From: "Mike Ellis" <nihilsum@...>
Subject: Re: Oldvak - something to figure out
> I'll have a shot...
>
> > "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 piabaya
> 1SG-be-"when" meadow-*
"Egeltas" is indeed "When I am", broken down just as you have it here. So
your guess of "piabaya" being some sort of locative is correct.
> eg-en-elt dvalder-as
> 1SG-NEG-be woods-"in"*
"Egenelt" is "I am not", "dvalderas" is "in the woods", both just as you
have them here.
> Is this the same |-as| that makes |?egelt| "I am (at?)" into |egeltas|
> "when I am (at?)" ? It would be an "in" when used on a noun,
> and a "when" when used on a verb. I think.
Absolutely. It means "in X", either in a thing or during an action.
> nur eg-ir-elt at-i
> but 1SG-"may"-be there-"to"*
"Nur" is a freebie. "Egirelt" and "ati" are "I may be" and "to it"/"to
that".
> |ir| might be a subjunctive or a potential.
It indicates that the word it modifies may or may not be actual. So it
would be used for both subjunctive and potential, as far as I can tell.
> > "Egireltyeu dvalderi. Dvalder aleltu egi."
> > "I am not stopping my going to the forest. The forest stopped coming
to
> >me."
>
> Hum. -eltyeu could be "stop going", but with what I thought was the
> negative |-en-| that should give |?egeneltyeu| rather than |egireltyeu|.
Um, right. Oops. That's got to say something about your understanding of
the text, if you can point out errors in it even without being told the
rules. It should indeed be "egeneltyeu".
> Unless the |-ye-| is another negative, which is seperate from the |-u|
also
> seen in |alelt-u|. This is a tough one.
The "u" is indeed separate, and "ye" is not another negative.
> I'm guessing the |al-| in |aleltu| is a 3SG prefix:
You got it.
> aleltu
> it stopped coming
> ?egeltu
> I stopped coming
Absolutely. The "u", as I think you've discovered, is a cessative marker.
> the same (possibly) illative -i is found in |dvalder-i| "to the forest"
and
> |eg-i| "to me", with the latter being the same |eg| 1SG that was prefixed
> to the verbs.
"Dvalderi" = "to the forest"
"Egi" = "to me"
Correct on both. As far as I know, "illative" refers to "in X", while
"allative" means "to X". That's the way I've been using the terms, though I
could be wrong. Either way, you've gotten the meaning of the "i" suffix.
> From the |elt| stem, you've made:
>
> -elt "be (at?)"
> -en-elt "not be (at?)"
> -(ir?)elt X-i "(may?) go to X"
All good so far.
> -(ir?)elt-ye-u X-i "not stop going to X"
Changing "ir" to "en" (my mistake, sorry) makes this correct.
> -elt-u X-i "stop coming to X"
Pretty much. Whether it's "coming" or "going" depends more on context with
this one (which can be clarified with other grammatical features, though).
> How'd I do?
Great! I didn't expect anyone to guess so much with so little. Still, when
you're the one working on something, it's hard (if not impossible) to step
back and see it from the outside. I'll be posting a message with some more
info in a few minutes.