Re: The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.

Hallo!

On Sun, 15 Aug 2004 15:37:59 -0400,
Mike Ellis <nihilsum@...> wrote:

> Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >ObConlang: In Old Albic, the instrumental case of the verbal noun
> >is often used in converb-like constructions.
>
> This also works in Rhean (I stupidly forgot to include the name of the
> conlang with the trans. of "...small stones..."), but I avoid it 'cause the
> instrumental usually takes a preposition, and the object of the converb
> would then come between the preposition _nap_ and the verbal noun in
> -(a/e)kom. It works, but if the verb's object has a relative clause in it
> the preposition can get too far from its object. Another one of those
> "technically right but awkward" things.
>
> How does this work out in Old Albic? Preposition/no preposition; object
> before/after the converb, etc?
First of all, I made a mistake when I said it was the instrumental
case; it is actually the locative.  The converb (or rather, the verbal
noun) precedes its arguments, of which the agent is in genitive case
and the patient in locative case (both undergo suffixaufnahme, thus
being marked with the VN's locative, too).  Example:

Mataras maras mbararas, acvamsa atto mara.
`While I ate bread, my father came.'

Morphemic breakdown (undoing the alternations that occur, such as
intervocalic rhotacism of /s/):

mat-as-as  ma-s-as     mbas-as-as
eat-VN-LOC 1SG-GEN-LOC bread-LOC-LOC

a-cvam-sa      atto-0     ma-s-a
AOR-come-3SG:A father-AGT 1SG-GEN-AGT

So the literal meaning is: `At my eating of bread, my father came.'

Greetings,

Jörg.