Test Sentences, 46

Continuing with Gary’s list:

68. Many little girls with wreaths of flowers on their heads danced around the bonfire.

Now that is a fun subject. With a serial predicate, at least in sodna-lɨni.

Let’s start with the predicate. The girls are dancing and they are doing it around the campfire. (Campfire, bonfire, no diff, ok?) So they tɛŋi gyadad “go to dancing” and they nokili nolako dugaŋya “close to the campfire surroundingly”. And look, a verb of motion we haven’t used yet! kiɬi in its most basic form means to go by a location rather than to a location. The girls aren’t in the campfire, they’re by it. Prefixing kiɬi with noya means that they are close by it.

Now for the subject. The actual subject is many little girls. The rest is modifying that subject is one big phrase (or rather series of phrases). We can do that!

68. aŋo lakina ɛsna mavna olana ha nada bɨɬɨn da maladi otni gyadadi nokɛtti nolako dugaŋya dɨstɨ.

In Kēlen:

68. ñi malāki mīñi nā ma la sōlle pa jawāeli jamāli rū janāola āñ ānen anjāra;

Questions?