Test Sentences, 45

Continuing with Gary’s list:

67. The little seeds waited patiently under the snow for the warm spring sun.

Here we have little seeds sitting with patience. And they are under the snow, and they are waiting for the warm sun in the spring. Right.

To sit under something involves tɛndɛ LOC tadya. To sit for some time, i.e. to wait, is tɛndɛ goɬi. We can combine those into tɛndɛ LOC tadya goɬi.

As for the warm spring sun, we could say that the seeds are sitting and then the sun comes. The clausal conjunction in this case would be ladi, which connects clauses in a sequence. I know that in an earlier sentence, the child waited for her father, and her father became a sessile source or purpose. The English sentence implies a purpose for the little seeds, but I don’t feel comfortable doing that in this sentence. Animate beings can have purpose. Inanimate objects do not do things for a purpose. Making the warm sun into a purpose would imply that without the warm sun the seeds would not sit there, they’d go do something else. But that is not true. They would sit there until the warm sun came.

With only a rainy season and a dry season, the snow comes in the rainy season, and the warmth comes with the turn of the seasons bɨɬɨs da hɨddɨŋi.

67. gyodi ɨsi ɛspenɛn tɛndɛ dolnavi tadya goɬi ladi loho kyala tɨŋi bɨɬɨs da hɨddɨŋi olaya dɛstɛ.

In Kēlen:

67. la jajōþi jīñi ānen ankēspen sū anrōli tā ilaþ ñi malō macālle il jīlpēneha;

Questions?