Re: English "another"/Conlang Question

On Wed, 8 Aug 2007 15:38:58 -0700, David J. Peterson
<dedalvs@...> wrote:
>
>Here's the relevant conlang bit.  In Kamakawi, transitive
>sentences work like this:
>
>Ka mata ei i nawa.
>/past see I OBJ. fish/
>"I saw a fish."
>
>The /i/ always precedes the object.  It sometimes can appear
>as /ie/ or /iu/, depending on the definiteness and plurality of
>the following noun, but /i/ does it for indefinite objects.
>
>I have a series of nouns that are supposed to be derived from
>a combination of this /i/ particle and a noun.  It forms what I've
>called instance of action nouns, or object nouns, or various types
>of nouns, something like this:
>
>tei "to dance" > itei "(a/the) dance"
>moi "guava tree" > imoi "guava fruit"
>kavaka "to write" > ikavaka "book"
>
>In a sentence, you would do it this way:
>
>Ka hava ei i imoi.
>/past eat I OBJ. guava/
>"I ate a guava."
>
>Have I done this wrong?  Should there be no object marker?
>I wouldn't have thought so, but thinking about "another" has
>given me pause.  Any thoughts?
If you omitted the object marker,
Ka hava ei imoi "I ate a guava fruit."
is in danger of being mistaken for
Ka hava ei i moi "I ate a guava tree."

That's the only objection I can come up with.

Jeff

>
>-David
>**********************************************************
*********
>"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
>"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
>
>-Jim Morrison
>
>http://dedalvs.free.fr/

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