Re: Conlang T Shirt
| From: | Gerald Koenig <jlk@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Saturday, October 30, 1999, 22:32 |
|---|
>From: Irina Rempt-Drijfhout <ira@...>
>Subject: Re: Conlang T Shirt
>On Fri, 29 Oct 1999, Gerald Koenig wrote:
>
>> Well, anyway, my translation for NGL just begged the question by
>> simply calqueing the English, there's no attempt at interpretation.
>> Some languages may not allow that.
>
>The Valdyan is a little ambiguous:
>
> ilain tin jat chazesat
> language your here be.present-INC-PRS-3s
>
>that is, by the book: "Your language is about to be here" (_chaza_
>is purely locative, "to be in a place").
aaa
Hi Irina,
There seem to be so many ways to look at the t-shirt sentence.
I will try to assume your viewpoint in vector tense and see
what happens:
Vus tok mu ja be dis eco.
<dis> seems to be the same concept as <_chaza_>. It means
is_located at or is_DISplaced to. It is different from
<di'el> which means dwell, ie stay a long time, and live in,
a place.
<Mu ja be> means "the now adJacent to the Beginning of
the verb-vector. It is the inchoative "about to".
<vus> is the possessive (genitive) you. As usual,
contractions are possible:
Vus tok jab dis eco.
Your language is about to be located here.
>But the inceptive present has adhortative meaning more often than
>not: "Let your language be here" with strong overtones of "should".
In Vector tense I have factored out all the modality from tense,
but it can easily be mixed back in:
Xap vus tok jab pas eco.
Let your language be about to be moved here.
I changed to "moved" but "located" is ok too.
VXT has only "shall/must" or "let". Maybe it needs
a mixed term like Valdyan.
>
>Another example: _le denesan_ "we're about to go", but usually,
>depending on context, "let's go!" (a nice reflexive, "put ourselves",
>with the result of _chaza_ wherever you go and put yourself)
Not sure I entirely understand, but "let's put ourselves there" would be:
Xa ni sieh pas ini eco. OR
Xan sieh pas ni eco.
[Somebody] permit that we ourselves move here.
I changed locate to move.
<sieh> makes a reflexive.
<ini> is the accusative of <we> Actually plain <ni> does just as well
as the accusative here because it is marked by position as one. Well my
telnet connection is getting flakey, and that's probably more by far
than you want to know, but somehow I morph into a mad auxlanger on the
subject of tense. The spell seems to be abating. Thanks for
commenting and listening.
Jerry