Re: a King's proverb

En réponse à Dan Jones <feuchard@...>:

>
> Another quibble- the switch from 3s indicative in the first clause to 2p
> imperative in the second is odd too. In French I'd say:
>
> avant qu'on choisisse son ennemi, il faut qu'on parle sa langue. (back
> me up
> here Christophe)
More natural would be: "Avant de choisir son ennemi, il faut parler sa langue"
(unlike Spanish, French prefers to use infinitives whenever possible. If you can
choose between a formulation with a subclause and a formulation with an
infinitive, always choose the infinitive. It flows better in French). Those
subclauses with "on" sound really redundant since the construction with the
infinitives has exactly the same meaning, with less space and more strength :) .

> before REL one choose.3s.subj his enemy, it is_necessary REL one
> speak.3s.subj his language.
>
> "avant qu'on choisisse son ennemi, parlez sa langue" just sounds, well,
> wrong.
"Avant de choisir son ennemi, parlez sa langue" doesn't just sound wrong, but is
wrong (since the subject of the infinitive MUST be the subject of the principal
clause, it should be "votre" instead of "son"). Yet the expression "avant de
choisir ton ennemi, parle sa langue" sounds rather good to me. I'll try to ask
other people, but to me it really sounds like "first understand the person, then
think if you want to have him as ennemy or not". Also, it has a nice "proverb"
sound to it. I don't think people would think of another meaning when hearing
it, unless pointed at it.

 "Falloir" is from VL *falle:re (IIRC), so that gives B. ffalluir,
> with present ffalth or ffallt (I can never remember whether "lt" becomes
> "llt" or "lth"), followed by the subjunctive- of course:
>
It should be VL *fallére, with short stressed e, or it wouldn't have given -oir
in "falloir". I'm considering using it for Narbonósc. I think it would be
"fallôre". -ôre verbs are usually irregular in Narbonósc, but this one would be
worse than many of them (except avôre :) ). Present tense would probably be "ste
fâout", future "ste fâourà" (or "ste faurà", I'm not sure whether /aw/ would
stay in unstressed position as it stays in stressed ones, or be simplified as
/o/), past simple "ste fallu", imperfect "ste fallèvt", I won't bother you with
the subjunctive forms :) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

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