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gii'j3li ghi' ?!

From:H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>
Date:Thursday, May 31, 2001, 17:37
Sorry, I couldn't resist the catchy subject line :-) Here is the Word of
the Day from my conlang:

gii'j3li        [gi:j@li] (Kirsch)
Regular neuter noun; "All that mess", "all the happenings", "all that
tomfoolery".

1)      gii'j3li      ghi'
        all-that-mess what (interrogative)
        locative      locative
        Translation: "What is all this mess?!"

2)      3mir33'n3 juli'r, 3jum33'  ki'gi gii'j3li.
        children  house   they     fun   rowdy noise
        cvy,plur  loc     cvy,plur loc   loc
        "Many children [are] in the house; they [are having] noisy fun."
        Literally, "Many children are in the house; they are in excitement
        (ki'gi) and noisy fun (gii'j3li)."

3)      3giij33'l3         biz3tau', f3K3' jhitu'.
        chaotic-happenings woman     grief her
        cvy,plur           rcp       cvy   rcp
        "A lot of [bad] things [have been happening to] the woman; she is
        in grief (literally, there is grief to her)".
        Notice here that _gii'j3li_ is in the conveyant case, and the
        woman in the receptive case: implying that the happenings are
        being inflicted upon her; whereas in example (2), the children
        were *in* the noisy fun (locative case).

4)      g33'j3la       lyy's eb3'   loo'ru.
        all-that-stuff go    I      countryside
        (instr)        (v)   (masc) (rcp)
        "I did all that stuff and reached the countryside", or
        "By doing the whole shbang I reached the countryside", or
        "Through all those (harebrained) adventures, I [finally] reached
        the countryside."
        Literally, "By all that stuff, I went into the countryside."

Question: how would you translate such a word into English? As you can
see, it has shades of meaning that cover just about everything :-)

(I am very tempted, should I be able to complete a suitable text for the
relay, to throw in a couple of _3giij33'li_ just to make the passage very
obscure :-P)


T

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