Re: 80th lexicon entry

On Sun, Sep 16, 2001 at 03:02:31PM -0400, Muke Tever wrote:
[snip]
> So it's <X ki Y> and <X-k Y-k>.  Long noun phrases or lists might use <ki> for
> <k> in the same way English uses 'and' (<W X Y ki Z>).
[snip]

Interesting. My conlang is a bit different in the way it treats lists.  No
conjunctions are used for simple lists that consist of single words or
short noun phrases. For emphasis (or when there might be ambiguity), _zo_
is inserted between items.

For lists of larger things like clauses or sentences, it uses correlatives
instead of conjunctions:

1)      biz3t30' zotww' chi'du Ke,
        tuw'ma t3 le's yb0' t3m3 ve.

        "The woman looked at him and said, 'go away from me'."
        Literally, "The woman on the one hand looked at him, on the other
        hand said, 'go away from me'." (Two-way correlative)

2)      lyy's jhit3' taa'rui ke,
        K3'l3r0 fww't3 k3'lu ce,
        k3'l0 taw'ma t3 Ta'l3n ybu' t3m3 re.

        "She went into the garden, saw the fountain, and said, 'I am
        content!'"
        Literally, "She went into the garden for one, saw the fountain for
        two, said, 'I am content', for three." (Three-way correlative)

For lists of five, both two-way and three-way correlatives may be combined
in the order Ke, ke, ce, re, ve. For longer lists, or lists of four,
usually get broken up into groups of 2, 3 or 5. (There is a very strong
cultural bias towards lists of 3 and 5, and native speakers tend to try
expressing things in a way that fits that structure.)


T

--
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