Re: EXERCISE: Small grammar exercise

On Sunday 30 June 2002 10:57, Philip Newton wrote:
> The sentences were things such as "Tom goes [to school]" and you're
> supposed to ask for "to school": "Where does Tom go?" in English,
> showing fronting of an interrogative pronoun, addition of an
> auxiliary verb "does", and the changing of the main verb to its
> infinitive form. Other conlangs might take different routes (for
> example, keeping the sentence structure the same but putting an
> interrogative word in the asked-for place "Tom goes where?"). In
> the spirit of that, here are the questions. All notes in
> parentheses are mine.
Since you're looking for interrogatives and corresponding sentence
structure, I'll show you Kélen interrogatives. These use a question
particle kéñ, like so:

> Part II
(re-arranged for my nefarious^W purposes)

> a) [Tom] goes by Underground.
> f) [The children] take the bus to Oxford Circus.
> g) [Last year] they spent their holidays [in Italy].
Tánre goes by kérthe.
The children took kérthe to ánneméthin.
Last year they went to Italy for school.

These sentences all have approximately the same structure:
relational-of-existence+perfect person to place ...

ñi Li-tánre rá ho jakérTe;
be+perfect Li*-Tánre to** instr. kérthe(horse)
(*Li- is a proper name marker) (**be...to is an idion for go/went)

ñi mísi rá ánneméTin ho jakérTe;
be+perfect children to ánneméTin instr. kérthe(horse)

il anniTen jílxien Tó il ñi sáim rá itáLa tó jawwálíkien;
before year this then be+perfect they-paucal to Italy for studying.

Once can add kéñ to the end of these sentences to make a general
question:

ñi Li-tánre rá ho jakérTe kéñ;
Did Tánre go by kérthe?
ñi mísi rá ánneméTin ho jakérTe kéñ;
Did the children take kérthe to ánneméthin?
il anniTen jílxien Tó il ñi sáim rá itáLa tó jawwálíkien kéñ;
Did they go last year to Italy for school?

Asking who is also easy:

ñi ma-kéñ rá ho jakérTe;
Who went/goes by kérthe?
ñi ma-kéñ rá ánneméTin ho jakérTe;
Who takes/took kérthe to ánneméthin?
il anniTen jílxien Tó il ñi ma-kéñ rá itáLa tó jawwálíkien;
Who went last year to Italy for school?

Asking where:
ñi mísi rá-kéñ ho jakérTe;
The children take/took kérthe to where?
il anniTen jílxien Tó il ñi sáim rá-kéñ tó jawwálíkien;
They went last year to where for school?
il anniTen jílxien Tó il ñi ma-kéñ rá-kéñ tó jawwálíkien;
Who went last year to where for school?
(There is also a form rú-kéñ 'from where' and sú-kéñ 'at where'.)

Asking how/by what means:
ñi Li-tánre rá ho-kéñ;
Tánre goes/went by what?
ñi mísi rá ánneméTin ho-kéñ;
The children take/took what to ánneméthin?

Asking why/what for:
il anniTen jílxien Tó il ñi sáim rá itáLa tó-kéñ;
They went last year to Italy for what?

More elaboration:
il anniTen jílxien ja-kéñ il ñi sáim rá itáLa tó jawwálíkien;
Which year did they go to Italy for study?
ñi mísi ma-kéñ rá ánneméTin ho jakérTe;
Which children took/take kérthe to ánneméthin?

Clear?

> b) I show [Milly] [my new car].
> d) Miriam likes [strawberry] icecream.
> i) She wanted to buy [a book].
> h) He works very hard [because he wants to earn a lot of money].
These are all SE sentences, SE being the transaction relational.

I show Málre my new kérthe.
         selme jakeróña jakérTe'nle jatáelle mo málre;
         selme jakeróña jakérTe'nle jatáelle mo (ma)-kéñ;*
         selme jakeróña ja-kéñ mo málre;
*either kéñ or ma-kéñ will work here.

Málre likes minty herbal tea.
         seme jatañén mo málre to anmáli anhéín;
         seme jatañén mo málre to anmáli ja-kéñ;

She wanted to buy a book.
        tielen hejeme jaTúna jé anténni cí;
        tielen hejeme ja-kéñ jé anténni cí;

He works very hard because he wants to earn a lot of money.
        samma ankéwíke ná tó hejeme anténni ná cí;
        samma ankéwíke ná tó-kéñ;

> c) She felt [very unhappy].
This is a PA sentence.

She felt very unhappy.
         pa sáen anlórala ná;
         pa sáen anwálte ja-kéñ;
anwálte means emotion, so this comes out as "What was she feeling?"

> e) [My] brother is [twenty years] old.
I have no idea what kind of idiom to use here. Also, Kélen rarely
expresses direct possession of relatives.

-Sylvia

--
Sylvia Sotomayor
sylvia1@ix.netcom.com

The Kélen language can be found at:
http://home.netcom.com/~sylvia1/Kelen/kelen.html

This post may contain the following characters:
á (a-acute); é (e-acute); í (i-acute); ó (o-acute); ú (u-acute);
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