Re: 1200 Graded Sentences for Analysis.

Gary Shannon wrote:
> Section One, the first 285 sentences are available at
> http://www.fiziwig.com/ as the first link under the
> heading "Conlang Resources"
>
> --gary
Great! At first glance this looks more useful for translation exercises
than the early parts of the McGuffey Reader. Interesting line 72: "The
Man-in-the-Moon came down too soon." I associated this line with
Tolkien, but apparently it's much older ("The Man in the Moon came down
too soon and asked his way to Norwich" ... which rhymes with
"porridge".) Do other languages have the concept of a "man in the moon"
or something else ("rabbit" in Japanese)? "The Mouse in the Moon came
down too soon and asked the way to Wayzata"....

Looks like a lot of specific cultural and geographical references, but
those could be substituted...

Here's a start of a Minza translation, with some illustration of the
thought process.

1. "Birds sing" ... well, I could say "limiru nili", but birds don't
really "miri" (sing) ... "chirp" ? "whistle" ? I guess I'll go with
"muši" for now, "to make a sound". Limušu nili.

li-muš-u nil-(r)i
3p.ABS-make.sound-PERF bird-PL

2. "Children play": Playing a game or playing with toys? I'll translate
it as "Children play [games]." (the verbs are different in Minza).
Kinužu čirøsile.

ki-nuž-u čirøs-(r)i-(l)e
3p.ERG-play-PERF child-PL-ERG.

Note that "nužu" is a transitive verb with an implied object ("games"),
so the subject is ergative. It should possibly be "ki-LI-nužu", if the
implied object is actually plural, but I'm thinking that the plural
isn't necessary here. I guess I should also mention that Minza has two
words for "children", but I'm assuming the intended meaning is "boys and
girls", not "sons and daughters". Interesting how many decisions go into
translating a simple two word sentence....

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