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Re: Kioshu Conlang Compliments!

From:Jeff Goguen <princetaliesin@...>
Date:Thursday, January 31, 2002, 23:01
>>I have something else to say about annexes. But it is not the same
kind of
>>theory than last time. just about details.
>>You say >>"sin" is "by" >>"nik" is "to"
>>The problem I see is people will have to learn english before being
able to
>>understand Kioshu. Why? >>by or to are the kind of words which can have many diffent meanings.
Very good points, indeed, however, I'm afraid that the incompleteness of Kioshu and my overly simplified answers to questions in this group have left out some important and interesting details about Kioshu. I know that I say that these annexes mean certain words in English.for example: "nik" means "to" This is oversimplification at its dangerously most confusing. Nik is a good annex for me to clarify with since it is also the general usage annex. To clear up what might be other confusion (but I'm not sure as I've only picked up hints of it from other conversation), an annex is not only postpositional to the subject of a sentence, but also prepositional to the object (that is, if I'm understanding the meaning of these words). The annex links the subject to the object by some relationship. In the instance of general usage: John throws the ball. John nik usrobos keilo. "us"- : the "robos : ball "keilo : to throw In this case what "nik" is saying is that John will be performing the verb on the ball and that the ball will be receiving the action from John. Now English words like of, at, for, to, and by are most often used as prepositions which do not actually exist in Kioshu. The annex is capable of relaying the same idea as prepositions in English. What I mean is that these are NOT literal translations. There are a few reasons why I translated the annexes this way on the webpage (using English prepositions): 1. When you translate the sentence to English these prepositions appear to maximize comprehension of the sentence. 2. When I wrote this on the page I did it as though the reader has no linguistic background whatsoever (Except for whatever English they may have taken in school). 3. Since the webpage itself is in English, I had to make certain assumptions about the readers. I doubt someone who knows no English at all would understand my page. Here are some examples clarified: Carmen goes to the store. Carmen nik usvor chiv. In this example "nik" is translated as "to". For "nik" one must use context to understand whether to translate "nik" as to. What this sentence suggests is that the object is or has a location with which the subject interacts. In this case the subject is "going to" the object. How about "to" as an indirect object? Is it the same word? No, the relationship between the subject and a direct object is different than that of the subject and an indirect object. John throws the ball to me. John nik usrobos keilo nito go. "nito" : dative annex ("to") "go" : me The reason why I have many different annexes and translate them as English prepositions is that it is not always possible to distinguish such relationships between the subject and object of the sentence through context in Kioshu. The theory here is that these words would have evolved with similar meanings to things like prepositions in English to help sort out these relationships. I suppose another way to do it is to have separate verbs for such things.such as having "to throw" be a different verb from "to throw (to someone)". I, personally, prefer my method as it means I have less verbs to come up with. :-) But I also like the structure of it. As for colloquialisms such as "give up", or "catch up", etc. These are things that, if we translated them literally, wouldn't make much sense to non-English speakers. Someone would probably translate "give up" as "quit" or "resign" in Kioshu. "Catch up" would probably be something like "move faster so that you are abreast of me", complicated though that may be. I understand what you meant in reference to those specific words and "not being literal". I'm trying to explain that I'm not. Most of what I give as translations and examples for words that are "parts of speech", such as annexes, are not literal. I am merely demonstrating the clearest concept when translating to English from Kioshu. Again, thanks a lot for this feedback! This is great stuff for me to think about. If anyone has any suggestions about how I can make stuff clearer without getting too technical, let me know. Jeff

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Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>