Re: DECAL: Examples #4: Interesting Sentences
| From: | H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, January 17, 2005, 18:41 |
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On Fri, Jan 14, 2005 at 07:51:22PM -0800, Sai Emrys wrote:
> Woot. Thank y'alls for the excellent responses so far. Before my next
> question of a similarly specific nature, a light interlude:
You call this a light interlude??! This is turning out to be an MSc
thesis on how my conlangs work. Sighhh...
> Q1: Give me four examples of sentences from your conlang. (If they're
> different enough to warrant it, then add "per conlang" ;-))
>
> 1. The most "prototypical" sentence you can think of. (Esp. for those
> of you with concultures that go with them.)
Not sure what you mean by "prototypical"... I'll just go with the
verbal indicative with 3 NPs and a verb for Tatari Faran:
itsan ko tapa huu sa misanan dei bata.
cinder_cone ORG:NEUT walk 1sp CVY-MASC village RCP-FEM COMPL
"I walked from the cinder cone to the village."
["i.tsan kO . tapa "hu: sa mi"sanan dej bata]
This sentence displays the case system in full: it uses of all 3 core
cases, all 3 genders, and uses a verb with its synonymous complement.
Now, about the complement (_bata_ in this example)... I don't know how
to explain this except that it's similar (in a very approximate sense)
to the "up" in the English verb "shut up", or the "down" in the verb
"shut down", or the "over" in "roll over". However, it's not a
preposition, and only occurs in the indicative mood (and sometimes in
the imperative). EVERY Tatari Faran verb has at least one complement
to go with it. It functions as a pseudo-repetition of the main verb,
to confirm and reinforce the verb in the indicative mood. For better
explanations with more thorough examples, see:
http://conlang.eusebeia.dyndns.org/fara/complement.html
For Ebisédian:
jul0'r lyy's eb3' manga' loo'ri moo'ju.
house-ORG go-PERF 1sp-CVY horse-INSTR countryside-LOC city-RCP
"I went from the house through the countryside to the city on
horseback."
[dZu'lAr` 'ly:s ?E"b@\ ma"Na "lo:r`i "mo:dZu]
The perfective aspect in Ebisédian does NOT mean the same thing as in
English. In Ebisédian, all verbs occur in the perfective unless they
have either just begun (in which case the inceptive is used), or they
are (or anticipated to be) interrupted. Ebisédian verbs do not inflect
for tense, so _lyy's_ could mean "I have gone", "I went", "I go", or
even "I will go". The perfective is used in the future sense as well
because it is anticipated that the action will be complete, even if
it's still in the future. The progressive aspect (which perhaps is
better named the interruptive aspect) is only used in two situations:
(1) the action is interrupted, or will be interrupted; or (2) in a
"while X was happening, Y happened" construction.
Note that for both Tatari Faran and Ebisédian, the case system is
quite unlike Standard Average European. (In fact, it is quite unlike
any natlang I know... but then again, one should never assume one will
never get hit by an anadewism. :-) ) Tatari Faran has the following
cases:
ORG - originative: indicates source, agent, or place of origin.
RCP - receptive: indicates destination, patient, or goal.
CVY - conveyant: indicates that which is conveyed (not necessarily
physically) from the source to the destination.
Note that the single examples given above are woefully inadequate to
give an accurate picture of how these cases are used. I hate to have
to repeat this every single time I write about my conlangs, so I'll
instead point the reader to the TF grammar where this is explained in
depth:
http://conlang.eusebeia.dyndns.org/fara/cases.html
Ebisédian uses more or less the same system, but adds two more cases:
INSTR - instrumental: indicates the motivator, dynamo, or driving
agent by which the conveyant NP is propelled towards its
destination. This is usually applied figuratively, of course.
LOC - locative: indicates the current location of the conveyant NP, in
the temporal, physical, or metaphorical sense.
Again, all this is better described by the Ebisédian tutorial:
http://conlang.eusebeia.dyndns.org/ferochromon/tutorial.pdf
> 2. The most complicated.
Hmph. I don't if there is a "most complicated"... 'cos the way TF
grammar works, once you get past a certain level of complexity, it is
preferable to break it down into more manageable pieces, otherwise you
will need a VERY large stack machine in your brain to parse it. But
perhaps something with relative clauses and quoted discourse will fit
this bill:
diru tsat misanaran nihuu ibata' ibi hamrakan kei tsana mubun nara
kiran apasanaran itapa tara' na e, kira ina baran hara tse ka huu nei
tuitui ina' kahaa huun sa, tara' sei bera pahaan kiki. e'aniin.
