Re: Alienable/inalienable possession

On 2/4/06, Carsten Becker <carbeck@...> wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I recently started a new project, Ukele [1], which is
> supposed to have alienable/inalienable posession. I wonder
> how would one express to have something or to give
> something away that is inalienable? E.g. a heart transplant
> or something? Body parts are usually inalienable, after all.
> May there be an evidence that it's a concept rather of
> philosophy than language? Would there be transplants in a
> society that speaks a language with an alienable/
> inalienable distinction? I bet I've got a PDF on this
> floating around on some backup CDs of mine ... However,
> according to Payne it seems to me that it's no problem to
> give away something that is inalienable, it's just specially
> marked for inalienability. I am confused. Does anyone care
> to explain?
>
> Thanks,
> Carsten
>
> [1] www.beckerscarsten.de/conlang/ukele
Kēlen has inalienable possession of body parts. The standard, unmarked
way to say 'heart' is 'samālle', which means 3p-'heart' or
'his/her/someone's heart'. However, it is also possible to inflect
-māll- as an inanimate noun. This would be marked, people would look
at you funny, but in the context of a transplant, or the scientist's
jars of preserved body parts, it would make perfect sense. The
inanimateinflection wold be 'jamālle', which would never be
interpreted as 'his/her/someone's heart', but would mean 'a heart, not
belonging to anyone in particular' or 'a disembodied heart'. Once it's
back in someone's chest, it would be possessed again. As in:

temle lemālle to mīþa ā māltanen;
The doctor gave me my heart from another. (cool, eh?)

temle samālle;
S/he gave me his/her heart. (and I'm not quite used to the idea yet)

Unlike English, giving someone one's heart is not a declaration of love. :-)

Does that help?

-S
--
Sylvia Sotomayor
terjemar@gmail.com
www.terjemar.net

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