Re: Grammatical Summary of Kemata
| From: | Rune Haugseng <haugrune@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Wednesday, December 12, 2001, 19:14 |
|---|
On Monday 10 December 2001 05:46, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> On Sunday, December 9, 2001, at 09:50 , Rune Haugseng wrote:
>
> Éan edòrir! (from Matthew Kehrt's Eviendadhail)
>
> > I don't expect anyone on the list will remember me - I posted a few
> > times earlier this autumn (or fall, if you prefer), but I've been
> > horribly busy at school since then - no time for conlanging at
> > all. Nevertheless, I've managed to write a sort of "grammatical
> > summary" of my conlang Kemata.
>
> I remember seeing a few messages from you. Welcome back--as a (grad)
> student myself, I definitely understand!
I'm only at the equivalent to the American high school-level, so
you're probably even worse off than me (though at times it's hard to
imagine how that could be possible :-) ).
>
> (Of course, sometimes long dry lectures provide a perfect opportunity to
> surreptitiously work on a conlang.)
Really? I'm far too afraid someone'll notice what I'm doing to do
stuff like that in class.
> > Kemata's phonology is pretty boring (I made it years ago, and I don't
> > want to change it now).
>
> I do "boring" comfortable phonologies too. You're not alone. :-)
It's comforting to know that :-)
> > The primary stress is always on the penultimate syllable. In words of
> > more than three syllables composed of several parts, parts longer than
> > two syllables receive a secondary stress on *their* second-to-last
> > syllable, if this is more than one syllable away from the main
> > stressed syllable.
>
> By "several parts" are you referring to heavily inflected words, compound
> words, or something else?
Inflected forms; I guess that paragraph was a bit vague. (Compounds would
only count as one "part").
> > Personal pronouns are generally found both as verb suffixes and as
> > separate words.
>
> Neat!
Thanks.
> > This has two uses:
> > - to not say something known from context
> >
> > A Kematian waiter might, for instance, say:
> > I nul abu atnul?
> > i nul a-b-u a-t-nul
> > - question S-2p-? -DO-which,
> > for "What would you like to order?", everything being known already
> > (I don't think it would be very polite, though).
> >
> > - to indicate voice:
> >
> > Ankila a anerle.
> > ankil-ha a aner-le
> > kill-Pt - animal-DSgN
> > The animal was killed.
> >
> > (This isn't exactly like voice, of course - you can't differentiate
> > between "I killed the animal" and "The animal was killed by me".)
>
> Neat! In the first use, is this set of pronouns usually considered
> slightly rude, or was that just the particular waiter-example you were
> giving?
I don't think so, it might just be more polite to be specific.
> > The unique articles denote that the noun as a unique specimen of its
> > kind (or several of them). The unique form of a word sometimes has an
> > idiomatic meaning, such as "raidole", the house, vs. "Raidoti", the
> > world, or "nezerne", a lord, vs. "nezerpi", a king.
>
> This is just plain, plain cool. I wish I'd thought of it myself! :-) I
> especially like the idiomatic meanings you've cited. Any other notable
> ones?
Well, the unique form of "leres", all/whole, means, roughly, "the
universe". Kemata doesn't have a very large vocabulary yet (it's
actually almost five years old, but I've rarely had much time for it,
and I keep changing the sound changes and root language leading to
it), so I think that's all I've got so far.
>
> > Possessives are formed by one of the following suffixes:
> > Normal form (owner) Reverse form (owned)
> > Normal possession -no -ki
> > Association -ndu -wai
> > "Possession" through -zik -val
> > having made something
> > Composition (i.e. what -nut -kar
> > something is composed
> > of)
> >
> > Either the owner or the thing owned is marked, not both. The marked
> > word comes first.
>
> I'm enamored of your owner/owned markers, as well as the
> creator/composition possessives. Does the former occur in any natlangs?
Isn't it bound to? There seems to be a law that all features occuring
in a conlang, no matter how original to the creator, are already found
somewhere :-)
Guess I'll have to make some greetings, then. Let's see...
The most informal (or least formal) greeting is "Kite!" meaning "Hi!"
or "Hello!"; you can also say "Kite <name>!". The word "kite" is of
unknown origin; the verb "kite", greet, is derived from it, and is
used in greetings like "kite avai/ave ebait/ebet", "I greet you",
"kite avai/ave <name>", and so on. The correct reply to these are
either just plain "Kite!" or "kite avini", "we greet each other".
More formal greetings generally involve the gods. The most general
form is "dirivai zerelesuwai <god>/nendesela avivar", "I wish for the
gifts of <god>/the gods to us", with the reply "kon zumesuwai
arai/are/ari", "and his/her/their happiness". When greeting another
member of your clan, the clan god is used, when a member of the same
profession as you, the god associated with it can be used, otherwise
"the gods" is. When greeting a lord, or someone else of a much higher
standing, you say "abaivar", "to you", not "avivar" (if you want to be
*really* polite, or are addressing somebody very powerful, you can
also say "abaikar nezervarne", "to the lord composed of you"); the
lord's reply is "kon abaivar/abevar", "and to you".
Feel free to cut it down if you want to put it on your page; I'll try
to make some farewells later.
-------------
Rune Haugseng
Reply