[,di4u 'tsat mi'sana4an ni,hu: iba,ta? ibi 'ham4akan kej . 'tsana
mubun na4a 'ki4an apa,sana4an ita'pa ta4a? na ?E . 'ki4a ina ba4an
ha4a tsE 'ka 'hu: nej ,tuj,tuj 'ina? ka'ha: ,hu:n sa . 'ta4a? sej bE4a
pa'ha:n kiki.]
"The fast village girl whom I and the chief saw said last night to
that young man who came from the city, `Please, (you) give me tomorrow
morning my loud sister's top[1], otherwise she will be very angry.'"
[1] top as in the wooden toy, not the clothing.
Interlinear:
diru tsat misanaran nihuu ibata' ibi hamrakan
girl fast village-GEN 1sp-AUX_RCP chief-AUX_CVY with see-REL_ORG
kei tsana mubun nara kiran apasanaran itapa tara'
ORG-FEM speak night PAST young_man city-AUX_ORG walk-REL_CVY 3sp
na e, kira ina baran hara tse ka huu nei
RCP-MASC QUOTE give please morning FUT 2sp ORG-MASC 1sp RCP_FEM
tuitui ina' kahaa huun sa, tara' sei bera
top younger_sister loud 1sp-GEN CVY-MASC 3sp CVY:FEM otherwise
pahaan kiki. e'aniin.
angry COMPL ENDQUOTE
Some notes of interest (this makes the post really long; does anyone
actually read this stuff??):
- This complex sentence features several relative clauses.
- Relative clauses in Tatari Faran are embedded between the head
noun and its corresponding case marker. It consists of a
relativised verb preceded by zero or more NP arguments.
- The relativised verb is marked with the case function of the head
noun in the relative clause. For example, _hamrakan_ is the
originative relative form of the verb _hamra_, "to see" or "to be
seen". The originative form indicates that the head noun is
functioning as an originative in the relative clause.
- The NP arguments to the relativised verb are marked with noun
case, but using an auxilliary case marking. I.e., they have the
same core cases as top-level NP's: originative, conveyant,
receptive; but these cases are marked using different morphemes
in order to indicate that the NP is inside a relative clause, not
in the main clause. For example, the originative of _diru_ in the
main clause is _diru kei_, but when inside a relative clause, the
originative is _adiru_.
- The 2nd and 3rd person pronouns double as vocative and demonstrative
markers, respectively. For example, _tara' sa_ is "he", and _kiran
tara' sa_ is "that man" (lit., "he man" :-P).
- Quoted discourse is delimited by _e_ and _e'aniin_ (or sometimes,
simply _aniin_).
Now for Ebisédian... you don't want to know what's most complicated,
because Ebisédian grammar allows you to nominalize an entire paragraph
into a single NP. Since there are 5 slots for NP's in every sentence,
and these nominalizations can be nested, I could fit 5^n sentences
into one (and I don't want to have to give an interlinear for that!).
But maybe I can give you a little taste with the following:
t0 chi'd0 khejww'r3 n3 jhit3' d0 b3taa' t0m0 kww'k3 jhit3' tu kyy'kh
nu chi'd0 d3 bii'l3nu tumu.
That he killed her mother caused her to harm his son.
Interlinear:
t0 chi'd0 khejww'r3 n3 jhit3' d0
QUOT:ORG DIST:MASC:ORG kill-PERF SUB-CVY DIST:FEM:CVY AUX:ORG
b3t33' t0m0 kww'k3 jhit3' tu kyy'kh
mother:CVY ENDQUOT:ORG cause-PERF DIST:FEM:CVY QUOT:RCP harm:PERF
nu chi'd0 d3 bii'l3nu tumu.
SUB:RCP DIST:MASC:ORG AUX-CVY child:MASC:RCP ENDQUOT:RCP
The first embedded sentence lies between _t0_ and _t0m0_, and
functions as the originative case of the sentence "he killed her
mother". The generic verb _kww'k3_ (perfective of _ka'k3_) means "to
cause", "to bring about", "to happen". (It's generic, so it can be
applied in many ways.) The originative case here indicates cause or
reason.
