Re: Valentine's Day Translations

        As I promised yesterday, here are the translations of "I love you":

        in Moten:

Koga bdan inu|n ito. (|n is a palatalized n)
(means-ga ba-acc. inun-inf.-nom. to-present)
(means-I you-acc. love-inf.-nom. be-present)

To be more romantic, one would say:

Koga bdan invu|n ito.
(means-ga ba-acc. inun-inf.-gen. to-present)
(means-I you-acc. love-inf.-gen. be-present)

which means: I have to love you, I can't stop loving you.

note: the subject here is not in the nominative case but with a prefix mark
ko- (means of doing something) to show its lack of control
(unvolitionality, as would say Sally).

        in Azak:

Vem-esh-as. /v'emeSas/
(love-you.abs-certainty)

The fact that there is no agent shows a lack of control of the person who
use the expression (very romantic), and the contextual suffix -as means
that the person is convinced of his/her loving the other person (the
"you"). But this expression is a little bit abrupt for a declaration of
love, so I'd use more easily the expression:

Vem-esh-as n-ef-ak. /v'emeSas n'efak/
(love-you.abs-certainty lexicaliser-I.erg-erg.case)

The use of n (a root that can transform suffixes into words) is a little
familiar in this case (a more polite way of saying it would be
Vem-esh-ef-as), but putting the agent mark out of the verb is a good way of
showing its lack of control. Definitely, it's the best way to make a
declaration of love.

note: when lexicalised, -ef becomes simply a personal pronoun (I, me), so
when used as an agent, it needs the case marking -ak (ergative).


                                                        Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"Reality is just another point of view."

homepage : http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepage/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html