Re: B-Sh has subject pronouns!

        Ok, a bit late, but ... O:-)

On Sep/11/2002, Andreas Johansson wrote:

> "They killed him, because he knew everything."
        In Unahoban:

        "Vu mu otinshaut hav, miansui ponon arahinul umu".

        Explanation, in my usual not-too-clear non-linguistic terms :-)

        "Vu" (/vV/) = "They" (supposing mixed, all masculine or all neuter
                gender)
        "mu" (/mV/) = "him"
        "otinshaut" (/otinSaut/) = "killed", for (again) mixed, all
                masculine or all neuter gender, 3rd person, plural.
        "hav" (/hAv/) = particle to express the perfective aspect
        "miansui" (/mIansVi/) = "because"
        "ponon" (/pono~/) = "everything"
        "arahinul" (/ArAhinVl/) = "knew" (3rd person, masculine)
        "umu" (/VmV/) = "he"

        So, the translation to english would be more like:

        "They him killed, because everything knew he" (SOV + OVS)

        In informal speech, the pronouns could be removed, so:

        "Mu otinshaut, miansui ponon arahinul" ("[they] him killed,
because everything knew [he]")

        If someone remembers anything of Unahoban and reads this, maybe
he/she notices that there are a few changes from the original document.
I'd like to comment a few, because I'm not sure if they are right:

        - /a/ is the "a" of "cat", while /A/ is the "a" of "father"
          (i.e., more like "spanish a"). Am /Ai/ wrong? ;-)

        - In "miansui", "ia" is pronounced like /Ia/ instead of
          straight-forward /IA/. I thought that /A/ could change to /a/
          when paired with another "strong" vowel (the same happens in
          the "au" of "otinshaut"). As the digraph "ae" is already
          pronounced /a/, the obvious rule is that no Unahoban word can
          have the sequence of "ae" + another strong vowel; and if it has
          (because of verbal inflection, for example), it will change
          to "a" + vowel. Does it make sense? Ok, it's not Maggel, but I
          try ;-)

        - "ontish" is a composed form of "ot" + "nish" ("death"). "ot"
          is a particle that, applied to a noun, means "the action of
          bring or apply <noun>". It's "ontish" and not "otnish" because,
          IIRC, there's a usual change in languages that involves "moving"
          consonants to make the word easier to pronounce. I know it has
          a name, but I don't remember it O:-) I thought this could be a
          good place to apply this change.

        Unahoban is yet in its early stages, so maybe it changes even
more. I just would like it to change for good :-)

--
        Roberto Suarez Soto

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