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Korahamla lives!

From:Amanda Babcock <langs@...>
Date:Tuesday, November 12, 2002, 5:09
The first sentence in Korahámla (a word which means "the instrument by which
words are put forth") now exists:

        ikókiw jomelaléjkiro

        "I love my kitty"

Traditional interlinears will not work on Korahámla.  It's a mystery
how the native speakers are able to manage the language, what with the
derivational processes being so impenetrable.  The utterance disassembled,
with the easy part first:

        ków "self"
          plus -ki- "my"        gives kókiw "myself, I"
          plus topic marker i-  gives ikókiw

i- is the topic marker for new information, as if I were saying out of
the blue "you know, I love my cat".  If I'd been making other I-statements,
I would use u- here (topic marker for old information).

Next, the comment:

        méro "cat"
          plus diminutive -l-   gives meléro "kitty"
          plus -ki- "my"        gives melékiro "my kitty"
          plus -a- "to love"    gives melalékiro "to love my kitty"
          plus -j- "agent of"   gives melaléjkiro "one who loves my kitty"
          plus comment marker jo-       gives jomelaléjkiro

Multiple comments can be strung together.  The first, which is coreferential
with the topic, takes the jo- prefix.  Subsequent comments take we- if they
have the same reference as the previous comment, and su- if they have a
different reference from the previous comment.

Now if only I could think of a way to make the cat be the topic... that
would seem more natural.  I can do "my kitty, she is loved" with

        imelékiro jokakówewþe

which would come out to "my kitty is the recipient of loving-her", or
alternatively

        imelékiro jomaméwro

which comes out to "my kitty is the recipient of loving-a-cat".

        jokakówewþe:
          ków "self"
          plus -þe "her"        gives kówþe "herself, she"
          plus -a- "to love"    gives kakówþe "to love her"
          plus patient marker -w-       gives kakówewþe "she who is loved"
          plus comment marker jo-       gives jokakówewþe

        jomaméwro:
          méro "cat"
          plus -a- "to love"    gives maméro "to love a cat"
          plus patient marker -w-       gives maméwro "beloved cat"
          plus comment marker jo-       gives jomaméwro

And I think that's enough for tonight.

(Korahámla v.2, which this is, can be played with at
http://mercury.quandary.org/~langs/cgi-bin/compose.v2.cgi .  Currently
there is not yet a way to get the topic and comment on the same page;
they must be constructed separately.)

Amanda
ikirromópow johattafáson!
roughly, "it grieves me to take leave of you", which is now the official
farewell.  Contrast to ikomópowt johesseféper, "it gives me joy to see you".

Replies

Muke Tever <mktvr@...>
Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>