_Góquim_Sentences

--- John Leland <leland@...>
wrote:

In Talarian.

> 1. Three birds are flying.
Meryyahatar    ihohoc      hawican-ca-he.
fly-3s-DUR-MID those.three bird-PL-the-and

meryyaham, "fly" is generally a middle voice
action (a bird flies itself); inanimate plurals
are treated as collective singular subjects, so
-atar in stead of -âmtar. Ihohoc is a numeric
pronoun, favoured over simple numbers in uses
like this. -ca- (and -ta- and -ha- and -sa-) is a
topic marker which changes when the interlocutors
switch to some new focus of conversation. -he is
a generaic discourse marker and technically means
"and".

> 2. Goquim is a simple language.
Çerewamemonayatar       Tenxwwar Haryuça-he
swift.teach-3s-PUNC-MID tongue   noble-and

As above, monayam, "teach, learn", is middle
voiced. One doesn't learn something - something
teaches itself to one. Reduplication indicates
the aorist form of the punctual conjugation.
Tenxwwar Haryuça is, naturally, Talarian, the
noble tongue of the Aryans.

> Goquim quickly learned-is-can language.
Were Goquim a language of the World, it would be
Tenxwwar Qocumuça.

> 3. *Ligana-me fugefe fugeli tiga-fe.
> Garden (prettyplantland)-in many verypretty
> trees.
Calama     canapatalani    alomasanahapsar-he.
Sleep-STAT grass-place-LOC many-pretty-tree-and

Calamam, "sleep" is a stative verb (the active
conjugation forms mean "fall asleep"), hence the
3s -a. Talarian really seems to resist plural
inanimate nouns, hence the singular "many-tree".
The Telerani don't have gardens as such, but a
canapatalar, "grass place" might be marked off
for household recreation and to plant harbs. It
is locative, since the trees sleep _in_ the
garden.

> 4. I am learning Goquim.
Monayatar Tenxwwar Haryuça makam-hal.

Monayatar, et r. as above. Makam is the 1s dat
pronoun, "to me"; -hal is a redundant
postposition meaning "to, towards" and simply
reinforces the direction of the teaching.
Literally: Talarian teaches itself to me.

> 5. My name is Nikil Sinha.
Hassâ   Hanicolar Çnahâttar xonomani.
Am-STAT N.        S.        name-INSTR

Be is the stative verb par excellence, hence 1s
-â. As has been said before, Talarian is not
especially friendly to foreign words. -attar is
the foreign name suffix; xonomani = "by name".

> 6. Where is the book?
Stana-hami          pucar-mat.
stand-3s-STAT-where book-?

It is unusual to tack postpositions on verbs, but
-hami is both a postposition proper and an
adverb, so can be attached to the verb as well.
-mat is the interrogative postposition.
Inflexionally, the voice should rise on
"...ar-mat", which reinforces the interrogative
nature of the sentence.

> 7. You are coming with me.
Xamyasi     anat maka-com-he.
come-2s-DUR thou me-with-and

Tû is 2s personal pronoun.

> 8. Are you coming with me?
Xamyasi tû maka-com-mat.

Note anat v. tû. Anat is the cataphoric 2s
personal pronoun: it is used when introducing a
previously unknown entity without using the
associated noun. Had this been a noun phrase, I
would have used the topic particle -ta- (in stead
of -ca-), to alert my interlocuter of the change
in focus. In direct speech, "thou" can't be
introduced anew, because we're already talking -
both "I" and "thou" are already known entities to
the discussion, in other words.

> 9. What is the name of that city?
Cramiyyar-cat, xonomar-his-mat.
City-that      name-what-?

Here we see -cat, which is a fully declined
demonstrative pronoun, related to the topic
particle -ca- we saw before. -his- is the
interrogative pronoun root.

Teleran has two cities of note, so we could say:
Cramiyyar-cat, his irilô-mat. I.e., That city,
which of the two is it?

Padraic.


=====
Asey so enki to arunne; morahay so yomaji to allane.
Man hunts, Woman cooks.
   [Gurranian saying]



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