Continuing with Gary’s list:
- Yesterday the oldest girl in the village lost her kitten.
“Lost” is an adjective, and a kitten becomes lost iddɨse tɨŋi do. Now we just need to specify which kitten and when. When is easy. That is the adverb talondÉ›. Which kitten is a little more complex.
Let’s start with the girl’s kitten iddɨse ha laki. But not any girl, the oldest girl in the village. A girl in the village (or rather, of the village) is laki ma dÉ›spÉ›. That is the same possessive construction used for the girl’s kitten. That leaves “oldest”. The speakers of sodna-lÉ›ni don’t really care about relative age, but they do have other hierarchies, and the equivalent of the oldest girl would be the top girl. So one could say laki ola ma dÉ›spÉ› “the village’s top girl”.
Put this all together and we have:
51. iddɨse ha laki ola ma dɛspɛ otni do talondɛ dɛstɛ.
- iddɨse
- kitten.MTsg
- ha
- PS
- laki
- girl.MTsg
- ola
- top.MTsg
- ma
- PS
- dɛspɛ
- village.SSsg
- otni
- tɨŋi.PRF
- do
- lost.MTsg
- talondÉ›
- yesterday
- dɛstɛ
- REP
The village’s top girl’s kitten got lost yesterday {I’m told}.
In Kēlen:
51. ñi jalāca ānen anhēna anānexa sū jakēste jatūmsemma jarō il talōnte;
- ñi
- NI
- jalāca
- girl
- ānen
- with
- anhēna
- age
- anānexa
- most
- sū
- in
- jakēste
- town
- jatūmse
- tūmse
- -mma
- hers
- jarō
- lost
- il
- while
- talōnte
- yesterday
Questions?