Re: Da Mätz se Basa: Syntax

Hi!

René Uittenbogaard <ruittenb@...> comments on my posting:
> >    http://www.theiling.de/projects/s9/s_03#04
> >
> > Enjoy reading and please comment!
> >
> > Bye,
> >   Henrik
>
>
> Wow - nice language! And how curious to see a conlang that has nearly
> exactly the same word order as Dutch.
Thanks!  Currently my main problem seems to be that I want a funny
language without making it sound ridiculous.  Some sentences currently
sound ridiculous. :-)  I keep on changing and changing...

> I see that you have borrowed the negative complement "nie" from
> Afrikaans. Cool! I like it.
Indeed, I loved it when I found this out!  It's so cool!

> But is it your intention to put the complement (changed to "nä", I
> see) in the same clause where the first negation ("nich") appears?
> Afrikaans puts the complement *after* any subordinate clause:
Oops!  Indeed, I oversaw this.  (...checking some grammar notes...)
This feature occured in my sample sentences from Afrikaans, too.  I
even could hardly understand one of the sentences because of this, but
still did not notice the difference. :-)

> As die weervoorspelling saans gelees word, weet ons veral nie waar wat
> [...] gaan gebeur nie.
Aha!

BTW, I included 'saans' in the grammar notes.

> Moenie die deur oopmaak voor die trein stilstaan nie.
Wow, this is great!  It sounds so funny to my (a speaker of German and
Dutch).  So funny!  (Included in grammar notes...:-))

And this shows the 'nie' position neatly.  But is it at the end of the
clause that contains the negation, skipping all subordinate clauses,
or is it at the *very* end of the top-level clause?

> ..., dat ich nich kan sä, dat du de Buch äna Kota lis nä
Ok, yes.  I'll fix that.  (I will have to thoroughly investigate some
web texts in Afrikaans before that. :-))

> Since your site does say that "its usage is quite similar to Afrikaans
> 'nie'", I guess this feature slipped through?
Indeed.  Thanks a lot for noting!

**Henrik

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