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Re: translation exercise

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Thursday, April 11, 2002, 19:08
Mathias wrote:
>Tunu: >Kune tenu a licho i: >"Chime i nata wa ticha! >Oi chachama a peno toli chuka chongoma!" >Wai kami a nata wa ticha >Wai chachama a toli chani chuka chongoma... > >ugh... lots of sad "ch"s here.
Odd-- How did that happen? I don't recall so many "ch"s in previous versions. Reminds me of Kash, with its excessive "ç" /S/s-- I wasn't thinking clearly when I made that the neuter (most common) plural ending......but it's too late now.
>Kash: >kotani mangos: >kota-ni mangos >word-of it voice ><<< >i'm mystified by Kaç's "-ni"... :-) at least as much as by Denden's "ga". i >expected "mangos kotani" instead. i must admit i have a hard time >"visualizing" what is whose when word order is reverted like here.
Sometimes it mystifies me too, though I consider it one of the neater features of the language ;-)-- it's most like Indonesian -nya when that's used to make nouns definite, or verbs > nouns. So "kotani" is pretty much equivalent to "katanya" 'he/she/it said...'. "Correct" would be _mangos ya/kota_ 'a voice (it)-said'. But its main use, not based on Indonesian, is to form possessives of inanimate nouns; in the Kash view, inanimate things can't "possess". So "kotani mangos"could also be translated "the word(s) of a/the voice". And since it's technically a possessive construction, _mangos_ or any other noun has to go after. (Also, as it happens, "kotani" is basically idiomatic for "he(etc.) said...", similarly "pila/mi/ti/ni" "I/you/he think(s)....", Ind. pikirku... etc.) It also pops up in expressions for personal qualities like weight, age, height, again parallel to Indonesian: "Ali weighs 50 kg. ~ Ali's weight is 50 kg." -- beratnya Ali, 50 kilo Kash: kicat/ni Ali 50 cipem (hmm, I have a fair amount of "c" /tS/ too......-- that's because it derives from 4 or 5 things in the proto-lang.) Usual plug: There's lengthy discussion of "-ni" (and much more too!) in my syntax page: http://cinduworld.tripod.com/kashsyntax.htm , scroll to sec. 4, about halfway down; also in sec. 3.4 Genitive case. (Sorry about the length. I still need some links for navigation)
> >This being said, i am "experimenting" a very similar suffix "-ng" with
Tunu,
>but with a fixed word order: >Tenu a mamatung i... >Voice TOP words-its that... >The voice's words [were] that... > >I find it handy for clause junctions: > >example: >wa konong i... >with cause-its that... >"because..." > >for now i use attributive mai- "to have": >wa maikono i... >with having-cause [which is the fact] that... >"because..." > >Tunu also has an equative lai- "to be": >wa laikono i... >with being-cause [of the fact] that... >"which is why..."
I like all of those......
> >The new "-ng" suffix would fit very logically as the origin for the "-ny-" >and "-my-" exo- and endotropic pronominal objective suffixes. actually, >that's how i created these suffixes. but i hated "-ng" alone because it
also
>meant a serious breach to the years'long golden rule that all Tunu
syllables
>are open! >oh well, japanese got its final "n" eventually as well...
Looks like it could become very useful. Perhaps you could consider it a colloquial reduction of an earlier or more formal **ngV postposition/suffix?

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John Cowan <jcowan@...>