Re: O Tuashni Blesha kësh o Kolë

Quoting Thomas Leigh <thomas@...>:

> ...a.k.a. "The North Wind and the Sun" in Choba. I finally got around to
> translating it.
Do you think you could give us a short summary of this language's
phonology and orthography?

> The North-ADJ Wind and the sun argue-PAST about who of them strong-COMP
> be-PAST when a AGENT-travel in a warm coat wrap-PAST-PASS-ADJ.
So, it seems that canonical word-order is SOV, but did you leave
out a verb in the last sentence, "approached"?

> Pëa is the restrictive relative pronoun (as opposed to chu, the
> unrestrictive relative pronoun).
Interesting;  I don't know of any language that distinguishes
these, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.  I like it.

> The nominal suffix -ra indicates the accusative case.
A weird coincidence:  this is also precisely the same ending
in Persian, although in Persian it is only used with definites.

> The suffix -nos added to adjectives creates nouns meaning "a/the ... one".
So, it creates nouns.  This seems to be the stative equivalent
of your agentive suffix.

> Then-the Sun begin-PAST hot-ADV shine-PRES-INF, and the AGENT-travel
> immediate-ADV the coat-ACC remove-PAST, and the North-ADJ Wind at_that_time
> admit-PRES-INF must-PAST that-the Sun strong-COMP than he be-PAST.
So, is the verb for "must" an auxilliary, or a full verb meaning
"must be"?

Overall, a mellifluous language.  However:  I'm not entirely sure
whether you'd call this a left-branching or a right-branching
language.  It has elements of both the former (SOV order) and the
latter (the modifying phrase "wrapped in a warm coat" comes after
"the traveller", which suggests right-branching tendencies). If
you altered the syntax to be "the wrapped in a warm coat traveller",
then it would be more purely left-branching.  (It could be that this
the way you have it is a result of heavy-phrases being postposed,
which is naturally in all languages of whatever branchedness.)

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier
Dept. of Linguistics  "Nihil magis praestandum est quam ne pecorum ritu
University of Chicago sequamur antecedentium gregem, pergentes non qua
1010 E. 59th Street   eundum est, sed qua itur." -- Seneca
Chicago, IL 60637

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