Re: speaking and saying (was: Re: Forget it)

Sally Caves asked:

>What are the results of your course on language invention?
I posted some details of Nattiki, together with a few sample sentences,
about a week ago.  The only new things since then are:

-- Negation will be marked with the particle "mi" before the verb:

        Ichaloowoni             "I love you"
        Mi ichaloowoni          "I don't love you"

-- Yes/no questions will be marked with the particle "bawi":

        Nachaloola              "You love me"
        Bawi nachaloola?        "Do you love me?"
        Bawi mi nachaloola?     "Don't you love me?"

-- We also invented some conjunctions, a handful of quantifiers, and
the numbers from one to ten.  Unfortunately I don't have my dictionary
handy, so I can't tell you what they are.  The conjunctions I remember
are:

        da      "and"
        ep      "but"
        zigaa   "because"
        maki    "when, as, while"
        bado    "after"

        Tebobjeeta        kuumajalaatem da  putaakatem
        3p-Prog-eat.lunch elephant-Nom  and hamster-Nom
        "The elephants and hamsters are eating lunch"

        Ichaloowoni zigaa   nadee boopa
        1s-love-2s  because 2s-be crazy
        "I love you because you're crazy"

The only numbers I remember are:

        ed      "one"
        zee     "two"
        fuu     "three"
        ...
        pup     "six"
        ...
        gao     "nine"
        sup     "ten"

        Iokima     fuuop     dibutmudokop
        1s-Pst-see three-Acc magician-Acc
        "I saw three magicians"

This coming Friday we'll do reflexives/reciprocals, modal verbs,
and maybe evidentials...

Matt.

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Matt Pearson
mpearson@ucla.edu
UCLA Linguistics Department
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543
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