Continuing with Gary’s list:
- We sailed down the river for several miles.
This sentence is a good use of dantɨŋi “go along a path”, with the river as the path. Boat can be the instrument, which is generally… hmm, I can’t believe I’ve gotten this far without an instrumentive marker of some sort. That wouldn’t be the same as the purposive at all. Probably the best candidate is the comitative –nɛn, and I think that is a very common pattern for natlangs, using a comitative for an instrument.
OK, now the “for several miles”: a unit of distance with a non-specific quantifier. amba dɛŋɛ would be the right phrase, but what about it’s relationship to the river, the actual path. I’m inclined to turn this into a possessive phrase “the river’s several miles” or “several miles of river”: tanan ha amba dɛŋɛ. Of course one dɛŋɛ does not equal one mile, but it is a distance along those lines.
61. lɛnna gɛdɛnɛn danotni tanava ha amba dɛŋɛ.
- lɛnna
- 1.MTpl
- gɛdɛ
- boat.SSsg
- -nɛn
- with
- dan-
- along
- otni
- tɨŋi.PRF
- tanan
- river.SSsg
- ha
- PS
- amba
- some
- dɛŋɛ
- miles
In Kēlen:
61. ñi lēim ānen jahēra sū jatāna il jarāŋŋi pē;
- ñi
- NI
- lēim
- 1PC
- ānen
- with
- jahēra
- boat
- sū
- on
- jatāna
- river
- il
- while
- jarāŋŋi
- miles
- pē
- few
Questions?