Tag: sentences

Continuing with Gary’s list:

68. Many little girls with wreaths of flowers on their heads danced around the bonfire.

Now that is a fun subject. With a serial predicate, at least in sodna-lɨni.

Let’s start with the predicate. The girls are dancing and they are doing it around the campfire. (Campfire, bonfire, no diff, ok?) So they tɛŋi gyadad “go to dancing” and they nokili nolako dugaŋya “close to the campfire surroundingly”. And look, a verb of motion we haven’t used yet! kiɬi in its most basic form means to go by a location rather than to a location. The girls aren’t in the campfire, they’re by it. Prefixing kiɬi with noya means that they are close by it.

Now for the subject. The actual subject is many little girls. The rest is modifying that subject is one big phrase (or rather series of phrases). We can do that!

68. aŋo lakina ɛsna mavna olana ha nada bɨɬɨn da maladi otni gyadadi nokɛtti nolako dugaŋya dɨstɨ.

In Kēlen:

68. ñi malāki mīñi nā ma la sōlle pa jawāeli jamāli rū janāola āñ ānen anjāra;

Questions?

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?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

66. The squirrel’s nest was hidden by drooping boughs.

OK. No squirrels. We’ll use kyɨlan, which is a largish sort of insect that build nests, sometimes even in trees.

If I were to say that the kyɨlan‘s nest is hidden, I’d use a verb of stance. The addition of the by phrase makes the drooping boughs a cause. So I could say that the boughs “sent” the nest to hiding. Or I could stick with the verb of stance and say that the nest sat in hiding in the boughs. I think that “by” means I should use the equivalent of “sent”, which would involve tɨŋi.

The next question is whether to mark the source (the boughs) with tto. I state in my published grammar that the causative tto attaches itself only to motile sources. The branches aren’t actually motile, but leaving them sessile turns them into a point of origin or a purpose. So I think I will have to allow tto to attach to any source and turn it from a purpose to a cause.

66. nɨdi nubitto kyɨlan ha lomu tɨŋi lammo dɛstɛ.

In Kēlen:

66. ñi jalōmme jē jacīla jalāma tō janīri janūwi;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

65. An old man with a walking stick stood beside the fence.

Standing next to a location involves the verb dansɛdɛ.

65. kyume tɛta dappomonɛn dansɛttɛ askɨba da kɨdan.

In Kēlen:

65. la macūma mahēna nīkan japōma jarāka sū jakāste nū;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

64. Tom laughed at the monkey’s tricks.

So, is laughter a destination? Did the monkey’s tricks move Tom to laughter? Or is it a companion mental state? Tom stands with laughter because of the monkey’s tricks. Or is laughter to be treated like shouting and singing, a noise emitted by someone? Either way the monkey’s tricks belong in the source slot.

A monkey’s tricks would be sɛmba ha dindi. And let’s use the first option with laughter as the destination.

64. sɛmbava ha dindi Tom otni pilile tɛlɛ.

In Kēlen:

64. ñi Tom mamārienne tō jakāe jasānne;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

63. On a sunny morning after the solstice we started for the mountains.

Leaving off the time phrases for the moment, “we started towards the mountains” uses the inceptive (or inchoative, or something) of notɨŋi “to go towards a destination”: lɛnna notambi laɬi. This will come in a second clause after a clause describing the time. The two clauses will be joined by the clausal conjunction na, which implies that the clauses take place simultaneously, or at least that the second clause happens during the first one.

Now for the time phrases. First the solstice, and then a sunny morning after the solstice. For the solstice, I will use the phrase bɨɬɨs da hɨddɨŋi “dawn of the season(s)”, which really corresponds more to the equinox, but…. The word for morning is galnanda and a sunny morning is a bright morning galnanda lo. To describe a morning after the solstice, we would use the verb daɬa, the third of the stance verbs, and one we haven’t had cause to use yet!

By the way, the day is divided into four parts and the four transitions are also named. Dawn and dusk have the same name: hɨddɨŋi. If you really have to distinguish them, dawn can be hɨddɨŋi ola and dusk is hɨddɨŋi tada. Noon is lɨnanda and midnight is lɨsɨnda. Morning is galnanda, afternoon is ɨnnanda, evening is galsɨnda, and late night is ɨssɨnda. The four parts all use daɬa as their preferred verb of stance. lɨnanda and lɨsɨnda prefer sɛdɛ, and hɨddɨŋi prefers tɛndɛ. Furthermore, ɨssɨnda and galnanda both move upwards when necessary, and ɨnnanda and galsɨnda move downwards.

63. galnanda lo daɬa bɨɬɨs da hɨddɨŋi ɨdeba na lɛnna notambi laɬi.

In Kēlen:

63. la jānnalon jalū il jīstū jatāelle il antielen il aþ ñalta jānne rā anlāe;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

62. Everybody knows about hunting.

Everybody knows about hunting? I don’t. 🙂 But, OK. This is not saying that everyone knows how to hunt, just that everyone has heard of it and knows something about it, not necessarily how to do it. So, I guess, everyone stands with some knowledge at/in hunting.

So, a hunter is ɛdan, a class I noun. The activity of hunting, though, is ɛdannan, a class IV noun. Knowledge syeni is also a class IV noun.

62. nadna amba syeninɛn sɛdɛ ɛdannan dɛstɛ.

In Kēlen:

62. sexe anērān;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

61. We sailed down the river for several miles.

This sentence is a good use of dantɨŋi “go along a path”, with the river as the path. Boat can be the instrument, which is generally… hmm, I can’t believe I’ve gotten this far without an instrumentive marker of some sort. That wouldn’t be the same as the purposive at all. Probably the best candidate is the comitative –nɛn, and I think that is a very common pattern for natlangs, using a comitative for an instrument.

OK, now the “for several miles”: a unit of distance with a non-specific quantifier. amba dɛŋɛ would be the right phrase, but what about it’s relationship to the river, the actual path. I’m inclined to turn this into a possessive phrase “the river’s several miles” or “several miles of river”: tanan ha amba dɛŋɛ. Of course one dɛŋɛ does not equal one mile, but it is a distance along those lines.

61. lɛnna gɛdɛnɛn danotni tanava ha amba dɛŋɛ.

In Kēlen:

61. ñi lēim ānen jahēra sū jatāna il jarāŋŋi pē;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

60. Have you ever travelled in the jungle?

I think this sentence is a good use of eyaŋi “move about in”.

60. ŋidi eyonnɨt gyelele dɛmɛ?

In Kēlen:

60. ñi riēn rā anjēli mē kēñ;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

59. Are you going with us to the concert?

This is simpler than it looks, though I don’t have a word for concert. Let’s substitute some other destination, like a ceremony (katɛn, a class IV noun).

59. ŋidi lɛnnanɛn tɨŋi katɛn dɛmɛ?

In Kēlen:

59. ñi riēn nīkanle rā jakāenal kēñ;

Questions?