Re: Figure This Out

Dominant word order appears to be VSO, morphology agglutinating.

My proposed wordlist:
   ap "here"
   etxa "want"
   fo "PST"
   Hwan "John"
   kan "see"
   ko "I"
   kwe "POSS"
   mama "mother"
   pa "OBJ"
   pi "FUT"
   suna "sleep," "sleeping"
   tok "you"
   totz "us"
   tuad "FOC"
   tuperu "dog"
   tzi "we"

I don't know what to call pa-, so I've glossed it as OBJ. But it also
seems to mark secondary verbs, as in "Juan wants to see," etxa Hwan
pakan. (Can kan "see" be intransitive in this language? What is this
language's name, anyhow?)

As for -kwe, which I've glossed as POSS, it's only translated into an
English possessive once, in 1. But in 4 and 5, it can't mean just OBJ,
unless it is in fact redundant with pa-, as in pakankwe.

I'm not sure what tuad- is technically called. I've glossed it as FOC (focus).

Emaelivpeith Jeff Jones 'sa <jsjonesmiami@...>:
> 1. fokan Hwan mamakwe
>    Juan saw his mother.
1) fo-kan Hwan mama-kwe
   PST.see Juan mother.POSS

> 2. kanko pasuna tuperu
>    I see the dog sleeping.
> 3. kopisuna
>    I'll sleep (sometime).
The similiarity between these two is -suna, which must mean "sleep."

2) kan-ko pa-suna tuperu
   see.I OBJ.sleep dog

3) ko-pi-suna
   I.FUT.sleep

> 4. etxa Hwan pakankwe tuperu
>    Juan wants to see the dog.
> 5. Hwan tuadetxa pakankwe tuperu
>    It's Juan that wants to see the dog.
The similarities between these two are "Hwan (-)etxa pakankwe tuperu."
The change of word order and the addition of tuad- must therefore be
responsible for the change in meaning.

4) etxa Hwan pa-kan-kwe tuperu
   want Juan OBJ.see.POSS dog

5) Hwan tuad-etxa pa-kan-kwe tuperu
   Juan FOC.want OBJ.see.POSS dog

> 6. appikantotz Hwan
>    Juan will see us here.
Appikantotz must mean "will see us here." Following from other
information derived later, I break it down into:

6) ap-pi-kan-totz Hwan
   here.FUT.see.us Juan

> 7. tzifosuna
>    We slept.
Because -suna means "sleep," "tzifo-" must mean "we.PST." After
deciphering 8, this can be broken down into tzi "we" and fo- "PST."

7) tzi-fo-suna
   we.PST.sleep

> 8. fokantzi mama Huan
>    We saw Juan's mother.
Both 7 and 8 have "we," and their only similiarity is tzi. Thus,
fokan- must mean "we saw" and mama "mother." (Interesting coincidence?
;) )

8) fo-kan-tzi mama Hwan
   saw.we mother Juan

Why is "we slept" tzifosuna, with particle order subject-tense-verb,
but it's "we saw" fokantzi, with particle order tense-verb-subject?

> 9. pikantok tuperu suna
>    You'll see the sleeping dog.
Pikantok must mean "you'll see." Perhaps it is word order than
distinguishes the -suna "sleep" (as a verbal form) in 2, 3, and 7 from
suna "sleeping" (as an adjective). In 8 above, possessives like
"Juan's mother" view Juan as an adjective of "mother."

9) pi-kan-tok tuperu suna
   FUT.see.you dog sleeping

And to see if I really got this down, here's my try at some new sentences:

10) Etxa mama Hwan pakantotz.
   Juan's mother wanted to see us.

11) Etxako pasuna.
   I want to sleep.

12) Apfosunatok.
   You slept here.

Am I close? :)


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AA
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