Re: CHAT: (no subject)

> >>> CENEDL   HEB     IAITH,         CENEDL   HEB    GALON
> >>
> >>> A nation without a language [is]A nation without a heart.
The straightforward way to say this in ML2 is


[kux  zvEmu   AsT4@  Af  kux  NlIgu   AsT4@ ]
<cuch zsfemu  asthre af  cuch ngligu  asthre>
 ABL  E+heart land   ERG ABL  E+land  land

More compactly:

[AsT4@  \pE kux  NlIgu   Af  zvEmu ]
<asthre fue cuch zsfemu  af  ngligu>
 land       ABL  E+heart ERG E+lang

Notes:

Verb to be is understood: this happened to such an extent in ML2's
ancestor that the "zero word" <> (pronounced [] ;) ) is formally the
verb to be in ML2.

<cuch> is a free-standing ablative preposition, one of nine
free-standing locatives, which are a combination of three "directions"
(at, to, from) and three "locations" (in, near, contacting).
Semantically, the system is rather like the Hungarian locatives. The
"locations" also occur as noun case-endings, which must be used with
three (non-free-standing) "direction" preposition.

In this case, cuch doesn't have literally an "out of contact" meaning,
but the figurative meaning of "without", which figurativeness is
indicated by the initial mutation (eclipsis, E) caused on its nouns:
"gligu" > "cuch ngligu" and "sfemu" > "cuch zsfemu". Note the
distinction:
  "cuch asthre"    off (from upon) a land
  "cuch ghasthre"  without a land

<af> is what remains of the ancestor lang's ergative case, now sadly
reduced to a mere preposition from the glory days of inflection. The
system is barely ergative anymore, being somewhere closer to accusative.
Indeed it's being applied here to the nouns of the (invisible) verb
"to be". In other words, there's very little semantic content to the
ergative/absolute cases, almost bordering on a functional approch (like
Lojban). Though for most verbs the system behave with more semantic
sense.

<fue>: a noun phrase ADJ-NOUN may be written as NOUN-fue-ADJ.
So <asthre fue cuch zsfemu af ngligu> = <(cuch zsfemu af ngligu) fue asthre>

Now <cuch zsfemu af ngligu> much mean <cuch zsfemu af cuch ngligu>,
otherwise <gligu> would not have been eclipsed to <ngligu>. Hence the
second, more compact phrasing.

stephen