Re: Eihdan (an explanation)

On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 03:29:41PM -0800, Joseph Fatula wrote:
> For those who read my previous Eihdan post with some interest, here is more
> of an explanation for what's happening.
>
> A standard sentence in Eihdan has up to five words:
>
>    NOUN PREPOSITION NOUN, VERB MOOD
>
> The two nouns are the subject and object of the verb, though not necessarily
> in that order.  They are related to each other by way of the preposition in
> between.  For example:
[snip]
>    Htoru zis udeihtund, evban.
>
> More literally translated, this could say, "The man comes to have the
> mushroom, lifting it."  But before the man can take the mushroom, he has to
> find it.
[snip]

This is a very interesting concept. It's awfully reminiscient of the
following construct in Mandarin:

        ta1 pa3    shu1 na2tsi3lai2
        He  <prep> book take-up
        "He picks up a book".

I don't know how to translate "pa3" (maybe "to cause"? it marks the
following noun as a patient; but it's not used in every context that needs
a patient noun). It seems to function a lot like your "prepositions".
Except, of course, Mandarin doesn't have as rich a set of these
"prepositions" as your conlang does.


T

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