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").

But the inceptive present has adhortative meaning more often than
not: "Let your language be here" with strong overtones of "should".

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)

   Irina

            Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
                     irina@rempt.xs4all.nl (myself)
       http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/index.html (English)
    http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/irina/backpage.html (Nederlands)