Re: Quick language sketch -- Hrondu

On Fri, Jan 26, 2001 at 02:01:33PM -0600, Patrick Dunn wrote:
> Verbs also have a form, the construct state, which is used like an
> participle, gerund, and supine form all in one.  It's formed by suffixing
> an -e to the verb.
>
> verae- -- loving
>
> This effectively makes the verb a prefix.  When added to a modal verb, it
> acts as the compliment of the verb.
>
> tasii -- to need
>
> veraetasii -- needs to love
I like that. Reminds me of Japanese desideratives (if that's the word) of
the form tabetai: tabe "eat" + tai "want" = "I/he/she/we/etc. want to eat."

> Adjectives are stative verbs
Nifty.

> Here's a sample text, the first two lines of Wulf and Eadwacer, or, in
> Hrondu, Wulefa Edawakaa tu
What is "Wulf and Eadwacer"? I've never heard of it, but Eadwacer looks like
a form of the name of that Germanic (Vandal?) chieftain, Odovaker or
Odoacer. Am I right?


> ss ya hrecapa ni undau lpa ssndu ya ss e jisa jii!
> he SUBJ camp LOC come.COND and they SUBJ he OBJ kill.will kill
> If he comes to the camp, they will kill him for sure
First, why two words for "kill"? Does doubling the verb give it that "for
sure" sense?
Second, I really like the way you use condition + "and" to make
if-sentences. I've had the same idea but haven't put it into effect yet. I
think I got the idea for it from Unix shell (bash) scripting, in which the
following statements do the same thing:

        if test -f /foo/bar; then cat /foo/bar; fi
and
        test -f /foo/bar && cat /foo/bar

For the non-Unix-savvy, these both check to see if a file called /foo/bar
exists and, if it does, then display the file. The second (more seldom used)
type is the one that reminds me of the kind of condition sentence you made;
"test" can be glossed as a conditional affix or "if," "-f" as "exists," "&&"
as "and," and "cat /foo/bar" as "display /foo/bar." Thus:

        test   -f   /foo/bar &&    cat   /foo/bar
        COND   exists /foo/bar and display /foo/bar.

I hope I made sense there :)

--
Eric Christopherson / *Aiworegs Ghristobhorosyo