Re: word poll #2: articles

Siyo!
See below:


--- Garrett Jones <alkaline@...> wrote:
> In the interest of having some kind of traffic on
> the list, i'll do another
> word poll. People seem to like talking about their
> own languages :) Plus it
> seems helpful for people to see what they've missed.
> This poll will be about
> articles, definite and indefinite. The definitions
> are from the webster's
> dictionary, different foreign language resources,
> online websites, and some
> from my ass (but they make sense, of course).
>
> so, how do you translate the following meanings into
> your conlangs? I can
> see several constructions possible:
>
> 1. articles like in english
> 2. possessives
> 3. sentential word order
> 4. syntactic constructions
> 5. not overtly expressed (it's the default)
> 6. distinction not made
>
8< snip >8

Articles are somewhat like in English in Kayasanoda
but also have some unique features.  For one, as an
agglutinating language the articles affix to the the
nominal form in question.  Second, one of the primary
uses of articles is to distinguish a metaphorical
usage from a literal usage.

I will use the word "north" as an example.  The
agglutination meaning "north" is "-sakomuna-".  The
individual roots mean "-sako-" = "blue" and "-muna-" =
"point" (this is taken from a Cherokee representation
of the compass).  For me to say "the north" I would
say "lasakomunada", adding "la-" for definite article
and "-da" for the singular nominative case suffix.  If
I simply wanted to say "north" in a nominative form,
such as, "North is a good direction to go...." (a
strange sentence, I know), the word would be
"sakomunada", without the article suffix.

But suppose that, for some reason, I wanted to talk
about "the blue point".  In this case the article
moves from prefix to infix: "sakolamunada", following
the final root, as it is the one I am trying to have
modified.  (I imagine more than one root could follow
it but have not yet had an instance of it.)  And if I
wanted to talk about "a blue point", I would use the
indefinite infix "-de-" -- "sakodemunada".  Note taht
there is no indefinite prefix article.

There you go.
Dana
Clint

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