Similarly, the second embedded sentence is delimited by _tu_ and
_tumu_, and functions as the receptive case of the sentence "his child
was harmed". (Note that active and passive are identical in Ebisédian.
If something lacks a "subject", it's equivalent to a passive.) The
receptive case here indicates result, purpose, or consequence.
> 3. The most telling or otherwise interesting - something that shows
> off the worldview, neat linguistic tricks, or other cool features.
That would be my favorite TF couplet: (I omit gender in the gloss
since it's largely irrelevent for this example)
buara ka tuharas fai. hesan so pamra itan.
volcano ORG erupt COMPL person-PLUR CVY run COMPL
(Very literal translation) "The volcano erupts violently to the
heavens. The people ran away stumbling."
["bwa4a ka "tuha4as faj. hE"san so "pam4a itan.]
Note that _tuharas_ here refers to a specific type of eruption: a
plinion eruption, the magnitude of which one may get a rough idea from
this photo:
http://www.educeth.ch/stromboli/glossary/icons/plinianb.jpg
(And yes, this photo was taken from an aircraft, and the eruption
column you see is only the part above the clouds. I leave the rest to
your imagination.)
The complement _itan_ carries the idea of "stumbling". The connotation
is that people are stumbling over things and each other as they flee
from the violent eruption. The verb _pamra_ can also be used with
another complement, _asu_, meaning "smoothly" or "skillfully", and is
applied to the graceful, coordinated running of an athlete. This
obviously doesn't apply here, for although the san faran live in a
volcanic land, they are by no means masochists or stunt artists who
enjoy running away from plinian eruptions as a sport.
There is no "most interesting" feature in Ebisédian, really, so I'll
just randomly pick one of some interest: the use of the nullar number
to indicate negation:
my'piz3d3 uro juli'r.
person:MASC:NUL:CVY this house:LOC
"The man is not in this house." Lit. "No man is in this house."
> 4. Choose something!
[...]
Since this dissertation has already gone way beyond what I thought it
would be, I think I'll pass on this one. But on second thoughts, maybe
I'll show off another (mis)feature of Ebisédian: its decidedly
sideways pronominal system that has no distinction between 2nd and 3rd
person, but instead differentiates between "intimate" and "distant".
Consider, for example, the following sentence:
lyy's jwb3' nu jhitu' d3 jolu'r.
go-PERF INTIM:FEM:CVY SUB:RCP DIST:FEM:RCP AUX:CVY house:RCP
This sentence can be translated in MANY ways, among which include:
1) "She goes to her (a different her) house."
2) "You go to her house."
3) "She goes to your house."
Let's assume, for the sake of ease of interpretation, that this
sentence was uttered during a conversation between four people: the
speaker woman A who is the speaker's close friend, woman B who is the
speaker's acquiantance, and a fourth person C.
In scenario (1), the speaker is addressing person C, telling him that
A (who is close to him and therefore referred to using an intimate
pronoun) goes to person B's (who is referred to using a distant
pronoun because she is only an acquiantance) house.
In scenario (2), the speaker is addressing person A, telling her to go
to person B's house. Again, since person B is close to the speaker, he
uses the intimate pronoun to refer to her. In fact, he speaks EXACTLY
THE SAME WORDS to her as he would to person C when telling him where
person A goes. He could address BOTH person A and person C at the same
time, and they both get the correct interpretation of what he says.
In scenario (3), the speaker is addressing person B, telling her that
person A will go to her (person B's) house. Since person B is only an
acquiantance, she is referred to using a distant pronoun. Again, the
speaker speaks EXACTLY THE SAME WORDS to her as he would to person A
or person C, and she still gets the correct interpretation of what he
intended.
In fact, it doesn't matter who the speaker is addressing; he might as
well address all three people at the same time with exactly the same
words, and each of them would "hear" the appropriate version, (1),
(2), or (3), of what he says to them.
Of course, there is much more to Ebisédian's pronominal system than
this, but I thought this would be an interesting aspect of it that
people may not be aware of. :-)
[...]
> Q2: If you haven't already, give the background story, motivations,
> goals, etc., behind the sentences.
[...]
Nothing whatsoever. They were just random sentences I picked out of
the blue. Including that TF couplet that speaks of volcanoes erupting
and people fleeing. That was my IRC greeting for a while. :-)
T
--
Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous? -- Hobbes
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