Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Kioshu update, plea for help.

From:Jeff Goguen <princetaliesin@...>
Date:Friday, October 11, 2002, 9:08
Hello everybody!

I haven't posted in a while, but for those of you who are interested,
I have updated my Kioshu website. The update includes a new lesson on
simple verb tensing, which I'm sure will generate some interesting
questions, and some revisions. The most significant revision is to
the relative annex section of the introduction. Here is the URL:

http://home.cfl.rr.com/kioshu/

As always, constructive criticism is extremely welcome. In fact, I'd
like to ask for help with an issue that has come to the forefront of
my mind. I'm having trouble figuring out how to represent certain
verbals. To cite an example from
http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/verbals.html#verba
l:

Building a house is complicated.

Okay...now "building" is the gerund of the verb "to build", it turns
it into a noun. In this case, though, it takes a direct object in the
form of the noun phrase "a house". Right now, Kioshu does not have a
gerund, and I don't think I necessarily want it to. However I figure
this out, it will probably involve the infinitive, i.e.:

To build a house is complicated.

Now...let me give a quick rundown about why this is a problem in
Kioshu. It would be helpful if you've picked  up some grammar from
the website, but not necessary. Sentences in Kioshu are SOV. A
sentence containing a subject and an object will always have
something called an annex. The annex is a word that tells the
relationship between the subject and object in reference to the verb.
It is sort-of postpositional to the subject and at the same time
prepositional to the object. But the annex isn't always necessarily
only between only the subject and object of the sentence. It actually
refers to the relationship between everything before and after it.
So, like in the instance of the dative annex, it indicates the
relationship of the preceding part of the sentence (which would
include a subject, direct object, and a verb already) to the
following indirect object.
That's a very basic description of sentence structure. One other thing
you'll need to know is how adjectives are used. In some simple cases
an adjective can actually act as a direct object in a sentence as a
seperate word, but for the most part, it is a prefix that is attached
to the noun.

Okay...so, lets look at this example and why it gets complicated in
Kioshu.

To build a house is complicated.

to build = leugi
house = uosh
complicated = peni'io-
to be = tivosh
general annex ("The subject verbs the object.") = nik

I could say:
Uosh nik peni'ioleugi tivosh.

Which literally translates to:
A house is complicated to build.

Now...this seems to be the optimal solution of everything I've
thought, but is "To build a house is complicated." the same sentence
as "A house is complicated to build."? I don't think it is, because
in the first one "a house" is the direct object of the verbal "to
build", in the second it is the subject of "is"!

If I am wrong, thank you for your time, read no further because
anything below this is just inane babble. If not, then here are some
other things that pose even larger problems:

Peni'ioleugi uosh [tivosh].

Which "technically" literally translates to:
To build a house is complicated.

This sounds like what we want, but there's something wrong with it.
Now, call me anal, but to me this sentence screams grammatical
incorrectness. Why? Because "a house" is supposed to be the direct
object of "to build" and by Kioshu rules it doesn't appear to be one
in this sentence. This is because of Kioshu's SOV sentence structure.
Okay, so let's switch it up:

Uosh peni'ioleugi [tivosh].

Again, technically literally translates to:
To build a house is complicated.

So what's my problem with this one? To be honest, I'm not really
sure. It seems strange to me to have a direct object just sitting out
there without an annex. But an annex should only be there if there's
also something before it. And the sentence might also be
translated "A house complicatedly builds." I know that doesn't even
make sense, so I shouldn't worry about it. I don't know, perhaps this
is the best solution. It just seems incomplete or incorrect to me.

Any advice, suggestions?

Thanks for your patience!
Jeff

Replies

taliesin the storyteller <taliesin@...>
Roberto Suarez Soto <ask4it@...>
Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...>