I've got a translation problem
From: | Boudewijn Rempt <bsarempt@...> |
Date: | Saturday, August 14, 1999, 20:45 |
I'm working on my grammar of Denden, and when I was working on the weak
negation prefix <ta-> WNEG, which can be used for controvertible negation
and yes/no questions , I stumbled upon a translation problem. That, is,
I'm not quite able to present a decent translation into English of a
bit of dialogue.
. (whore) Aia! Adanyi! Li seri qenan tu.suru.men?
Hey! Young_man Q 2msHGH sex WNEG.want.AFF
(man) Delai lyna, do suru.ju.
girl pretty 1sMGH want.CRT
e.sera yenu cyun sui ga te.sui?
poss.2sfHGH pars_feminae very dear NOM WNEG.dear
(whore) Tautau.sui! Beru najan.li ke, beru yerdat.li ke
SNEG.dear one kiss.DIM only one gift.DIM only
(man) Ni te najan.zi, yerdat.zi jerat.men
1sAFF 3sAFF kiss.AUG gift.AUG give.AFF
Provisionally, I have:
- Hey, handsome! Wouldn't you like to make love with me?
- Pretty girl, I do want to. Isn't it very dear?
- Absolutely not dear! Only one little kiss, only one little gift.
- I'll give you a big kiss and a large gift.
I'm not very satisfied with the 'big kiss', the 'gift', and absolutely
not satisfied by the fact the play with pronouns and the affective
attitudinal qualifiers are not represented in the translation. Does
anyone have a better suggestion?
Boudewijn Rempt | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt