On Tuesday 30 September 2003 07:18 pm, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 30, 2003 at 05:12:41PM -0700, Sylvia Sotomayor wrote:
> [snip]
> > That said, Kélen makes a big distinction between 'change-of-state'
> > situations and otherwise.
>
> ! That's very much like Ebisedian, even though Ebisedian has verbs. In
my
> response, I've mainly assumed that actual state change occurred; if it
> were describing a static condition of being broken, the sentences
would
> have no verbs and be very different in structure.
>
> > For example, when something breaks, it changes its state from whole
to
> > broken. When someone is hit, however, that person is still the same,
> > maybe feeling a little pain and humiliation, but not otherwise
changed.
> > An inanimate object that's been hit isn't changed either, unless it
> > becomes damaged, which would be a different word.
>
> That's an interesting distinction.
>
> > So, lets consider the following:
> > She hit the door (with her hand, knocking, say...)
> > The door was hit (by someone unspecified)
> > She broke the door (hit it too hard, i guess)
> > The door is broken/The door broke.
> >
> > tamma jataxéta mo jaxúra;
> > (She gave a hit/strike/blow to the door)
> > te jataxéta mo jaxúra;
> > (Someone/something gave a hit/strike/blow to the door)
> > órra ñamma jaxúra jahúwa;
> > (She made the door a broken thing)
> > órra ñi jaxúra jahúwa;
> > (Someone/something made the door broken) or
> > (The door became broken/made itself broke)
>
> Care to give interlinears? :-) I'm curious as to how this parses.
Sorry. Of course:
tamma jataxéta mo jaxúra;
SE+Past+3p.sg.source+inan/null.goal
hit/blow/strike(N.inan.sg) goal-marker door(N.inan.sg.)
te jataxéta mo jaxúra;
SE+past+null/inan.src+null/inan.goal
hit/blow/strike(N.inan.sg) goal-marker door(N.inan.sg.)
órra ñamma jaxúra jahúwa;
past+complete NI+3p.sg.agent door(N.inan.sg) broken(N.inan.sg)
órra ñi jaxúra jahúwa;
past+complete NI+null/inan.agent door(N.inan.sg) broken(N.inan.sg)
> At any rate, knocking on a door and breaking a door use different
verbs in
> Ebisedian. The verb I used in my response, _Ca'ne_, means to shatter.
A
> different verb would be needed for a non-destructive knocking. :-)
Also,
> if describing a broken door (rather than the event of a door
breaking), no
> verb would be used, but the appropriate adjectival noun would be
employed.
>
> > The first two sentences use the relational SE, which denotes
transaction
> > and not a change of state.
>
> SE?
>
> > The last two sentences use NI, which does denote a change of state.
>
> NI?
SE & NI are two of the four relationals (the other two are LA & PA).
Kélen has relationals instead of verbs. They have minimal semantic
content and carry some inflections - for tense/aspect in the case of LA
and SE and for person in NI and SE. PA doesn't inflect at all. It seems
to be a 'recent' addition to the class of relationals.
SE denotes transactions, and is used for transactions, transitives with
an object that doesn't change its state, experiences, etc. NI denotes a
change in state in its object or a causative. LA denotes existence in
time and/or place and is used with the appropriate directionals to
indicate motion. PA indicates a whole/part relationship.
> > Further, the first two differ from each other in that only an
animate
> > source gets marked on SE. So 'tamma' parses to
> > SE+past+3p.sg.source+null/inanimate goal. NI also inflects for
animate
> > agent. This means that an inanimate source/agent is treated the same
way
> > as an unspecified or non-existent one:
> >
> > te jataxéta mo jaxúra to janíran;
> > (The branch gave a hit/strike/blow to the door)
> > órra ñi jaxúra jahúwa á janíran;
> > (The branch made the door broken)
>
> Interlinears please :-)
Same as above.
to janíran & á janíran
to is a source marker for an inanimate source, janíran is the inanimate
singular noun 'branch'. á is a causative marker denoting a cause.
> > Passive is not distinguished in Kélen.
> >
> > I discovered recently that nouns such as jataxéta prefer the
> > distributive jattaxétien to the regular plural form jataxéti, as in:
> > te jattaxétien mo jaxúra to janíran;
> > (The branch gave hits/strikes/blows to the door)
> > This is probably because the distributive conveys the idea of
repetition
> > over time and the plural does not.
> [snip]
>
> What is the function of _jataxéta_?
>
If it isn't clear by now (sorry), jataxéta is the inanimate singular
noun meaning 'a hit, a strike, a blow'.
-Sylvia
--
Sylvia Sotomayor
sylvia1@ix.netcom.com
kelen@ix.netcom.com
Kélen language info can be found at:
http://home.netcom.com/~sylvia1/Kelen/kelen.html
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