jē nā
Final post on sentence 7 and on the LCC2 Relay Text, concerning the talking rock.
ilwae sele jarūna wā mo lerōña to jakīþa jatēnnā jē nā;
jē nā is a modifier that can be a noun phrase modifier or a clausal modifier. Either way it conveys a meaning of “only”. In this sentence, combined with ilwae it adds emphasis so that ilwae … jē nā is “never at all” with an implied again.
ilwae sele jarūna wā mo lerōña to jakīþa jatēnnā jē nā;
I never had another sight of the talking rock at all.
jarūna
We’re on sentence 7 (the final sentence) of the LCC2 Relay Text, concerning the talking rock.
ilwae sele jarūna wā mo lerōña to jakīþa jatēnnā jē nā;
jarūna means “another sight or glimpse of something” and denotes that one has seen the thing before and is now seeing it again.
sele jarūna “To me: another sight”. ilwae sele jarūna wā is “Never to me another sight”. mo lerōña to my eyes, renaming the beneficiary here. And to jakīþa jatēnnā the source of the sight, the talking rock. And look, it’s got inanimate inflection. No more personhood for that mean ol’ talking rock.
“I never had another sight of the talking rock…”
Tomorrow jē nā and the end of this relay text.
ilwae
On to sentence 7 (the final sentence) of the LCC2 Relay Text, concerning the talking rock.
ilwae sele jarūna wā mo lerōña to jakīþa jatēnnā jē nā;
ilwae is a clause-level modifier dealing with time, so an il-word. It means “never”. More on sentence 7 tomorrow.
ānen
Last post for sentence 6 of the LCC2 Relay Text, concerning a talking rock:
tō tele janūra to makīþa matēnnā jerrasōr tō jāo ñalla ja rā anālhāri mē ānen antāken;
ānen when followed by a stative noun, here antāken, makes a clause-level modifier that best translates into an adverb. antāken means “physical strength”, making ānen antāken mean “forcefully”.
ñalla ja rā anālhāri mē ānen antāken is “I moved it into the ocean forcefully” or “I threw it into the ocean”.
tō tele janūra to makīþa matēnnā jerrasōr tō jāo ñalla ja rā anālhāri mē ānen antāken;
The talking rock’s reply made me angry that I threw it into the ocean.
ja
We’re still on sentence 6 of the LCC2 Relay Text, concerning a talking rock:
tō tele janūra to makīþa matēnnā jerrasōr tō jāo ñalla ja rā anālhāri mē ānen antāken;
ja is the 3rd person inanimate reduced pronoun. There is no full pronoun for 3rd person inanimate. This form of ja looks exactly like the much more common inanimate relative pronoun ja . The reason it can’t be that ja is that there is no noun phrase in front of it.
The use of ja here initially looks ungrammatical because it refers to makīþa matēnnā, an animate noun phrase. And, indeed, ma would be entirely appropriate here. But, remember I talked about raising things to animacy and imbuing them with personhood. The opposite is also possible and one can interpret this as lowering the talking rock back into inanimate object status. And considering the rest of the clause and the next sentence, that is what is happening here.
ñalla ja rā anālhāri mē is “I moved it into the ocean” signalling a change in location for the talking rock.
The talking rock’s reply made me angry that I moved it into the ocean…”
to
Sentence 6 of the LCC2 Relay Text, concerning a talking rock:
tō tele janūra to makīþa matēnnā jerrasōr tō jāo ñalla ja rā anālhāri mē ānen antāken;
to is used with se to mark an inanimate or involuntary source. makīþa matēnnā jerrasōr “the talking rock’s reply” is therefore the inanimate source for janūra “anger”. tele janūra to makīþa matēnnā jerrasōr is “The talking rock’s reply made me angry…”.
One might ask why se is used here and not ñi since I have just indicated a change of state to angry. But anger is an emotions, and emotional states are expressed with se. A more literal translation of tele janūra to makīþa matēnnā jerrasōr is “From the talking rock’s reply to me: anger”.
The talking rock’s reply made me angry…
jerrasōr
Sentence 5 of the LCC2 Relay Text, concerning a talking rock:
temle jerrasōr ien tō la liēn makīþa matēnnā mapēnne lā;
jerrasōr means reply, and if it looks like it is related to jasōra, that’s because it is. Anyway, temle jerrasōr “He replied to me”: tō la liēn makīþa matēnnā mapēnne lā, which easily translates into “Because I am a mean talking rock!”
temle jerrasōr ien tō la liēn makīþa matēnnā mapēnne lā;
He replied to me, “Because I am a mean talking rock!”
Tomorrow, sentence 6!
jaþīña
We’re still on sentence 4 of the LCC2 Relay Text:
telme jakēña mo makīþa matēnnā ien tō wā terle jasōra xiēn jē jaþīña tōkēñ;
jaþīña means “path” and in this story refers to the path the narrator was taking before s/he tripped over that talking rock. xiēn jē does not occur only in titles, and it still means “concerning” or “about”. tō wā terle jasōra xiēn jē jaþīña tōkēñ is therefore “why didn’t you tell me about the path” i.e. why didn’t you warn me about where I was going so I wouldn’t have tripped over you.
telme jakēña mo makīþa matēnnā ien tō wā terle jasōra xiēn jē jaþīña tōkēñ;
I asked the talking rock, “Why didn’t you tell me about the path?”
Tomorrow, sentence 5!
jasōra
We’re still on sentence 4 of the LCC2 Relay Text:
telme jakēña mo makīþa matēnnā ien tō wā terle jasōra xiēn jē jaþīña tōkēñ;
jasōra means “word” and in the context of being an object of se, it means “say” or “tell”, so terle jasōra is literally “from you to me (in the past): word” or “you told me” or “you said to me”.
telme jakēña mo makīþa matēnnā ien tō wā terle jasōra xiēn jē jaþīña tōkēñ;
I asked the talking rock, “Why didn’t you tell me… ”
P.S. the stative form ansōra would mean “currently talking“.
tōkēñ
We’re still on sentence 4 of the LCC2 Relay Text:
telme jakēña mo makīþa matēnnā ien tō wā terle jasōra xiēn jē jaþīña tōkēñ;
I’m starting this clause with the last word for a reason. Namely, the tōkēñ at the end is related to the tō at the beginning. tō here is essentially the same tō as here, a conjunctive particle meaning “because”. It is not actually required for the sentence to be grammatically correct, but, hey, redundancy is good!
tōkēñ is this particle glommed on to the interrogative mood marker kēñ to ask “why” something. The initial tō here is followed by the clause-level modifier wā which negates a clause, so altogether tō wā … tōkēñ (or wā … tōkēñ) is “why not” or “why isn’t” or “why didn’t”.
telme jakēña mo makīþa matēnnā ien tō wā terle jasōra xiēn jē jaþīña tōkēñ;
I asked the talking rock, “Why didn’t…”