Re: Equatives?

On Mon, Mar 10, 2003 at 03:47:56PM -0500, Sally Caves wrote:
[snip]
> _Ta_ BTW is an all purpose prep. that means "for," or "with respect to," and
> is used in these comparative structures.  It also means "how" or "so," and
> hence has quasi adverbial meaning:   Ta androfaiht!  "How beautiful!"
[snip]

Hmm, sounds similar to Ebisedian's _i're_ ["?ir`&], which incidentally was
introduced to the lexicon only today.

_i're_ is one of those words which is hard to adequately express in
English. Its basic meaning is emphasis. Your exclamation above would be
translated as:
        i're dami'l!
        "Truly beautiful!"

It's also used as an emphatic particle:
        i're gafa'n3 ebi'!
        "I am indeed really angry!"

And as an exclamation:
        i're!
        "Really!" (surprise/exasperation)

This is rather difficult to translate... it's closest to the Mandarin
exclamation _tsen1 shi4_. Literally, "it is really"; it's used as an
exclamation of exasperation, similar in feeling to "geez, *some* people
are *just* like that!".

And then the obligatory Ebisedian monkey-wrench: _i're_ is also used in
official declarations or documents to introduce a list of items, such as
the terms of a contract. For example:

        keve 0so' uro chi'di gu'raki Ke.  0so' chi'da kww'k3 na 3gura'ki
        d3 aa'sa ve. // And so, let it be that this man (lit. "this he")
        be (pronounced as) Guardian. Let him do according to the duty of
        Guardians.

        i're. // Namely,

        0so' Kekro' na chi'di d3 k3Taa' tuw'ce. // May (he) defend with
        the fullest of his strength.

... (etc.)



T

--
Ignorance is bliss... but only until you suffer the consequences!

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