Tag: North Wind & Sun

Posted on

ien

ien

ien

This is a relative pronoun that is only used with the relational se. It is used to expand upon the main object of se. For example:

iēlte teteñ anþēŋŋeni ien la ma pa antāken anānexa makēñ;

The main object of se (here realized as teteñ, which is se in the past tense with a 3rd person paucal reflexive inflection “they, to each other”) is anþēŋŋeni “argument”. ien modifies anþēŋŋeni to tell us what the argument was: who is the strongest?

iēlte teteñ anþēŋŋeni ien la ma pa antāken anānexa makēñ;
Long ago they, to each other gave argument: who is the strongest?

On to the next sentence in the North Wind and the Sun.

Posted on

ma & ma-

ma

ma & ma-

This ubiquitous syllable denotes third person animate without specifying number. As a full word it has two functions. One is to simply mark a reference to a third person animate antecedent. This is what it is doing in the sentence in the North Wind and the Sun.

la ma pa antāken anānexa;
S/he has the most strength/is strongest.

Its other function as a full word is to act as a relative pronoun when an animate entity is being referred to in a relative clause.

As a prefix, this syllable can mark an animate noun. It also can act as a prefix to the question marker kēñ to make “who”.

la ma pa antāken anānexa makēñ;
Who has the most strength/is strongest?

Tomorrow’s post will finish this sentence.

Posted on

(la)…pa

pa

(la)…pa

pa is one of the four relationals. It concerns itself with whole::part and thing::attribute relationships. la … pa … is an alternative syntax and is best read as la THING pa ATTRIBUTE.

la … pa antāken anānexa
… has attribute: the most strength.

Tomorrow we tackle … .

Posted on

anānexa

anaanexa

anānexa

best or most. This is an attribute rather than a comparative, so maybe a better translation is “acme” or “epitome”, i.e. this word describes something that is the best of a group or has the most of a quality in the group.

In the North Wind and the Sun this word always modifies the preceding word antāken to make the noun phrase antāken anānexa “the strongest”, or “the most strength”.

Posted on

iēlte

ieelte

iēlte

This is a modifier that means, essentially “once upon a time” or “once long ago” or “long ago”. After introducing our two characters, we start the story with “once long ago”.

Posted on

ansīrien

ansiirien

ansīrien

of the North. This word is derived from the root –sīr– which means “dry”.

Of our two characters in the story, one is the North Wind, mūrāna masīrien and the other is the Sun malō. I covered the word for wind, usually inanimate, earlier, and the word for sun, always animate, shortly after that.

se mūrāna masīrien; se malō;
The North Wind; the Sun.

Posted on

se

se

se

se is one of the four relationals, one of the four particles that stands in place of what would be a verb in English. Relationals tell one what to expect in the rest of the sentence. Se expects an object (such as a thing being passed from one person to another, or speech, or a feeling) and expects that that object will have a source (someone speaking, for example) and/or a beneficiary (such as someone experiencing a feeling). These may not always be expressed overtly, but they are considered to exist.

se, by itself, uninflected and followed by a simple animate noun phrase or a name is often used to introduce characters. The idea is that the unexpressed source is the person speaking or narrating the story, and the unexpressed beneficiary is the person addressed or the audience of a story.

So, in the first sentence of the North Wind and the Sun, we get introduced to our two characters using this uninflected se.

Posted on

xiēn jē

xieenspacejee

xiēn jē

This is a preposition meaning “about” or “concerning”.

la þō jatāena xiēn jē anþēŋŋeni;
This story is about an argument.

The titles of many short texts consist of xiēn jē plus a noun phrase. For example, the title of the Kēleni version of the North Wind and the Sun is xiēn jē anþēŋŋeni “Concerning an argument”.