Re: Oldvak - something to figure out

i'll try a crack at this too.

> I'm working on a new language for my conworld, and I thought I'd share a
> little about it with the listfolk.  It's using a new structure that I just
> came up with, and I don't know if it's ever been done.  (I'm sure that
> anadewism will strike, though).  Here's a sentence in Oldvak, and a
> translation into English.
>
>    "Egeltas piabaya, egenelt dvalderas, nur egirelt ati."
>    "When I am at the meadow, I am not in the woods, but I may be on my way
> there."
Eg-elt-as      piabay-a
1sg-be.at-when meadow-at

eg-en-elt     dvalder-as
1sg-OPP-be.at forest-in

nur eg-ir-elt     at-i
but 1st-CHG-be.at there-to

here, OPP means opposite of, and CHG means changing to the state.

> Each of the three parts separated by commas in English is in the
> same order
> and separated the same way in Oldvak.  The same verb is used in
> each of the
> three parts.  Basic word order is SVO.  "nur" is a conjunction much like
> "but".
>
> Here's another example.
>
>    "Egireltyeu dvalderi.  Dvalder aleltu egi."
>    "I am not stopping my going to the forest.  The forest stopped
> coming to
> me."
eg-ir-elt-ye-u         dvalder-i
1st-CHG-be.at-NEG-stop forest-to

dvalder al-elt-u       eg-i
forest  3sg-be.at-stop 1st-to

i decided to gloss 'ye' as negative and 'en' as opposite. it didn't seem
right to have two negative morphemes.

> Same verb being used in these two sentences as in the other example.
>
> Anyone think they know how this works?
it seems like if there was just one more morpheme in any one of about three
sentences, it would all fall together really easily. For the analysis I
chose, the verb in the last one would have to be "al-ir-elt-u". I really
need more examples to do a better analysis.

It looks like the only differences between my analysis and mike's analysis
were the -ir- morpheme and the -en-/-ye- morphemes.

--
Garrett Jones
http://www.alkaline.org

Reply