Re: Tricky translations

Teoh wrote:

 >>Now, Tatari Faran is actually situated on Earth (whew!), yet it
 >>already has such fascinating (and AFAIK unprecedented) features as the
 >>"complements" of which I spoke in my other message. AFAIK, no natlang
 >>has an equivalent of TF's complements.

On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 05:19:02PM -0800, Sai Emrys wrote:

 >Isn't this similar to Japanese "ne" (etc), Láadan's "Báada", etc.? And
 >is the same item as your equivalent to "shut [up]"? *a bit confused*

Maybe they bear slightly more resemblance to splittable verbs in German
or Dutch:

The printer spat out a sheet of paper.
Der Drucker spuckte einen Blatt Papier aus.
De printer spuugde een blad papier uit.

Note that in German and Dutch, the direct object comes between the two
halves of the verb, as opposed to in English.

OTOH, when an infinitive is required, German and Dutch paste the two
halves together again:

I see the printer spit out a sheet of paper.
Ich sehe den Drucker einen Blatt Papier ausspucken.
Ik zie de printer een blad papier uitspugen.

Again, especially the position of the preposition/prefix is interesting.

The past participle, in German and Dutch normally prefixed with "ge-",
uses "-ge-" as an infix for splittable verbs:

The printer has spat out a sheet of paper.
Der Drucker hat einen Blatt Papier ausgespuckt.
De printer heeft een blad papier uitgespuugd.

So, although TF's complements are different, there is at least *some*
resemblance.

BTW, Teoh, my compliments (no pun intended) for TF - it looks great and
if I can find some time, I'll really give it a closer look. As we say in
Dutch, "sjappoo!" :) (which is a compliment - literally something like
"I take my hat off" - Dutch "phonetic" spelling for French "chapeau")

René