Test Sentences, 22

Continuing with Gary’s list:

43. The children ran after Jack.

“run after” means chase, or go behind. I visualize it like so: children —> Jack —>. So Jack is simultaneously the destination of the first arrow, and the thing moving for the second arrow.

This is essentially two sentences, one for each arrow. This requires turning the second into a relative clause: The children go towards Jack who goes.

43. hɨsna noyotni Jack ma otni.

notɨŋi says that the children go towards Jack rather than to Jack. But I hate that sentence. Let’s try again. We could use a clausal conjunction between the two: Jack goes, so the children go towards Jack.

43. Jack otni nɛnsi hɨsna noyotni maveya.

Hmm. Not as awful as the first. Another idea: we could say that the children go along Jack’s path towards Jack.

43. hɨsna danotni tona da Jack noyotni maveya.

I like this better. Stringing together verbs like this requires that the subject be the same for each verb. Here the subject for both verbs is hɨsna “the children”. dantɨŋi means to go along a path.

And we can simplify that a little by using the non-specific daka instead of the class 4 noun tona:

43. hɨsna danotni daka noyotni Jack.

In Kēlen:

43. ñi mīsi rā Jack mīrien;

Questions?