The man who removes a mountain...

Trebor Jung wrote:

> The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
> How would your conlang(s) translate this? The primary obstacle, to me, for
> translating of this sentence into Kosi is that I can't seem to figure out
> what 'by' means here...
In Shaquelingua:

diçreo'ja juça be tusubar dør'jë bivaji ; jeoktó'taj pevee dør'rë fótakis.

[di.Cxe^o:'ja: juCa be: tusubax d9x(9)'jE: bivaji] ;
[je^o.ktO:'taj peve^e d9x(9)'xE: fOtakis]

(conditional volutive atemporal)'one person (quality) elsewhere
(descriptor)'[to] one mountain ; (implicative atemporal initiative)'ey
(quality) (resumptive) (descriptor)'[to] several (small stone)

So litterally:

When one person wants to give the quality "elsewhere" to one mountain, then
ey begins to give the same quality to small stones.

(I think that when you remove one mountain from somewhere, you will put it
elsewhere because you won't put it into your pockets. And this "elsewhere"
can also be "in the void" to make it disappear. So, it's just as vague as
"remove".)

This "by/with" is just an instrumental preposition. Any way, I didn't need
such a thing in Shaquelingua since "to begin to/with/by" is part of the
modal temporal compound. It disappeared during the rephrasing stage, as well
as the verbs and those subordinate clauses.

Everything is much easier without verb!  But, like Sylvia, I prefer to make
a journey than to destroy a mountain. Respect your environment!  ;-)

teo'føja flodje je któyë tul'jë dikiti flodje gea ribilëe.

[te^o:'f9ja f4o.dje je: ktOHE tu4(u)'jE: dikiti f4o.dje ge^a ribi4E^e]

(indicative atemporal)'one [single] step a beginning (descriptor)'[to] a
20736 step (instrumental) journey

Litterally:

One step gives a beginning to a journey (made) by 20736 steps.

(20736 = 12^4 which is very logical in shaquean duodecimal system.)

--
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Remi Villatel
maxilys_@_tele2.fr
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