Re: Zelandish (was: 2nd pers. pron. for God)

En réponse à andrew <hobbit@...>:

> >
> Funny, I thought I had provided some.  Well, let's see...
>
Yeah, but not enough :))) .

>
> cg /dZ/
>
Interesting digraph. Looks nearly Maggelish :)) (although in Maggel this
digraph would be impossible since Maggel's alphabet doesn't have a 'c' :)) ).
In Maggel the affricate [dZ] is normally written |dh|, but |dsb| would also be
a way to write it :)) .

> >
> A recent thread on this list refered to some Dutch dialects having the
> varient third person plural pronoun |hullie|, derived from |hun lied|.
Yes, I had forgotten it, but I found it in the archives of the listserv. Note
that |zullie| appears too :)) .

> I wonder about the probability of Zelandish having |hylie| but not
> *jylie.
>
Well, in Dutch 'jullie' appeared because the original second person
plural 'jij' gradually replaced the second person singular (like in English),
which disappeared entirely, and like English uses a description "you all", "you
people", etc... to mark the second person plural, Dutch developped such a
description too, which eroded into the unanalysable 'jullie'. So 'jullie'
developped only from a need to separate the singular from the plural second
persons. If in Zelandish such a need appeared with the third person plural
(like it probably did in English since they borrowed "they" from Norse, the
original form - híe/héo - being virtually identical to the singular form), but
not with the second person (and it seems not to be needed since your second
person pronouns |du| and |jy| are still well differentiated), it would be quite
natural that the speakers of Zelandish developped this expression |hie leed|
for the third person but not the second. You don't repair what's not
broken ;))) .

So basically in the case of Zelandish there's no reason why there should be a
*|jylie|. Basically the speakers of Zelandish did with the third person plural
like the English speakers, except that they developped an own expression
instead of borrowing a pronoun from another language.

>
> One of the things I forgot to mention the first time is that Zelandish
> uses the definite article for forming the demonstatives, |det deer|,
> and
> |det heer| or |'theer| /te:r/.  It is declined for case and number.
>
Funny enough, it works exactly the same in Narbonósc, which uses just the
definite article (e, ès, a(s)) with a noun followed by an adverb: cì, lì or là
(separated by a hyphen) to render the demonstratives. In French it's nearly the
same, except that the article is replaced by the demonstrative 'ce', which per
se doesn't really demonstrate much ;))) (and of course French has only two
levels of demonstration, against the three of Narbonósc). Also, Narbonósc forms
its demonstrative *pronouns* referring to people using the emphatic forms of
the 3rd person pronouns, followed again by the same adverbs. So 'this one'
meaning 'this man' is |lui-cì|, while when it refers to an object it's |stecì|
(again a compound, since the pronoun |ste| exists, but in this case no hyphen
is written).

> >
> Hmm, actually I have got that wrong.  A weak noun like |vampierbane|
> 'vampire slayer' is indeclinable in all cases; a word like |twee|
> 'doubt' has the oblique singular, and plural, form |tween|.
>
> Although: det vampierban(e); dom/des vampierbane; da vampierbanen;
> etc...Hmmm, maybe there might be something in that...
>
It looks nice at least :)) . And are you planning on translating "Buffy"? ;)))

> >
> The strong adjective seems to be only used as an attributive adjective
> without an article.  Occasionally I find myself trying to remember the
> strong plural possessive adjective when I'm writing, i.e. |gjoeier| of
> good (pl.).
>
Are predicate adjectives declined? I suppose not, since it seems no Germanic
language does that (or at least none that I know :)) ).

> >
> Yes, I forgot to mention that the auxiliary to for compound tenses,
> although I realise I didn't write out the simple past tense: Ik teld;
> wy
> telde; etc.
>
So the past endings are different from the present ones? Even in the plural?

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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