Re: past tense formation

Dan Jones wrote:

> I thought "s'annah annayan" didn't sound right, because it could also mean
> "burnt bread", as well as "the bread burnt". So to disabiguate the two, I
> can overhaul the syntax of the language and make adjectives precede their
> nouns:
>
> s'annah annayan "the bread burnt"
> annayan s'annah "the burnt bread".
This would bring your language in line with other SOV languages, typologically
speaking.  According to Greenberg, OV languages overwhelmingly put modifying
adjectives in front of the noun (Basque is a famous exception).


> This also opens up possibilities for playing with participles. I could use a
> participle instead of a relative clause:
>
> Dalayan yañanayo s'annah annayan.
> go-ppt man-pl-inst bread-nom burn-ppt.
> The men who went burnt the bread.
> By the went men the bread was burned.
>
> instead of
>
> Yañanayo, to dalayan, s'annah annayan
> man-pl-inst, REL-inst go-ppt, bread-nom burn-ppt
> The men who went burnt the bread
> By the men, that went, the bread was burned.
>
> The second example places the emphasis on the men (as opposed to the
> children, say), whereas the first is neutral in terms of emphasis (the place
> with the greatest emphatic weight is at the beginning of the statement,
> BTW). To emphasise the fact that the men went (rather than stayed), a third
> construction is possible:
>
> To dalayan, yañanayo, s'annah annayan.
> Those that went, the men, burnt the bread.
>
> Hmm, now I've got something to play with!
Looks like fun!  You might want to have a look at Finnish, which has both
participial relatives and English-type relative clauses.

Matt.