Re: Babel story (partial) in Prevli

On Sat, 24 Nov 2007 13:47:52 -0500, ROGER MILLS <rfmilly@...> wrote:
>
>Jeffrey Jones wrote:
>>On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:34:21 -0500, ROGER MILLS <rfmilly@...>
>>wrote:
>> >
>> >Here's a bit of it-- using I hope an email-friendly orthography. Still
>> >somewhat tentative; there may be mistakes :-(((   Basically the KJV
>>version.
>> >
>> >bavel diez l�:ra  ['bavEl djEz 'l&:ra]
>> >/babil dia-z layar/
>> >B. poss. tower
>> >(snip)
>> >3. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and ***burn
>>them
>> >thoroughly.***
>> >et semir eSte namyaner, harali, ar� nigni zekn�t garot, ar�
>>***sasantar*** zekn�t.
>> >and say-past REFLEX one-another, Come, let's make/create we-them
>>brick-pl,
>> >let's ***REDUP-bake***we-them.
>> >
>> >4. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top
>>**may
>> >reach** unto heaven, and let us **make a name**, lest we **be
scattered**
>>abroad
>> >upon the face of the whole earth.
>> >nehe semir zet, harali, ar� nigni zekn�t enze et l�:ra,
>>***iniNkatla*** o diez TOP
>> >ivri ot linot, et ar� ***y�pZakme*** naronta, untu
***uSy�khubla***
>>kant ivri o tambin
>> >diez sentit olta
>> >"and" said they, Come, let's make we-them city and tower,
>>**INCH-IRR-rise-fut**
>> >it poss TOP into def-pl sky-pl, and let's **pass-CAUS-Redup-know**
>>name-our,
>> >so.that **not-pass-IRR-scatter-fut** we into def earth poss. corner-pl
>>all-pl.
>> >Reactions?????
>>
>> Have you mentioned what the reduplication does? I also don't remember
>> what IRR is.
>
>BTW another correction: lino-t 'heavens' should be linu-t
>
>Redup., mainly, intensifies the meaning:
>santar 'to fire ceramics' > sasantar 'thoroughly fire...'---
>/yakim/ yakme 'know (things)' redup /y-yakim/ Zakme 'know thoroughly, well'
>then /i-ap-Zakme/ pass-caus-Zakme y&pZakme 'cause to be well-known'.
>I see I've used two different types of redup-- full-syllable with santar,
>initial-C with yakme.....hmmm, let's just say that /y/ behaves strangely in
>the language.
>
>IRR is irrealis mood, 'may, probably VB' or simply indicates uncertainty
>about the action's occurrence.
>/níkat/ nikt& 'rise, ascend' irrealis /inkát/ iNkát , Future -l(a) and
>Inchoative in- > in/iNkát/la 'may come to rise'.... Actually I see now,
>there's no real need for the inchoative here.
>/hákum/ hakmo is 'scatter' irr. /ah'kum/ [a'k_hum] 'may scatter' passive
>/i-ahkúm/ y&hkúm 'may be scattered', negative us+ > uSy&amp;khúm. Come to
>think of it, this form could have been redup. too, /ha-hakum/ realis
>hahakmo, irreal. ?? /ah-ahkúm/, passive /i-ah-ahkúm/ yähahkúm
>
>>
>>It looks like you've accomplished a lot already. It takes me quite a while
>>before I can translate actual texts.
>
>Your reply is timely. Last night I started a message, but inadvertently
>deleted it. Now I can discuss some specifics.....
>
>The phonology and morphology are reasonably well settled, though still
>tentative in places....I've gotten involved in a lot of vocab creation
>(because I'm finding the culture so interesting), and only just started
>working out sentences. The Babel text was a good ready-made place to start,
>and sort of fits in with their mythology.
>
>The sentences I'm working on are turning out to be a bit of a nightmare
>;-))) -- one self-created problem is that passive voice is required in lots
>of places (like relative clauses-- in certain cases the rel.pron. MUST be
>the subject of the clause, inspired by Malay/Indonesian). Examples:
>
>Active/declarative: zizer hen o taro aple
>/ziza + da   hen    o  tadu   apil/
>eat+past  he-it  the man   [a fruit]
>The man ate an apel.  ===>
>
>...o taro or zizer hen aple  (/odi/ ore ~or = relative marker)
>the man REL=who(SUBJ) ate an apel
>
>...o aple or Zi:izer ni o taro   (pass. /z-i-ize/ Zi:ze 'be eaten', ni 'by')
>the apel REL(SUBJ) was-eaten by the man = the apel that the man ate
>
>...o taro or diez aple Zi:zer (ni ...) (/dia+ poss./ die- marks alienable
>possession)
>the man REL(SUBJ) POSS-3sg apel be-eaten-past (by...)
>the man whose apel was eaten (by...)
>(I haven't decided yet whether a resumptive SUBJ. pron.suffix is required in
>the passive-- ...or Zi:zer/za REL was-eaten-it    aack! all those z's!! )
I'm glad I didn't put that limitation into MNCL5. The only restriction on relative
clauses is that the relative pronominal must come first. It can even take any
case or non-case ending. Your examples are clear, but I'd have to see more
context before having an opinion on the resumptive. It may not be necessary,
although in MNCL5 I played it safe by including a terminator pronoun (which
also indicates the clauses syntactical function) in every subordinate clause.

>and so on...........(and we haven't totally taken elisiion into account
>:-((( )
>
>One problem is, how to do an _orderly description_ of the language, since
>phonology and morphology are so inter-connected (and how many phonetic
>changes should be indicated in the written forms?) (As if one decided to
>write "legs" for Latin lex.)
That's what you get for making an interesting and naturalistic phonology! I had
enough trouble figuring out how to explain the MNCL5 orthography without
referring to the morphology, and MNCL5 was designed to _avoid_ phonetic
alternations (except for the unwritten vowels). You said that the phonology is
reasonably well settled. Have you tried a formal phonemic (or other
phonological) analysis? But I guess you're trying to decide whether or not to
use a phonemic-type orthography in the first place.

>Prevli is also turning out to be, I think, a rather ugly-sounding
>language--- but that's OK :-))))
Yes, that's OK. I haven't really aimed at sounding any particular way, except
for Vallés, Rubaga, and maybe Naisek.