Re: New Lang, but Just For Fun
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, January 19, 2000, 11:54 |
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At 20:06 18/01/00 -0500, you wrote:
>
>Well, I don't know that much about Japanese either, I just have handy
>references (read: friends who know Japanese). It was actually pretty
>convenient to just ask them questions about what would be plausible,
>that's where I got the verb system from. At first I was going to
>distribute the verbs into different classes, but it seemed simpler (and
>more pidgin-like) to just simplify them into the easiest one.
>Christophe, don't you know Japanese? And I'm sure other people do too.
>How do you recommend I do adjectives and adverbs? What's the Japanese
>situation regarding them?
>
Yes, I do know some Japanese, but less than Mathias (where has he gone?).
Isn't there also at least one Japanese native speaker on this list?
About adjectives, the problem is that Japanese has 2 kinds of adjectives:
variable adjectives which behave quite like verbs but with different
endings (they are modified with tense: past and present, and negation, just
like verbs) and invariable adjectives, which are called nominal because
they are often used like nouns. Knowing the 'nominal' appearance of the
Latin adjectives, and the fact that the nominal adjectives are the easiest
in Japanese, I think you could make all the Latin adjectives 'nominal'
adjectives of your pidgin. In this case, the nominal adjectives must use a
linker when they are used as epithets of nouns. It's 'na' (linking form of
da, the 'to be' particle) for most adjectives, and 'no' (like nouns) for a
few others.
About adverbs, you might use the nominal adjectives with a circonstancial
particle like ni or de? I don't really know how Japanese handle adverbs
derived from adjectives. For underived adverbs, it generally uses simple
words used alone in the sentence.
>Nicole
>--
>nicole.eap@snet.net
>
http://nicole.conlang.org
>--
>"They look like white elephants," she said.
>"I've never seen one," the man drank his beer.
>"No, you wouldn't have."
>