En réponse à Dirk Elzinga <Dirk_Elzinga@...>:
> Hey.
>
> I was feeling a little harried at work today, so I pulled down my
> copy of _Kwakiutl String Figures_ and spent half an hour destressing.
Kwakiutl? Someone said Kwakiutl?!!! Wouldn't you have that article in
electronic form by chance?!!!! <hungry look> A language that marks word
function by suffixes on the *previous* word can only interst me!!! Funny
enough, I mentioned this language to czHANG in private email just a few days
ago! :)))
>
> The construction is a complex predicate. The first part _pate_ hosts
> the proclitic string; it is an adverbial which lends the aspectual
> notion of continuative to the construction, but it is not strictly
> speaking an aspect marker. The second part _luke_ is inflected for
> number and phase as appropriate. The suffix _-mpi_ refers to activity
> done with or on the hand. So to say something like "I'm making the
> Sage Hen" you'd have
>
> wapate lukkempi atipukan ["waBaD1 "lukkem%bi: a"tSiBu%ka:~]
> wa= pate lukke -mpi a= tipukan
> 1= continuously weave:U -with the hand DET= sage.hen
>
> with _luke_ unbound in phase to show action viewed at a moment
> instead of in its totality.
>
Looks nice. Do you have other affixes than -mpi? What would they be?
> (The Sage Hen is a string figure I adapted from an Inuit original
> "The Ptarmigan" -- see
http://www.isfa.org/arctic/93.htm for
> instructions on how to make the Inuit figure, which is the last of a
> series; my adaptation removes all of the intermediate figures, and
> has slightly different crossings in its final extension. I'll be
> happy to send instructions (in English!) privately.)
>