Re: The difficulties of being weirder than English

On Friday 28 May 2004 01:29 am, Philippe Caquant wrote:
> --- Joe <joe@...> wrote:
> > Garth Wallace wrote:
> > > Peter Bleackley wrote:
> > > Or it could be based on semantics: things that
> >
> > normally occur in pairs
> >
> > > (like hands) would be assumed to be dual while
> >
> > things that normally
> >
> > > occur singly (like heads) would be assumed to be
> >
> > singular, as long as
> >
> > > the context didn't demand the other
> >
> > interpretation. Hooray for ambiguity!
> >
> >
> >
> > Of course, the main difficulty comes when
> > translating the phrase 'two
> > heads are better than one'.
>
> I wonder how it would feel to explain the doctor that
> "the right part of my pair-of-arms aches".
>
> (I said "arms" as an example).
>
Kélen doesn't prefer the dual to the singular, but it does use 'set' number
for things that normally come non-singular-ly. (And, of course, it does
specify number, though 'singular' is really more 'generic' than
'singular'.)

pa jólli jénne análneha ná ñe ján
pa syntax is: PA whole part-of-whole part-of-part, etc.
PA head(pl.) two(sg.) fortune(stative) more than one(sg.)
'Two heads have more good-luck than one'

pa antáki jatésa anpíññe (or 'japíññe')
PA arms(set) right-one(sg.) pain(stative) (or 'pain(sg.))
Of (my) arms, the right-one has pain (or 'has a point of pain')

Hope that helps,
-Sylvia

--
Sylvia Sotomayor
sylvia1@ix.netcom.com
kelen@ix.netcom.com

Kélen language info can be found at:
http://home.netcom.com/~sylvia1/Kelen/kelen.html

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