Re: North Wind and South Wind

Quoting Dirk Elzinga <Dirk_Elzinga@...>:

> Once the North Wind and the South Wind had an argument as to which
> was the stronger. They put a wildcat in a tree, and had a contest to
> see which could get it out. The South Wind blew and blew, but the cat
> stayed in the tree. Then the North Wind blew slow and cold; it froze
> the cat, causing it to drop out of the tree.
Here's my go at it. This is written in the Umgangsprache of the
T'erraisan hills to the south of Twolyeo. Basically, it uses
the Standard's lexicon (with a few exceptions, like _hrogæi_ for
"wild-cat" compared to standard _surka_; _pynwa_ "tree" for the
standard's _nello_), but has numerous phonological distinctions.

Melasû Xolphærentillu T'esmâku ocæmisnæn zerom chonûlîþþa limoi.
Mesxorusuluo limoi imbelyæh iyeltægwænnen tþenæþnunnen pynwâku
hrogæi. Fufûtliriëstan Xolpharentil æima pynwâ oþærintan hrogæi.
Hymwo T'esmâ fûtlirinten: læupærinten æi t'erinten. Aya
t'ecênten, tahnoi pynwâþþa shanæicênten!

Melasû [1]    Xolphærentillu [2]  T'esmâku
DemInvDiffInf North-East Gale.ERG Mountain Gale.DAT

ocæmisnan [3] [4]              zerom      chonûlîþþa [5]
dispute.MID.3PlProxProgRe.Quot relatively strength.3Pl.ABE

limoi.      Mesxorusuluo      limoi       imbelyah [6]
concerning  retrieval.3Sg.DAT concerning  contest

iyeltægwænnen           tþenaþnunnen [7]          pynwâku  hrogæi.
contrive.REL.3PlPfRe.QU lift-up.CAUS.3PlPfRe.Quot tree.DUR wild-cat.ABS

Fufûtliriëstan [8]                 Xolphærentil    æima [9] pynwâ [10]
AUG.blow.AUG.INTR.3SgProxProgIr.Qu North-East Gale but      tree.DAT

oþærinten              hrogæi.       Hymwo [11] T'esmâ
remain.INTR.3SgPfRe.Qu wild-cat.ABS  then       Mountain Gale

fûtlirinten:                 læupærinten [12]
blow.AUG.INTR.3SgObvPfRe.Qu  be-slow.INTR.3SgObvPfRe.Qu

æi  t'erinten.                  Aya
and be-cold.INTR.3SgObvPfRe.Qu  indeed

t'ecênten, [13]               tæhnoi pynwâþþa shanæicênten!
be-cold.PERF.3SgObvPfRe.Qu so that   tree.ABE fall.PERF.3SgObvRe.Qu

Northeast Gales  Xolpharentil
Mountain Winds   T'esma
dispute          ocami (reciprocal)
 orally
relatively     zerom
strength       chonus
wildcat        r|ogai
tree           punwa
contrive       iyeltaswa
contest        imbelya
retrieve       mesxoruswa
lift up        tþenaþnu
gust           fûtliri
slow           laupari
cold           t'eri
freeze         t'emoþnu
fall           shanairi

-tli              augmentative
-cei  (dial. -cê) perfective

[1] Related to the dative case of the proximative different-time-and-
invisible demonstrative pronoun _melasuo_ "thus", the archaic dative
case ending -û is idiomatically used to start folk-stories.
[2] The Xolphærentil (Stand.: Xolpharentil) are the winds that blow
in off the Pharentil archipelago off the east coast of the continent
of Irandel during the winter. The T'esma are those that blow off the
southerly mountains of T'erraisa, in whose dialect this is set.  To
make the story sensible to the Phaleran reader, it is the southerly
winds that win, since they are far colder than the Xolpharentil
that blow from equatorial regions.
[3] This verb (_ocami_ in the Standard) is quite idiomatic. It is
always reciprocative, with the voice-marker _-mi_, the person with
whom one is disputing something always goes in the dative case, and
the thing about which one is arguing goes in the abessive.
[4] This dialect has limited vowel harmony:  any /a/ to the left
of a front nonlow vowel is fronted to [æ].  It is directional,
unlike many systems.  /o/ and /u/ are transparent to harmony,
but do not undergo it, as the form _tæhnoi_ attests.
[5] The -li here is the 3Pl possessive marker.  Different dialects
treat the order of possessor and case differently; the Standard and
this T'erraisan dialect agree in putting the possessor before the
case marker.  Also, the standard form of the nominal suffix -û
is _-us_ (as in _tet-us_, "death", from _tetari_ "to die").
[6] For full vowels, the full dialectal forms forbid vowel hiatus,
and will supply a [h] at the ends of words to prevent that from
happening.
[7] Although most Phaleran dialects are usually SOV, rearranging
the order for discourse purposes is quite normal. It is considered
elegant to juxtapose two verbs like this.
[8] Although reduplication normally marks plurality on nouns, here
it serves as an intensifier, roughly equivalent to the English
_he Xed and Xed_.  Also of note is the odd irrealis form _-iësta-_
(Stand. _-îsta-_), which marks a contrast between proximative and
obviative in the irrealis.  Unlike standard Phaleran, which has
an unusal contrast in the plural and realis and irrealis, this
dialect has switched the irrealis contrast to the singulars, but
left the realis the same.
[9] Less strongly aseverative than _ene_ "but".
[10] In this dialect, datives whose stems end in /-wa/ simply
lengthen the /a/ to /a:/.
[11] Stand. _heotmuo_ "then".
[12] Phaleran avoids the use of adverbs in emphatic constructions,
choosing to use full verbs (most things that would be adjectives in
English are stative verbs in Phaleran).
[13] /ei/ collapses to /e:/ in this dialect, thus producing a
new contrast on the basis of which there is also /o/ : /o:/.
Midvowels do not have this contrast in Standard Phaleran.

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier          "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street   and not complete one road that has no turn"
Chicago, IL 60637     Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers