Re: preferred voices?

On Sat, 23 Sep 2000, Nik Taylor wrote:

> "Ranification"?  Interesting word.  :-)
<grin> Thought it up while I was thinking about what I'm writing, and
was determined to use it. Of course, if you turn someone into a frog,
you're a ranifex ("frog-maker").

> > or.sean           val.nutea        custien    lea disut
                                       ^^^^^^^
> > magic.thing-acc-s king.child-acc-s frog-ill-s IMP change-PRT-3s
Grr. This should be "custen", the dative/illative form; the one
that's there is the locative.

> > "The spell turned the prince into a frog"
> >
> > Note that the impersonal construction takes a double accusative
>
> Very interesting.
That just happened; I noticed that it works with pronouns so it
should work the same with nouns.

ti   lea furat       Athlea
2s-O IMP name-PRS-3s Athal-acc

"you are called Athal", "your name is Athal"

not with the subject pronoun _tine_. The subject here is the same as
the object, of course, but that's never kept Valdyan from putting it
in the accusative (with pronouns, the objective).

This is the closest that Valdyan has to a passive; if it didn't
require the impersonal pronoun and the verb wasn't always singular
even if the objects are plural I'd probably call it passive and get
it over with.

orsena            valnutena        custene    lea disut
magic.thing-acc.p king.child-nom-p frog-ill-p IMP change-PRT-3s

"The spells turned the princes into frogs"

If there's an animate subject, this takes precedence:

orieni         valnutena        custene    disuyt
magician-nom.p king.child-nom-p frog-ill-p change-PRT-3p

"The sorcerers turned the princes into frogs"

I never realized until now that animacy was so important. Love it
when that happens :-)

   Irina

--
           Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
irina@valdyas.org (myself)     http://www.valdyas.org/irina/valdyas