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Re: The "If you call me insane again..." page, at long last!

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Sunday, July 22, 2001, 2:20
Dan Seriff wrote:
> > Some of you may remember several months ago, when several people > translated the phrase "If you call me insane again, I'll eat your other > eye." (which was in my .sig file at the time) into their own languages. > Well, I've finally gotten the time and motivation to webify it, and it's > up! It's at > "http://members.tripod.com/microtonal/language/insane.html">. Check it > out, and submit your traslations. Both natlangs and conlangs are > welcome. In fact I'd love some more natlangs, because I've only got > English, German, and Latin at the moment.
I don't remember this the first time it came around, but I'll do it now: Formal (Classical) Uatakassí: Panaivipuusagáapil plal finnasuí, sunaiuskaftíu uanalassíiuali ualatiáli Informal Uatakassí: Vintil panaipuufinnasubisagáapil, ussil sunaifunukaftíu pinalassíiuali platiáiuali Classical Uatakassí: Panaivipuusagáapil plal finnasubí, sunaiuskaftíu uanalassíiuali ualatiáli Pa- nai- vi-puu- sagáatu-u =il plal finnasubí DatObj-future-if-again-call -me=you.nom apposition crazy su-nai- us- kaftí-u ua-nalassí-iua -li ua-latiá-li AP-future-then-eat -I G6-eye -your-inst G6-other-inst = Indicates a clitic. In doing this, I discovered a problem. What happens when a final -uu runs up against the clitic il? Normally a /u/, long or short, followed by another vowel becomes a /w/ (and /tw/ becomes /p/), but I felt uncomfortable reducing the suffix -u *and* the stem's final -u to a /w/, *especially* with the obligatory /tw/ -> /p/ change. But, I could find no way of getting around it, so, it's another crazy morphophonemic alternation that I just discovered! :-) Instrumental is used for the demoted patient of an antipassive or dative-object verb Dative Object (DatObj) is a voice used to promote the *dative* to absolutive, nearly obligatory when the dative is first or second person. Informal Uatakassí: Vintil panaipuufinnasubisagáapil, ussil sunaifunukaftíu pinalassíiuali platiáiuali Vintil pa- nai- puu- finnasubi-sagáatu-u =il If DatObj-future-again-crazy- call -me=you.nom ussil su-nai- funu-kaftí-u pi-nalassí-iua -li pi-latiá-iua-li then AP-future-that-eat -I G7-eye -your-inst G7-other-your-isnt Informal Uatakassí has a very strong preference for incorporating antipassive objects into verbs, so much so, that often if the noun cannot be incorporated, fúnu (that, previously mentioned) will be incorporated in its place. Also, Informal Uatakassí has a tendency to use gender 6 less than the Classical form, body parts especially in gender 6 were moved to gender 7. Also, inalienable possession tends to be redundantly marked on modifiers, as here, "your other your eye". Also, the if/then prefixes were lost, replaced by particles. -- Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon A nation without a language is a nation without a heart - Welsh proverb ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42

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Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>