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Re: Diffrent possessions

From:Gregory Gadow <techbear@...>
Date:Wednesday, April 27, 2005, 1:34
Hemmo wrote:
> > I changed a lot on my conlang Némalo lately, but I don't think it is good > enough yet. I tried some translations to test my lang, but now I'm stuck > in possessions that (to me) don't seem to be possessions. > > What I mean are the translations of the word "of": in the sentence "his > leg" the leg is a possession because "he" owns the leg. In the > sentences "his arrival" or "the arrest of …" it seems to me the arrival > and the arrest are things that are being done and therefore are no > possession, but are treated as such. Is there some kind of difference in > terms for this? Or could I work around it somehow?
My conlang, Glörsa, has a posessive form and a genetive form. The posessive is used specifically to show *ownership*: sentö sh`ë [sE'nto Se] - my book (the one I own) zifö.a sha jonï [zIfo?A SA dZ6ni] - John's horse (the one he owns) The genetive is used to show that something came from something else, as well as non-ownership "posession", including things like body parts: sentö d`ë [sE'nto de] - my book (the one I wrote) tharü da jonï [TA4u dA dZ6ni] - John's mother gebin d`ï [gEbIn di] - his leg Note that "tharü sha jonï", with the posessive, would translate as "the mother John owns" ie that the mother is a slave. Likewise, "gebin sh`ï" would carry the meaning of, "the leg that John owns", which is kind of sick when you think about it :-P In Glörsa, "his arrival" would be rendered as a verb: "His arrival was stylish" - ï klema' ken zhawaze [i klEmA' kEn ZAVAzE] (lit. he arrive past posessing-twinkle) I'm not sure how something like "the robber's arrest occured just in time." Gregory Gadow