Re: Active, Was: Help with grammar terms

        Sorry, was meant to the whole list but went only to Padraic.

>At 15:12 21/01/00 -0500, you wrote:
>>
>>namsit fraatarfraataruwiruáhucos harcaahacaawapucaranimamaatara-
>>paataracalcaracerwhoarathuutantas.
>>
>>Namum means take or scrape together (namsit is, surprise surprise,
>>past aorist). The next word is a compound of brother, brother, man,
>>horse; which means "twin warriors". The last word is a compound of
>>hound, horse, cattle, weapons, wives, mother, father, household goods,
>>and daughters (apparently in order of importnace). Cos and tas are the
>>ubiquitious articles "this" and "that". Thus: "The Heroes got together
>>all their goods and relations." Or literally: "Got together
>>twinbrotherhorsewarrior-the houndhorsekinespearwifemamapapa-
>>bowlhorndaughters-the."
>>
>
>       Wow! What a strange kind of compounding! Any natlang precedent? It looks
nearly polysynthetic to me :) .
>
>>This sentence is VSO only because it's the first sentence in its
>>section of prose, and also happens to be the first sentence in the
>>story. Other sentences are regularly SOV.
>>
>
>       This is also a strange feature. Does it mean that word order is
relatively free, and only stylistic constraints of literature ask for VSO
at the beginning of prose? Or is it more a grammatical constraint?
>
>[snip of a very interesting conjugation]
>
>>
>>Tallarian doesn't have conjugations like Latin or Kernu (thank God);
>>only this distinction of thematic and athemiatic, the latter of which
>>is a rather small group of verbs.
>>
>
>       It's an interesting kind of Indo-European language. Where is it supposed
to be spoken?
>
                                                        Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"Reality is just another point of view."

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