Re: Hullo, Navajo, Ray, Sally

Let me just interlinearize (as best I can) some Navajo sentences for
you, selected more or less at random from the book.

(I'm leaving some very important things -- tones and nazalization
marks -- out of the transcription because I don't know how or if
whether can produce acute accents on this mail software, and I can't
use  ' instead because it's needed for glottal stops.  Hooks under
vowels aren't even a possibility.  And I don't feel like going and
figuring out how to Kirshenbaum or Sampa this out right now.)
 (L = voiceless l.)
 (double vowels = long vowels)

Da' nihidibeesh holo?

QUESTION (1st/2ndperson plural).sheep.question exist

Do you have sheep?

Typical Navajo things;
1. Sentence starts with a question particle.
2. No word for "to have" (typical of active-stative languages, I am
told).  To say "I have sheep" you say "my sheep exist."
3. Possessive prefix "nihi" -- means "we" or "you pl."  Lots of
nouns,
   especially words for relatives, take a mandatory possessive
prefix.
4. An optional (lengthened vowel) + sh is another question tag
besides "Da'".  I think it indicates focus too.


Aoo', nihima doo nihizhe'e bidibe t'oo'ahayoi.

Yes, (1st/2ndperson plural).mother and (1/2pp).father
(3rdperson).sheep be-many.

Yes, my mother and my father have many sheep.


Note the structure of the possessive:

our-mother-and-our-father, their-sheep.  "bidibe" means
"his/her/their sheep", and you can specify the "his/her/their" by
putting the possessor right before the possessed.

"Kii bidibe." = "Kee, his sheep" =  "Kee's sheep."
"Shima bidibe." = "my mother, her sheep" = "My mother's sheep."

Note how the chain of modification goes backwards through the words:
sheep is modified by "bi", his/her, which is specified by "ma",
"mother", which is further specified by "shi," "my."

Another example:

"Dine bizaad" "Man, his word" = the name for the Navajo (Dine)
language.

Conjugated verbs (holo and t'oo'ahayoi above have zero conjugation)
take their inflections as prefixes, not suffixes.

Conjugating "to hear, to understand a language" in the singualr:

diists'a'  I hear
dinits'a'   You hear
yidiits'a'  He/she/it hears
jidiits'a'  The other he/she hears (a "fourth person" used to
            distinguish between two third persons, and in a few
            other circumstances)

The root is, I believe "ts'a'".

Chii dine bizaad yidiists'a'
Chee Navajo-language he.understand
"Chee knows Navajo."

Within the verb, modification again takes place from last to first --
"ts'a'" is modified by "yidii" before going on to be further specified
by the rest of the sentence.  (I guess strictly speeking Chii doesn't
modify or specify "yidii", it agrees with it, so that's an additional
wrinkle.)

But the pervasive pattern of genitives preceding nouns, prefixes for
most kinds of inflection, and objects coming before verbs, all kind of
hangs together as this whole big OV, head-last, phenomenon.  It all
goes together, and it's weird from our point of view, and it's
beautiful. (Dine bizaad shiL hozhoni.  I find the Navajo language
beautiful.)

In Teonaht, do modifiers generally preceed heads?  Is it generally
prefixing or suffixing?

-----------------------------------------------
Boxcars are pulling an Ed of sorts out of town.
             edheil@postmark.net
-----------------------------------------------

Sally Caves wrote:

> Ed Heil wrote:
>
> >
> > But it's beautiful.  This, I think, is that mysterious thing that
> > typologists call the OV order (I think Jacques Guy, in one of the old
> > conlang archive posts, called it "thinking backwards" -- referring
> > there to Japanese as an OV language), as if "direct-object before
> > verb" was the only or even the most important thing about it.  It's a
> > whole way of expression, a very elegant and beautiful way.
>
> Well that's gratifying to me!  Teonaht is OV with a vengeance!  And I
> do find it hard to think it out!
>
>
>
> > Anyway, it's great.  It'd be wonderful if I could make a conlang with
> > beautiful OV-order all over, but I'm not sure I understand it well
> > enough yet.
>
> I'd be pleased to know how Navajo does it.  Can you explain it?
>
> >
> > Oh, yes, I wanted to say -- Ray, Sally, it's wonderful to see you
> > back.  :)
>
> Thanks!  Was Ray gone too? <G>
>
> ============================================================
> SALLY CAVES
> scaves@frontiernet.net
> http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves (bragpage)
> http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html (T. homepage)
> http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/contents.html (all else)
> =====================================================================
> Niffodyr tweluenrem lis teuim an.
> "The gods have retractible claws."
>                                 from _The Gospel of Bastet_
> ============================================================
>