Re: Kioshu Conlang Compliments!

>>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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