Re: translation -- the duke was smitten

Patrick Dunn wrote:

> On Tue, 10 Jul 2001, J Matthew Pearson wrote:
>
> > The closest equivalent in Tokana would be:
> >
> >   Na talo seikunne kalon anateunaka nolhoksu
> >
> >   na      talo  seik-un-ne           kalon
> >   the.NOM chief lust.for-PST-the.ABS young.man
>
> Wow!  You pack a lot of meaning into the verb.  Does the -ne suffix agree
> in definiteness with the subject of object?  It's a neat idea.
The "-ne" isn't really an agreement suffix, but a clitic determiner which gets stuck
on the end of the verb if it happens to be immediately adjacent to it.  It goes with
the direct object.

I don't think of Tokana as being a language where a lot of information is packed
into the verb, although it does have some agglutinating features:  There are
suffixes to mark tense/aspect, polarity (positive or negative), order/mode (main
clause, embedded indicative, or embedded subjunctive), and certain kinds of modes,
and prefixes for indicating the antipassive and reflexive 'voices'.  Extreme
examples like the following are possible, though of course they're not at all
common:

  umakuolankuhoteunokma
  uma-kuol-ank-uh-ote-un-o-kma
  REFL-meet-try-want-NEG-PST-SUBJ-1st.PL
  "that we would not have wanted to try to meet each other"

(REFL = reflexive prefix, NEG = negative suffix, PST = past tense, SUBJ = suffix
marking the verb as part of an embedded clause in the subjunctive mode--viz.
"that... would...")

Matt.