Re: Simple translation exercise?

I decided to give the new, improved Okaikiar a whirl, and
immediately ran into trouble. :)

On Sat, Jun 21, 2003 at 08:15:12PM +0100, Ian Spackman wrote:
>The cow jumped over the moon.
>The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
These sentences are a surprisingly interesting test of the
language's relational expressivity.  I can easily say that a cow
did some jumping that took place above the moon, or that it jumped
and thereby wound up over the moon.  And, not that it's relevent to this
sentence, I can also say that the cow started out over the moon
and jumped such that it was no longer there.  But to express that
the cow jumped THROUGH the space over the moon, both starting and
ending up elsewhere, that's harder.

In this specific case I can cheat, since the verb "to jump" is transitive
in Okaikiar and indicates that the direct object has been jumped over; I can
just say "The cow jumped the moon" and "The quick brown fox jumps the
lazy dog" (without the double-entendre of the English).

It seems that the idea of "passing through" is an attribute of the combination
of verb-of-motion + "over" in English: "crossing over", "jumping over",
"running over", etc.  Without a verb of motion, "over" is pretty much a
synonym for "above".  I need to figure out how to express this idea
in Okaikiar.

But for now, on to my cheating translations:

Mymzar niald ermoiz.
        ['mYmzA`r nI'j&ld E`r'moIz]
        The cow (had) jumped (over) the moon.

mymzar  cow
nial    moon    (niald: accusative singular)
erman   to jump [over] (ermoiz: [had] jumped [over])

Alko kondim modim g'rald mulzim ermom.
        ['&lko 'kondIm 'modIm g@'r&ld 'mUlzIm 'E`rmom]
        The quick brown fox jumps (over) the lazy dog.

alko    fox
kondan  to be fast      (kondim: attributive)
modan   to be brown     (modim: attributive)
g'ral   dog             (g'rald: accusative)
mulzan  to be lazy      (mulzim: attributive)
erman   to jump         (ermom: jumps)

-Mark

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