Re: North Wind and Sun in Obrenje

Christian Thalmann scripsit:
> I found the expression "the more ..., the more ..." particularly
> difficult to translate.  How do you guys do it in your langs?  Lengthy
> circumscriptions, idioms or dedicated conjunctions?
A week ago, my conlang Asha'ille didn't have a grammar of its own. Now
that I've started working on translating sentences instead of just
building the vocabulary, I've had a grammar-explosion. :)

I handled "the more..., the more..." by having two simultaneous clauses
linked by the conjunction "and" while having the second verb marked as
"forced." This shows the relationship of the first clause causing, or
forcing, the second to happen. The fact that they are two linked
simultaneous clauses establishes the directly proportional aspect.


ENGLISH SOURCE:

"...but the harder he blew, the tighter the traveller wrapped his coat
around him."


ASHA'ILLE TRANSLATION:

"...kret'ves vo  geir’mo  t’vedo  encresdavtadair  ne  noda keskedo."
    but:SIM  PRV more-PRA and-PRC wrap:CSL:RFL:3su the it#2 /PRC/SIM


it#2 - defined at the beginning of the story (in this case, "his coat")
 3su - third person singular, unspecified gender
 CSL - causal relation (ie the subject was "forced" to do something --
       what's the linguistics term for this?)
 PRA - pro-adjective (in this case, refers to the modifying phrase in
       the main clause, "strong")
 PRC - begin pro-clause; begin clause of the
/PRC - end pro-clause
 PRV - pro-verb (in this case, refers to the verb of the main clause,
       "blow")
 RFL - reflexive action
 SIM - begin simultaneous clause
/SIM - end simultaneous clause


The literal translation is something like "...but while he blows more
strongly the man is also forced to wrap his coat around himself."


--
Arthaey

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