
riēn
This is very simply the 2nd person singular pronoun. Now, for the LCC2 Relay Text, concerning a talking rock. Sentence #2:
ē ñalla jakīþa jatēnnā rā lekū mē ōl aþ telme ien la riēn makīþa matēnnā kēñ;
This has all been blogged before (or just now). Three notes of interest, however.
1) ñalla [x] rā lekū mē is the circumlocution used to indicate that one has taken something [x] into one’s hand. The [x] is jakīþa jatēnnā, “the talking rock”. ōl is used to indicate upwards motion, so “took up into my hand”.
2) In the first clause, the talking rock is inanimate singular. In the second clause, which asks “Are you a talking rock?”, the talking rock is animate singular. This is called raising to animacy and happens when one imbues something with personhood, for example by talking to it as if it could answer back. Lowering something to inanimacy happens when one is removing personhood from something or someone. Not a nice thing to do.
3) We discussed reduced pronouns earlier this week and I mentioned that it is considered polite to reduce the 1st person pronoun. It is exceedingly familiar and thus impolite to strangers to reduce the second person pronoun.
ē ñalla jakīþa jatēnnā rā lekū mē ōl aþ telme ien la riēn makīþa matēnnā kēñ;
And I took the rock up into my hand and then said to it, “Are you a talking rock?”
anwāna
Continuing with the first sentence of the LCC2 Relay Text, concerning a talking rock:
il talōnte tiēlen ñi le rā jahāwekien nō il ñi lerāka jawāna sū jakīþa ja pa antēnnā ōl;
anwāna means “the quality of being out of place and therefore wrong” and appears here as an inanimate singular noun modifying lerāka. lerāka is simply the familiar jarāka inflected as a possessed noun. This is perfectly okay, if a bit informal. Together, lerāka jawāna means something like a “wrong step” or a “false step” meaning one that was interfered with somehow.
sū jakīþa ja pa antēnnā ōl is “on a rock that could talk” (a rock which has the attribute able-to-talk), and is the location of the wrong step, implying one tripped over this rock.
“Yesterday I was going along the beach, when I tripped over a rock that could talk.”
le
Continuing with the first sentence of the LCC2 Relay Text, concerning a talking rock:
il talōnte tiēlen ñi le rā jahāwekien nō il ñi lerāka jawāna sū jakīþa ja pa antēnnā ōl;
le is the first person reduced pronoun. It does not specify number, so it can mean I or we, either inclusive or exclusive. Reduced pronouns do not usually occur as the object of a relational, but it is also considered more polite to use the reduced pronoun in the first person. Since this story is told in the first person as if it were an anecdote of something that happened just yesterday, it is appropriate here.
rā jahāwekien nō is “along the beach”, all these words having been blogged before.
“Yesterday I was going along the beach…”
tiēlen
Continuing with the first sentence of the LCC2 Relay Text, concerning a talking rock:
il talōnte tiēlen ñi le rā jahāwekien nō il ñi lerāka jawāna sū jakīþa ja pa antēnnā ōl;
tiēlen is a past imperfective marker. Since ñi generally concerns itself with changes of state or location, it assumes that the change is completed. Here the change is not completed.
“Yesterday…”