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Re: Digest

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Saturday, November 3, 2001, 22:58
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). -- "No just cause can be advanced by terror" ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42