Re: congrammar update

Roger sudah tulis :

>indonesian posessif -nya tricks.>
        One of the most useful and fun constructions in all
creation.  (1)A useful way of avoiding longish derived
forms-- pikirnya 'his thought; he
thinks...'   for pikirannya; gelapnya 'blackness' for
kegelapan; (2)makes nouns definite (in
discourse)-- dimana sajinya  where's the ladle?' (as
you're about to serve the soup); (3)and those mysterious
things like-- seadanya (se- 'one, a', ada 'there is') 'that's the way it
is, that's the situation', semestinya (mesti 'must') 'that's the way it has
to be, that's what's required'...
        Kash does (1) a lot, (2) occasionally; (3) not yet.

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yes, i'm really happy that a
fellow conlanger likes all

those simple though cunning natlang designs.
although i have no knowledge of bugis or else-- except for
what i could read in Lynch's book of course --and very
little of javanese.

tunu's -n is like -nya in the
way that it's a possessive pronoun when
suffixed to a noun but it only refers to a noun
precedent so that a pattern like "rumah-nya orang"
(tunu : *"suba-n neju") is not possible.

but -n is also an accusative pronoun referring
to a head noun precedent :

"suba i neju jika-n" or
"suba i neju jika nai-n"
would render in *indonesian :
"rumah yang orang *tinggal-nya" or
"rumah yang orang tinggal *di-nya"
(instead of "rumah di mana orang tinggal")

and it's also a nominative pronoun :
"neju i-n jika suba"
would make in *indonesian :
"orang *yang-dia tinggal di rumah".

it is not itself the tag of substantive although it is
part of construct nouns:

"pikirnya" as a noun is either
"o saka-n" = "one_that think-it", "the one that is thought"
(pikiran)
or "e-n saka" = "fact_of-one think", "the fact of thinking"
(*pemikiran)

also possible are :
"e saka-n" = "fact_of think-it", "the fact of being thought"
"o-n saka" = "one_who-he think", the thinker (*pemikir)

actually, i must admit that i drop the -n atributive stuff
when it comes to construct nouns. let's take "the man's
bottle-opener":
man = neju
bottle-opener = o-n julo boko (one_that-it open bottle) (pembuka botol)
neju on-julo-boko = man bottle-opener
i need put attributive -n somewhere, either onto "on" or maybe after "boko",
because if i don't, the line above means "the man is a bottle opener",
and that's not what i want to say. i want to say "the man's bottle opener"

but "on-n-julo-boko" is difficult to pronounce and "on-julo-boko-n" also means
"the one opening one's bottle".
so i'm stuck there, but it's not too much of a problem because
if there is a verb aferwards, it's clear that it is not equative:
neju on-julo-boko kuja : the man, (his) bottle-opener is-broken.
and anyway i can use a topical construction to disambiguate:
neju a on-julo-boko kuja : man TOPIC bottle-opener is-broken.
-------------
>i also use topical construction to avoid the verbal
>passive form like in colloquial french "l'anglais on l'apprend à l'école"
>instead of formal "l'anglais est appris/enseigné à l'école".>
        Likewise in Kash, which has no formal passive at all.

--------------
i have a question about Kash regarding that matter.
tunu avoids passive by using topical construction :
mouse TOP cat eat-IT
tinu a kati tumu-n

does Kash use also a topical tag to do so?
or is it more like the reverse indonesian construction :
Yono (harus) menulis alamat > alamat (harus) Yono tulis

i'm interested in how kash manages this because i wanted
an indonesian-like construction , i.e., reversing to OSV,
but i had a problem with this because now "X Y" in tunu
already means "X is Y" (like in indonesian but without
the disambiguating "adalah" stuff : "X adalah Y").
i wanted to make a clear distinction between identitive
(X is Y), genitive (X of Y) and topic (X : Y ...), which 3 are easily--but
only guessed from each other through "context" in indonesian.

i mean: the context shows that "alamat Yono" above isn't "address is Yono"
nor "address of Yono", but i wanted to make things even clearer.

apparently Kash identitive and topic are expressed with the same 0-copula
construction while genitive is different : "house man-i" or "leaf-ni tree".

apparently also the Kash subclause "kash ri..." is subject
(french "l'homme qui..."; tunu : "neju i-n...") while "puna re..." is object
(french "la maison que..."; tunu : suba i...-n )
so i'm interested again to know whether Kash features a
pronoun like -n referring to the head noun.
------------------
>suba mai neju
>"house of man"
>the man's house
>
>neju suba-n
>man house-POS
>"man his house"
>the man's house>
        Is there some difference here, or just alternative ways of saying
it?  Like Indo. rumah orang vs. orang punya rumah (this last is characteristic
of Moluccan dialects)
----------------
it's more like the difference between indonesian
"daun pohon itu" vs. "pohon itu tingginya 10 meter".
----------------
; one also hears rumahnya orang,
probably a Javanism or other regional influence.  That construction is
standard in many other languages, e.g. Buginese bola/na Ali 'Ali's house'.
Kash marks the genitive (-i), so puna kashi;  I think I'll use something
like the Bug. for non-animate possessors-- ekamash/ni ange 'the leaves of
the tree' rather than ekamash ange(y)i
------------------
but isn't this a bit messy when you have a double genitive?
let me try : "roof-ni puna
kash-i" (roof of house of man)
no problem; it looks good.
----------
>the man lives in a house with a long roof
Kash:   ...ri puna re (which, that, Ind. yang)
is-long roof-ni, though possibly ...ri puna roof long-ni "house
_of a long roof_" ie. [house [REL S]] vs. [house
[ADJ roof-long-GEN]]  (this needs more work!)
----------
ok, so kash uses genitive as an attributive too (-ni=of=with).
but how do you say "the man whose house has a long roof"?
"kash ri/re puna ?-i roof long-ni"?
-----------
>suba i neju jika-n ia-n nali lono-n
>house SUB man inhabit-O RES-S long roof-POS
>"house it man inhabit-it it long roof-its"
>the house where the man lives has a long roof
        Kash:  puna(y)e [DAT] re man lives there roof long.
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wait! why a dative? because of locative "there"?
mathias