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Re: Strategies for disambiguating ad*

From:Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>
Date:Tuesday, June 27, 2006, 17:14
Yahya Abdal-Aziz wrote:

> *** ObConLang, two questions for you: > A. Do you have any conlang in which adverbs and adjectives may have the > same form, as in Malay?
Coincidentally :-) Kash, yes-- although the adverbial form is sometimes reduplicated, or has the all-purpose -ni suffix attached, so there's less chance of ambiguity. But adj. follow nouns, and adv. usually precede verbs-- but the main difference from Ml/Indonesian is: NO PASSIVE VOICE, so a sentence like your Ml. example couldn't occur. Here's the counterpart: anju irundingar areyal velu yu, irucunu arañi ratu, yukar "ratu areyal marok" When they built the/that new temple, they changed the name of the street (become=to) "Old Temple Street" i-ruN-ningar 3pl.-CAUS-stand.up 'they built'' i-ruN-çunu 3pl-CAUS-be.different 'they changed' Lit: when they-built temple new that, they-changed name-of street, become "street temple new" OR: anju veluni irundingar areyal (velu) yu, ..... when recently they-built temple (new_) that.... Here's a case where both the adv. and adj. could occur together: areyal velu, veluni cakumbor 'a new temple recently collapsed' areyal velu yu, veluni cakumbor 'they new temple recently collapsed' but there would be a break in intonation (indicated by the comma) making these topic/comment sentences. If you wanted them to be specifically SV, you'd have to reverse word order in this case: veluni cakumbor areyal velu (yu). Another way: areyal velu yu re veluni irundingar, cakumbor 'the/that new temple REL recently they-built (it), collapsed' These are all quite formal and proper; I suspect in everyday speech one could drop the 3pl prefixes without creating a problem. Ambiguity could result if the topic of the S were animate: anju kalowe irundisa, irucunu (yarucunu) arañi, yukar vilem when Kalo-DAT they-made.king, they (he) changed his name to Vilem --(i.e. who decided to change his name?) but of course that's a rather formal situation anyway... Aaack, vocabulary gaps. There should be a basic verb for "build" I think; and surely there are Post Offices....And sometimes the lack of a passive voice results in cumbersome circumlocutions, but NO PASSIVE was a deliberate decision on my part (if only to avoid total resemblance to Ml/Indon.). =====================================================
> Consider the following sentence in Malay: > 1. "Bila Pejabat Pos baharu dibina, jalan itu ditukar nama_nya menjadi > Jalan Pejabat Pos Lama." > "When Office Post new was_built(%), road that changed(%) name_its becoming > Road Office Post Old."
..jalan itu ditukar namanya... is certainly understandable, and common-- but kind of tangled up, no? jalan itu must be a sort-of topic. More correct would be: ...nama jalan itu ditukar... 'the name of that street was changed...' --just my non-native intuition. Actually, both the Ml. and Kash sentences are ambiguous another way-- they could both mean that the street where the _new_ building is, is now called "Old ... Street", which clearly wouldn't be the case.

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Roger Mills <rfmilly@...>Corrections: Strategies for disambiguating ad*