Re: That's the thing about....

> Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...> wrote:
>
> How would your conlangs translate the English idiom "That's the
> thing about X..."? It seems pragmatically to be, among other
> things, an affirmative response when someone has made an
> observation about something, and you reply with this saying their
> observation is generalizable to all X where X is a superset of the
> specific thing/situation they were talking about.  Or you use it to
> preface a general observation about all X.
Off the top of my head:

Senjecas has an adjectival suffix -mh- (/m_0/) which means pertaining
to, characteristic of, of the nature of.

I would affix -mh- to the X in question and then make the word into
an abstract noun in -as, but use the partitive genitive -âsyo.

His dog bit me.
núsyo tswônes mum per dzêmva.
he-GEN.SG dog-NOM.SG I-ACC.SG past.particle bite-IND

That's the thing about dogs.
nos tswon-mh-âsyo êsa.
that-NOM.SG dog-pertaining.to-GEN.SG be-IND
That is of-dogs.

The noun tswônmhas could be translated as 'dog pertaining to thing.'

Charlie

Reply