Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Personal Conjugation based on Closeness

From:H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>
Date:Saturday, March 29, 2003, 18:29
On Fri, Mar 28, 2003 at 01:19:23PM -0500, Roger Mills wrote:
> H.S.Teoh wrote: > > > > > He was walking with his father and another man, and he told him > > > > that he will visit him again. > > > > > > > >[snip] In Ebisedian, however, this is completely unambiguous: > > Very ambiguous in Kash, and it's been bothering me for days. The > formal/literal translation, with tense markers:
Care to provide a legend for your abbreviations? I'm having trouble deciphering some part of this.
> senda yaharansa yam amañi i kaçun liya, i ne yakotasa re ne yatolito cis. > PROG 3/walk/Past with his-father/acc and man/acc other, (and) 3/dat > 3/say/Past CONJ 3/dat 3/visit/Fut again. > > As it stands, and out of context, the 2nd clause beginning with i 'and' > would suggest strongly that there has been a change of subject. If you > omitted _i_ (as you could), then the subj. of yakotasa would be assumed = > subj. of yaharansa.
I see.
> In the clause following yakotasa, _re_ definitely indicates change of subj. > Again, if re is omitted, then the subj. of yatolito = subj. of yakotasa (a > sort of serial verb construction), (and may/maynot = subj.yaharan, depending > on the preceding paragraph).
Cool. How does _re_ indicate a change of subject though?
> In this second clause, the two ya- subj.markers and the two _ne_'s are > completely ambiguous. To disambiguate (just as in Engl.) you'd have to > repeat the nouns, or use their equiv. of "former, latter" etc.
Right, which was something that bothered me when designing Ebisedian; which was why I introduced the associative tags.
> If one or another _ne_ was not replaced by a noun, it would be assumed > to refer back to the "he" subj. of yaharansa. Similarly, any ya- that > had no noun (nom.) supplement. A couple exs.: > > (Let A be the subj. of walk, B=father, C=other man) > 1.(first clause unchanged), [no i 'and'] yakotasa amayeni re kaçut ya liya > ne yatolito cis. > ........and A told B that C would visit A again.
Is there a reflexive in there that refers back to A again, or is it just assumed by default?
> 2. (first clause unch.), _i_ amani ne yakotasa (no RE'that') yatolito kaçute > ya liya cis. > ....and B told A that B would visit C again.
I'm not sure I understand how _re_ would imply a change in subject?
> 3. (first clause unch.), i amani ne yakotasa re ya liya ne yatolito cis. > ...and B told A that C would visit A again > > NB this: > 4. ..........i amani ne yakotasa re ya liya _netu_ yatolito cis. > ...and B told A that C would visit _B_ ('himself') again.
Aha, so _netu_ is a reflexive? Why wasn't it needed in (1)?
> (Uh-oh, this probably needs work-- what if the verb were lolan 'protect' > instead of 'toli'-- I see the solution, but this post is getting too long, > and me brain hurts.)
Hehehe, yes, that example was deliberately hyper-ambiguous. :-) T -- Winners never quit, quitters never win. But those who never quit AND never win are idiots.

Reply

Roger Mills <romilly@...>