Tag: sentences

The next three sentences in Gary’s list concern rain:

18. It’s raining.
19. The rain came down.
20. The kitten is playing in the rain.

Rain is tadan, another class II noun, but with a singulative suffix, so really tadan is ‘raindrop’. In the collective/plural, it is tadna.

Falling is motion downwards, using tɨŋi. With rain, the downwards part can be left off.

18. tadna tɨŋi.

19. tadna tɨŋi tadya.

I said that tadya was no longer prefixable, but I think it will be possible to simply say tattɨŋi (tad+tɨŋi) and mean “It’s raining”, literally “it’s moving downwards”. Any other usage of tadya with tɨŋi, though, requires the formations above.

20. gyɛdɛ iddɨse eyaŋi tadnavi.

aŋi means to move to a large, diffuse destination. Prefixed with aŋi, it means to move about in a location (here, the rain). gyɛdɛ ‘game’, in the source slot and sessile, is indicating a purpose for the rest of the sentence. So the kitten is moving about in the rain for the purpose of a game.

In Kēlen:

18. la antārranni;

19. ñi antārranni rājatā;

20. ñi jatūmse jajēren sū antārranni;

“The tūmse is playful in the rain.”

Questions?

The next four sentences in Gary’s list have people shouting:

11. All the people shouted.
12. Some of the people shouted.
13. Many of the people shouted twice.
14. Happy people often shout.

And they have quantifiers!

People is a class II noun, and since it is the source in all 4 sentences, it’ll be in the motile plural form ɛlɛna. The shout, though, is a class IV noun, also in the motile plural: umɨdiya. Shouting uses the same verb as shining, evi, because with shouting, the noise is moving out in all directions, just as with shining.

11. nadna ɛlɛna umɨdiya tavi bala.

12. amba ɛlɛna umɨdiya tavi bala.

13. aŋo ɛlɛna umɨdiya tavi iyɛnɛ bala.

14. ɛlɛna andabalna umɨdiya evna ɨnavi dɛstɛ.

sodna-lɛni has evidentials. The visual evidential is zero marked, which is why they haven’t appeared until now. The visual evidential is for things one knows because one has seen or witnessed the information in the sentence. bala is for things one knows because one has heard, smelled, or otherwise sensed, but not actually seen, the information in the sentence. Shouting would involve hearing rather than seeing, so it is the appropriate evidential for 11-13. But the statement that happy people often shout is one of those things that is generally learned from an authority of some sort, so it uses the reported evidential dɛstɛ.

In Kēlen:

11. tatta jarūlōn ke mēli nāra;

12. tatta jarūlōn ke mēli pē;

13. tatta jarūlōn ke mēli nā il ēnne;

The paucal source and singular shout in 11-13 says that the people shouted together at the same time.

14. saxxa jarūlōni ke mēli mālni;

The next set of sentences in Gary’s list are still discussing the sun:

8. The sun shines brightly.
9. The bright sun shines.
10. The sun is rising now.

OK, sentence 8 adds an adverb, 9 an adjective. 10 is another time distinction, and a change of subject (in sodna-lɛni anyways).

8. loho logɨdiya evi loya.

9. loho lo logɨdiya evi.

The adjective lo is modifying loho because a) adjectives follow nouns, and b) it’s also in the motile singular.

10. ala loho tɨŋi olaya.

Look, a new verb! tɨŋi is actually the most basic verb in sodna-lɛni. It means to move (along a path) possibly towards a destination, possibly with a point of origin, but neither of those things are required.

olaya is a directional adverb. In my published grammar, I say that directional adverbs can be prefixed to the verbs. I have decided that olaya and tadya “downwards” can no longer be prefixed. The others still can.

ala is another time adverb, and generally appears in the source slot.

In Kēlen:

8. la anlōki anlūi;

“The sunlight is bright.”

9. la malō malū;

“The sun is bright.” Kēlen doesn’t have adverbs, just adjectives.

10. āl ñi malō rājōl;

“The sun is rising now.”

The next set of sentences in Gary’s list are:

3. The sun shone.
4. The sun will shine.
5. The sun has been shining.
6. The sun is shining again.
7. The sun will shine tomorrow.

OK. More tense and aspect distinctions. sodna-lɛni doesn’t actually distinguish tense (this is an experiment on my part), which means that there is no difference in 3 and 5.

3|5. loho logɨdiya tavi.

4. loho logɨdiya evi dɛga.

6. loho logɨdiya evi iyɛ iyɛ.

7. loho logɨdiya evi dɛga lannal.

tavi is the perfect form of evi.

dɛga is the future modal, and it denotes certainty in one’s prediction.

iyɛ iyɛ and lannal are both time adverbs.

In Kēlen, again 3 & 5 are the same:

3|5. te anlōki;

4. la anlōki rēha;

6. la anlōki ī;

7. la anlōki lānnāl;

(And, yes, the words for ‘tomorrow’ in both languages are related.)

The first two sentences in Gary’s list are:

1. The sun shines.
2. The sun is shining.

Now, for me, the difference between the two sentences is that the first is in the habitual and the second is in the progressive. OK. No problem. sodna-lɛni makes that distinction:

1. loho logɨdiya evna.

2. loho logɨdiya evi.

logɨdiya is the class IV noun meaning ‘light, rays of light’ in the motile plural. It’s the subject of both sentences.

loho is the class II noun meaning ‘the sun’ in the motile singular. It acts as the source or point of origin for the subject. It can be motile because class II nouns are higher up in the animacy hierarchy than class IV nouns.

evi is the verb in use. It means that its subject is moving out in all directions from a grammatically required point of origin. In the first sentence evi is in the iterative, and in the second, the imperfect.

In Kēlen, the two sense are conflated and the easiest way to express the concept is in the sentence:

1|2. la anlōki;