Re: Typologic survey, part II

>---- PART II Conlang Typlogic Survey 2001 ----
>House-keeping data
>Name of the participating conlang:
rtemmu

>2: Order of genitive (G), and noun (N)
>That is: Possessor/owner and possession/owned thing
Basically: Possessor followed by possession.

If either -xere or -sere is suffixed to a content word (denoting
a process) then the following content word (also denoting a process)
is considered to be in a "possessed" relation with the first word.
-xere means to have in the sense of physical possession.
-sere means to have, in the sense that something is attributed to
someone due to creation or discovery.

What it actually means for a process to possess another process
is not extremely clear to me. But FWIW, this is how the lang expresses it.

Examples:

na itihkxere zuv gr`v  = my hand

(subjective-normal-change  1st-sing+xere  objective-not-noticibly-changing
  hand)

na itihksere no bla`'enmu = my theory (that I came up with)

(subjective-normal-change  1st-sing+sere  subjective-slow-change  theory)

but

"na itihkxere no bla`'enmu"  (use of -xere) for "my theory", meaning that I
am
currently holding to a theory originated by someone else.



>3: Order of adjective (A) and noun (N)
>Does the language have a closed class of adjectives?
No.

>If there is not a separate open adjective-class, what type of words do
>the work of adjectives, verbs or nouns?
If you want to, you could say  that rtemmu has a
"noun- adjective" ( also "verb-adverb") order. But there are no
nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs in rtemmu as such.
All (content) words stand for processes.  A comment modifies the
word it follows, be it the sentence topic or another comment.


>Can they take a copula (that is: need/don't need equivalent of "to be")?
To assert that something  _is_  a certain way,  rtemmu puts the word
"auag"  or "auzhil" between the topic and the (first) comment word.
("au-" is the imperative,
"ag" is a conjuntion meaning to join two items without regard to
          "real-time" process-development;
"zhil" is a conjunction meaning to join two items, taking account of
          "real-time" development of the first item until the second is
            joined with it in the listener's mind.) For example:

inana itihksere no bla`'enmu auag  nu wya`ka`k!  = My theory is correct!
        or
 inana itihksere no bla`'enmu auzhil  nu wya`ka`k!  = My theory is correct!


ina = speaker subjectively considers at a normal rate
nu = the correctness is changing (subjectively) too slow to notice
         (ie, I have no doubts as to what "correct" means)
wya`ka`k = correct

---- END part II ----


Dan Sulani
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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.