Tag: sodna-lɛni

Continuing with Gary’s list, and experimenting with a one-a-day format:

31. The baby’s ball has rolled away.

“Away” in this one signals that pɛsi is probably the verb to use. pɛsi requires a source, but that can easily be the baby (class I noun kyɨbe). As a source, kyɨbe will need to be in the sessile singular, unless the baby deliberately made the ball roll away. “Ball” is a class III noun, kyoda, which will need to be motile as it is the subject of the sentence. Which leaves “rolled”, for which we will use an adverb of manner, namely bɛldɛnya, for something that exhibits a rolling, turning, or spinning motion. Putting this all together:

31. kyɨbava kyodɨdɛn pɛstɛ bɛldɛnya.

The ball (presumably the baby’s) went away from the baby rollingly, or The baby’s ball has rolled away.

In Kēlen, any observer of this scene wouldn’t care about expressing the “rolling” part, because what else is a ball supposed to do, hop?

31. ñi jacāora rū macīwa;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

30. He will arrive soon.

This one uses ono, which requires a source. Arrive means to come to a place, usually where the speaker is, so we will use “here” as a source.

30. susi mava ono galaba tɛlɛ.

He will come here soon (I infer).

In Kēlen

30. anniþen ñi sāen rā þō.

He will go to here soon.

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

26. Go away!
27. Let’s go!
28. You should go.
29. I will be happy to go.

Right. Generic “go” is usually tɨŋi, though “go away” is pɛsi. But pɛsi requires a source, so “go away from S”. The source is often susi “here, there”.

26. susi pɛsi ka

Go away from here! or Get away from here!

But,

26. tɨŋi dupɛsya ka

Go away!

also works. The rest of the sentences also use tɨŋi.

27. leni tɨŋi ki.

Let’s go.

28. ŋidi tɨŋi dɛstɛ ki.

You should go.

Evidentials are generally not used with commands and suggestions, but using the reported evidential dɛstɛ here with hortative ki makes this a polite suggestion.

29. lene tɨŋi andabalya dɛga.

I will be happy to go. / I will go happily.

In Kēlen:

26. ñi rūjapēxa ka;

27. ñanna rū þō cī;

28. ñarra rū þō cī;

29. rēha ñalla rū þō ānen anālne.

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

25. Slowly she looked around.

Well, “slowly” is easy enough. That is the adverb tosi. Looking and seeing is covered by the verb ono, which requires a source (the experiencer). The source here would be “she” in the form of “her eyes” ma doŋi. The subject would be whatever her eyes are experiencing, which is undefined in this sentence. Looking around implies looking in a place, and we know about places from the last post–soteya.

But ma doŋi soteya tono tosi is really “She saw the place slowly”. Looking has an agency to it that mere seeing does not. That can be solved by adding the causative/agentive –tto to the source. tto acts to increase the animacy of the source, which is equivalent in SL to increasing the agency. So ma doŋitto soteya tono tosi “She deliberately saw the place slowly.” or “Slowly she looked around.”

25. ma doŋitto soteya tono tosi.

In Kēlen:

25. sema jasēlni mo maroña ānen antōxa;

Questions?

Continuing with Gary’s list:

24. Once wild animals lived here.

Well, “wild animals lived here” is a simple sentence. However, “live somewhere” as in dwell is one of those concepts that tends to be idiomatic in other languages. Of course, I already sort of came up with this in the Babel text, using

ɛlɛna mesɨdɛn mɛhaŋi dɛspi.

The people make settlements on the plain.

The adverb mɛya, when prefixed to aŋi means that D dɛspi is made out of A mesɨdɛn. However, for this sentence we are going to use ko “home” instead of dɛspɛdan “settlement”, which means that “here” is essentially the subject of the SL sentence, and “wild animals” is the source.

Regarding “here”, the usual word is susi, but susi cannot be used as a subject of a sentence. 🙁 But, there is another word, sota “place” which can be used. It is a class IV abstract noun, so the motile singular is soteya. We might even make it more specific, saying deya soteya “this place”.

The word for animal is paki, pakina in the motile plural. It can mean any kind of animal, including pets, so we need the adjective “wild” to modify it. That would be gyɛttaɬ, making pakina gyɛttaɬna the source, deya soteya the subject, mɛhaŋi the verb, and ko the destination. Now all that is left is that pesky “once”.

“Once” to me implies that either the animals lived here long ago, or that however long ago it was, it will not happen again. The adverb tilɛnya mostly sort of covers that. Plus, we need the evidential dɛstɛ to explain how we know this.

24. pakina gyɛttaɬna deya soteya mɛhonnɨt ko tilɛnya dɛstɛ.

Wild animals once made home(s) here. (I’m told)

In Kēlen:

24. iēlte ñatta jamāra þō ā japāci;

Wild animals once lived here.

Questions?

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

21. The rain has stopped.
22. Soon the rain will stop.
23. I hope the rain stops soon.

21. tadna otni bodna.

bodna is an adjective. The construction N tɨŋi ADJ means that the N becomes ADJ.

22. tadna tɨŋi bodna galaba tɛlɛ.

tɛlɛ is the inference evidential. One could also say tadna tɨŋi bodna galaba dɛstɛ. “Soon the rain will stop (I’m told).”

23. lene kyɛsinɛn sɛdɛ tadna tɨŋi bodna galaba.

sɛdɛ is one of the three verbs to be. Its subject is something with a strong vertical configuration, like a person. Its subject can be either motile or sessile, which is why kyɛsi stays sessile. All of the to be verbs can take a clause in the destination slot, which refers to one of the subjects, in this case kyɛsi.

In Kēlen:

21. ñi antārranni antōrreni;

22. anniþen ñi antārranni antōrreni rēha;

23. sele jacēxa ien anniþen ñi antārranni antōrreni rēha;

Questions?

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;