Re: Word Lists-- The Bongo-Bongo sentences en ingles

Hi,

Just a few corrections/comments to some of the translations below

2.- Have you FINISHED beating me? (rather than "stopped")
7.- SHE is in love with you  (The subject of "está" is elided, but
"enamorada" is a feminine participle acting as the subject complement,
therefore the subject  can only be a female.
17.- "Alguno de nuestros amigos fuma en pipa" = One [singular; we may not
know who] of our friends smokes a pipe
     "Algunos de nuestros amigos fuman en pipa" = Some [plural; we also may
not know who] of our friends smoke a pipe
21 .- I would say "The girl right there is Fred's fiancée", but the sentence
is somehow awkward in Spanish (at least for European Spanish). I'd rather
say "Esa chica [de ahí] es la prometida de Fred", but maybe it is OK in some
variety of American Spanish.

24.- There is a graphic accent missing in the Spanish sentence:  "¿Cuánto
tiempo estuviste allí?". By the way, in written Spanish interrogative
sentences should normally be started with a leading interrrogation mark "¿"

27.- "ligón" is slang and more or less means "a man who always tries to
attract the attention of -typically- women in order to have short relations
with them   ". The same would be applicable to a woman if the word were
"ligona". I do not know the English word for it ;-))
It is again a quite awkward sentence (in fact two sentences!)

29- Those blind mice ....  (rats = ratas, at least, again, in European
Spanish)
30- Those girls that are so pretty are always in love with rich farmers".
"Are always falling in love" would be "siempre se están enamorando". This is
interesting in Spanish:  to be in love = estar enamorado (lit. "to be
'*inloved'"). To fall in love = enamorarse (lit. "to '*inlove' oneself)

About Roger's comment on sentence 30, I do not find it syntactically awkward
in Spanish (apart from the meaning not being very brilliant, indeed). The
idea is that "Those pretty girls are USUALLY in love with rich farmers [and
not with poor shepherds or middle-class fishermen, for instance...]

Incidentally, wouldn't it be a god idea to systematize a little bit the
sentences to be included in the corpus? I know that the criteria to use for
that may not be easy to find, but I think that a "poutpourrie" of sentences
would not vbe of much use for the conlang community.
I would suggest to use different configurations of thematic relations for
the sentences [i.e. AGENT + VERB, PATIENT + VERB, EXPERIMENTER + VERB, AGENT
+ VERB + PATIENT, etc.]. The reason is that thematic relations are kept
across languages, even though the may be realized through different
syntactic structures.

Juan


-----Mensaje original-----
De: Constructed Languages List [mailto:CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU]En
nombre de Roger Mills
Enviado el: martes, 24 de junio de 2003 6:23
Para: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
Asunto: Re: Word Lists-- The Bongo-Bongo sentences en ingles


Oh well I shoulda done it in the first place. Aside from being uncertain of
how to translate a couple, I don't, as I said, much like them. Give me
knife-wielding bunnies any day. Comments/corrections by native speakers will
be more than welcome.
>
> 1.  (Él pega a su mujer) He beats his wife.
> 2.  (Has terminado de pegarme?) Have you stopped beating me?
> 3.  (Por qué estas golpeando el tambor?) Why are you beating the drum?
> 4. (Desde cuando has dejado de golpear a
> tu esposo?) When did you stop beating your husband? (lit., since when have
you left off beating....)
> 5. (Nosotros no pegamos a nuestras esposas) We do not beat our wives.
> 6.  (Ella ha estado pegando a su esposo) She has been beating her husband
> 7.  (Está enamorada de tí) He/She is in love with you.
> 8. (Ellos se han enamorado de nosotros) They (m.) have fallen in love with
us.
> 9. (Ellos estan enamorados de ella) They (m.) are in love with her.
> 10.  (A los niños les gustan los libros) The children like books (or, the
books).Could also be, "children like books."
> 11. (Nos gusta este libro) We like this book.
> 12. (Ella está leyendo este libro) She is reading this book
> 13. (Esta chica está leyendo un libro) This girl is reading a book.
> 14.  (Los libros están sobre la mesa) The books are on the table.
> 15.  (Los chicos estan acostados) The children are in bed.
> 16. (Voy a poner al niño en la cuna) I'm going to put the child to bed
(lit., put the child in the cradle)
> 17. (Alguno de nuestros amigos fuma en
> pipa)  ??? Some (one, sing) of our friends smokes a pipe. [ I suspect it
should be algunos....fuman...]
> 18. (Fred fuma en pipa) Fred smokes a pipe
> 19. (Aquel amigo mio está aqui ahora) That friend (m.) of mine is here now
> 20.  (El granjero trajo a sus amigos) The farmer brought his friends.
> 21. (La chica de ahi es la prometida de Fred) ??? The girl [right here,
or, from here] is Fred's fiancée.
> 22. (Ella llevaba aquel vestido tan caro) She was wearing that very
expensive dress (lit., ...that dress so expensive)
> 23.  (Ella siempre viste elegante) She always dresses elegantly.
> 24. (Cuanto tiempo estuviste alli?) How long were you there?
> 25. (Aquellos amigos tuyos me levantaron temprano) Those friends (m) of
yours woke me up early.
> 26. (Las rosas son bonitas, esta rosa
> es realmente bonita) Roses are pretty, this rose is really pretty.
> 27. (Hans es un ligón, Kurt las persigue) ?????? Sorry, I don't know what
a ligón (m.) is and it's not in my dictionary; nor why Kurt pursues them
(f.)..................
> 28. (Ping es pescador)  Ping is a fisherman
> 29. (Aquellos ratones ciegos que ves allí asustaron a la esposa del
granjero) Those blind rats/mice that you see over there frightened the
farmer's wife.
> 30. (Aquellas chicas tan bonitas siempre estan enamoradas de granjeros
ricos) ???Those pretty girls are always in love with [falling in love with?]
rich farmers.
>
(in 22 and 30, aquel NOUN tan ADJ. is perfectly good Spanish, but seems to
have no direct Engl. equivalent; you could make it a relative clause, I
guess-- those girls who are so pretty...etc.  Also, #30, the Engl. is
awkward and so IMHO is the Spanish.  I suspect it should have been 'siempre
estan enamorándose de...' which would indeed mean 'are always falling in
love with....')