Re: Deciphering Conlangs

Sorry for the late reply.

You pretty much translated everything correctly. An Eldin Raigmore told me
had sent me an attempted solution as well, but I didn't receive it.

Regarding the "general" article, I remember seeing a name for this (either
on the Ithkuil site or the Latejami site), but I don't remember what it was.

<<
o gi torem kif e kyysepal e kysepapal,
[but] not PRES.like I [and] GENERAL.juice.fruit(?) and GENERAL.juice-apple,
I don't like some fruit juices (?) and apple juice,
>>
The intended meaning of kyysepal was 'some fruit juices' (or "some types
of fruit juices"), as you guessed
(my mistake, see the answers to your unsolved mysteries below).

<<
torem kof GENERAL.kyypapes. e tilum kif kapapaf e tipam kepapaf.
PRES.like (s)he oranges(?). [and] FUT.touch I apple.SG and FUT.eat DEF.apple.
(s)he likes oranges(?). I will touch the apple and will eat the apple.
>>
torem kof kyypapes
She likes ---some--- oranges

<<<
torem kof GENERAL.kyypapes. e tilum kif kapapaf e tipam kepapaf.
PRES.like (s)he oranges(?). [and] FUT.touch I apple.SG and FUT.eat DEF.apple.
(s)he likes oranges(?). I will touch the apple and will eat the apple.
>>>
'e tilum kif kapapaf e tipam kepapaf.' Strictly, this should be interpreted as
'I will touch the apple and the apple will eat'. I made a typo: the sentence
should read 'e tilum kif kapapaf e kos tipam kepapaf.', meaning 'I will touch
the apple and they will eat it.'

>>- does ky- mean what I think it does (the "general" article mentioned above)?
Yes.

>>- what does kyy- mean?
'Some', as you have already guessed. (Not in the plural indefinite sense, but
the 'not all' sense.) This, however, is rather ambiguous and I accidentally
gave it two different meanings it two different sentences. For example,
kyypapas could mean 'some apples' or 'some types of apples' (The some
as taken the place of the article's position in the morphology, see noun
structure below)

>>- if I touch "kapapas" (apples) and she touches "kapapes" (oranges), how come
  I like "kypapas" (apples), but does she like "kyypapes" (oranges?)?

See above.

>>- where are the morpheme boundaries between the apple, the juice and
the article?

(The following is only for nouns)

Noun structure: k - article - prefix - root - plurality

articles: y (general), yy (the ambiguous "some"), a (indefinite), e (definite)

prefixes: se (juice)

word roots: pa (fruit/ fruit category if root is longer), papa (apple), pape
(orange)

Plurality: f (sing.), s (plural)

>>- what does "kyysepal" mean?
Answered in two places above, a mistake.

-------------------------------
-John