Re: French syntax (was: Italian Particles)

Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>
> At 12:59 22/04/00 -0700, you wrote:
> >Christophe Grandsire scripsit:
> >>
> >> The more I see French through a linguist and/or a foreigner eye, the more
> >> its structure seems original to me :) .
> >
> >Speaking of French lessons (I snipped John's fascinating but
> >impenetrable
> >question), can you say this to a conlanger in French?
> >
> >        Qu'est-ce que tu me dis dans ta langue?
> >
>
> Without the context, I cannot really judge, but it's correct French at
> least.
That's all I wanted to know!  Good!  <G>

> Indeed, you say 'dans', not 'en', and the 'tu' and 'ta' are correct.
Fabulous... right the first time!!

> Yet without context this sentence sounds a little meaningless to me. Can
> you tell me more about it?
>
>                                                 Christophe Grandsire
>                                                 |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.
Yes, Christophe... thank you!  I'm almost done with a set of "macaronic"
verses that I'm trying to set to song.  I wanted a sad, sort of
contemplative
song in Teonaht, English, and French, about the fall of Babel, and human
incommunicability.  The final refrain is "what are saying to me in your
language?"   Of course, a lot of the phrases have to conform to the
meter
and melody line of the song, so that's why they all seem a little yanked
out
of focus and syntax (including the Teonaht).  There was something moving
to
me about singing this mostly in Teonaht and having the singer break away
to
say intelligible things in English and French (I'm assuming that T. is
unintelligible to most everybody else).  The title of the piece, and
I'll
post it if I ever finish and record it, is "Ma langue."  And that's the
note the song ends on.

Maybe I'll put some Welsh in.  But the soundbyte has to be short if I'm
going to RealProduce it.  Oh sigh... if only I were Deirdre DuBois.

Thanks for your help!

============================================================
SALLY CAVES
scaves@frontiernet.net
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves (bragpage)
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html (T. homepage)
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/contents.html (all else)
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Niffodyr tweluenrem lis teuim an.
"The gods have retractible claws."
                                from _The Gospel of Bastet_
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