Re: Digest

David Peterson wrote:
> The only language that's gotten to the stage of laughter yet is my
> first language, Megdevi.  There's a word for "to laugh", which I
> forget
"To laugh" in Uatakassi is _kiata_ ([Ca'ta]), "to laugh at" is
_kiatakapaa_ ([Ca'takApA:]), derived from _kiata_ "laugh" plus _kapaa_
"to hit", thus, "hit with a laugh"

>    Ah!  I just got the urge to say that I'm a fish in Megdevi, but I
> can't remember the word for fish!
Hee hee.  "Iansuki nika", putting fish in a rather unusual gender for
that word.  :-)  Fish would normally be in the "wild animal" gender, but
since I'm a person, it would have to be in gender 2 (male sentient).

Breakdown:
Ian(s)  -u-ki n- ika
Be.token-I-NP G2-fish
Pronunciation: [jan'soC ni'kA]

(BTW: Stress is actually a matter of pitch rather than volume)

Nonpunctual is used because it's something that's true at the moment of
speaking.  Habitual would imply that it's something that comes and goes,
"At times I'm a fish, at other times I'm not".  In punctual, it would
mean "I've just become a fish".  The verb _ian_ is slightly irregular in
that an _s_ appears in certain forms, such as before -u (historically,
it's that the _s_ was *lost* in certain forms, but today the non-s form
is probably best considered the stem).

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