From: "Christophe Grandsire" <christophe.grandsire@...>
Subject: Re: Eihdan and Maggelity
> Well, if you provided with an interlinear, it might be easier ;)) . I have
a
> few ideas on how it could work, but I have difficulties to express them.
But
> let's try:
Why am I not surprised that Christophe responded to this one? :-)
> > Htoruiza hteähd farurh, lhäur teu.
> > /To4uiza Tea:D farur_0 l_0a:u4 teu/
> > The wolf looks for the human.
> >
>
> Seeing the third sentence, I'd guess the verbal root there is |hteähd|. It
> covers a semantic space of "searching-finding" (or are |hteähd| and
|hteaht|
> just related and the first one means "look for" and the second one
"find"?).
> |htoruiza| means "human" and |farurh| "wolf" (is the language OVS? That'd
be
> neat :)) ). I wouldn't know what to do with the last part, separated by
the
> comma. I'd guess something having to do with the wolf actively moving,
meaning
> he didn't find the human yet, and thus clearing up the meaning of the
verb?
The word |hteähd| indicates that X (the noun before it) could possibly be
perceived by Y (the noun after it). The language is either SOV or OSV,
depending on what relationship exists between the participants in the
sentence.
|htoruiza| does indeed mean "human", though more specifically, a human that
is not yet found, and |farurh| means "wolf".
> > Htananh zi htoruiza, na?
> > /Tanan_0 zi To4uiza na/
> > Where is the human?
> >
>
> |htananh| is probably "where" (or is it "place"?). What would |zi| be? A
> swapping particle, indicating that the object and the subject have swapped
> place, or a copula? And I'd guess |na| is a final interrogative
particle...
|htananh| is "where", derived from the word for "place". |zi| indicates that
X has Y, that the human is in this place. |na| is an interrogative
particle, as you have guessed.
> > Htoruerha hteaht farurh.
> > /To4ue4_0a TeaT fa4u4_0/
> > The wolf finds the human.
> >
>
> The object here seems to be in another form than the object in the first
> sentence. Maybe here it's a patient and in the first sentence it was a
goal or
> something like that, and that would explain the meaning change of the
verb?
> (but it doesn't explain why the verb has a different form in both
sentences and
> why the first has that "add-on"). Anyway, this sentence seems to confirm
the
> idea that the word order is OVS, but it could also be that the language
uses a
> trigger system or something like that, and the order would just be TVO,
i.e.
> topic-verb-oblique, nothing special :)) .
|htea| is the root of both of the middle words in these sentences, meaning
that X is perceived by Y. |hteähd| indicates that X could possibly be
perceived by Y, while |hteaht| indicates that X begins to be perceived by Y.
|htea| (and other such words) are more like prepositions, indicating a
relationship between the two nouns. Usually you need a verb as well, which
goes at the end, but occasionally you can get away with having just 2 nouns
and a preposition.
> > Farurh zi htoruaza, sazgën teu.
> > /fa4u4_0 zi To4uaza saZe:n teu/
> > The wolf eats the human.
>
> This time, the |zi| comes back, the subject comes in front of the object
(thus
> seemingly confirming the idea that |zi| swaps their positions, but it may
be a
> big mistake of analysis) and there's no verb between them this time.
Instead,
> there is again this "add-on" with a different first word, but the same
|teu|
> last word. And the word for |human| took again a different form... I must
admit
> I'm lost here. The syntax looks extremely baroque and I can't find a way
to
> analyse it with so few examples. I'd need a few more to give a better
analysis.
|zi| actually doesn't do any swapping, that's the job of |teu|.
> But then again, I'd rather have you explain what it's all about ;)) . It
looks
> like an interesting language with a grammar I really would like to
understand
> (especially what those "add-ons" are and why they are separated with a
comma).
> I also like the orthographical conventions (ht and hd for /T/ and /D/,
like in
> Teonaht, zg for /Z/, a lovely one :)) , the trema for long vowels and an
added
> h to unvoice voiced consonants. All nice things - in Maggel too, |h| is
one of
> the main change marker. But it is not used as regularly as here ;)))) -).
All of the digraphs are made in a reasonably regular fashion, the first
character indicating the type of consonant (degree of closure; stop, nasal,
approximant, etc.) with the second indicating place of articulation and
voicing.
> |Eihdan| is pronounced /eiDan/ I suppose? Where do you put the stress?
Generally on the penultimate, but there is no strong stress in Eihdan words.
So as not to clutter things up too much, I'll post a better explanation for
all this shortly.
Joe