Zompist Bboard Again

Ares Land wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:41 am Ṭāwēr am θondah hē moham eqom.

ṭāwēr

PRF\say

am

SUB

θondah

time

hē

this

moha-m

great-SUB

e-qom

HAB-take

They say time is a great thief.

A denas bekat üsutinas nat birnemmek tatimem
I think-past-masc-sg that procrastination be-pres-masc-sg thief-nom-sg time-gen-sg

I thought procrastination was the thief of time

Oh this helps a lot. Thanks. I should find the paper by Vendler that Ephrain alludes to.

Can I ask a related, but tangential question? Telicity is often defined in terms of presenting an action as being complete, and perfective verbs carry the meaning of completeness (or boundedness). I'm struggling to see the difference - although there obviously is one. Telicity can be marked by diffe...

The Vedreki are divided into five castes - noble, warrior, farmer, worker and servant in descending of prestige (although farmer and worker are pretty much equal). The caste system is religious in origin and has simply hardened over time; as Torco says you could look at making this religious in orig...

Oh, I vaguely remember hearing someone advise against translating these sorts of standardised texts, rather than translating a text from within the relevant culture. (The other texts with that reputation are the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Tower of Babel story; all three have been...

You posted on Christmas day? Dedication. It was really interesting and helpful though

Boris dulökhaxas khutnat de. Tekh mel tekha me sevardia u kraltaalvo maelnau. Dae ünevlekamma iraq ilbad mel gaxilludeq u un qhodem. Boris cancel-past-mac sg plans-acc-pl we-gen. Mum and dad-nom I-gen live-pres-plu at 100 (eight-twelve-four) miles-abl plu. We-nom cannot-pres-pl go-inf there and retu...

A proqaxmogat xlakhena. Ghon voxökhaxel prosutughus ghad tretaalvo toqhodnau u ghatatimem. On pronat xa aaqat iltat. I-nom like again-pol-pres-masc-sg second-acc sg. Original/first-masc-sg-nom show-nom-sg-pol before forty (three-twelve-four) year-abl-pl in past-abl-sg. It-nom be-pol-masc-sg-pres too...

On pronat un xaqna malenknau viu ae voxeghesenefnau voxökhaxelnau tariftarekem gexanem. Saelonnae pronatamma allmalenknae. On proqaxvoxökhaxeghet u "BBC" iltat It be-pol-pres-masc-sg one best-abl pl by I-abl see-past-pass-part-abl-pl show-abl-pl science-gen-sg story-gen-sg. Cylon-nom-pl be...

arnoena araughin [jaɾˈnɜːna aˈɾawŋhin] Yad-no-en-a HAB-3p-2s-1s araug-hin say-such So say we all Kadut promogat "Battlestar Galactica" ba. Ni dakhtut ilbida u voxökhaxelem lenflakhnat dulaq You-pol like-masc-sg-pol "Battlestar Galactica" question. They (indef pro) -nom say-pres-...

Ah yes 7 too! Although there's not much of that going on yet. I do imagine Vedreki borrowing from Cheyadeneen and vice versa. Since the two languages (and their ancestors) have been spoken cheek by jowl for over 3000 years it would be surprising if there weren't borrowings, but since (say) Vedreki b...

2 if I can. That's not always possible, mind - although I could always come up with derivational morphology. In fact sometimes thart's how I decide I need to create a way to turn a adjective into a noun (say to identify the quality of being whatever...) or I just mess about with a root. Grelaq means...

On nat ghoxrin
That's small

dakleqna me tiqidem da toghodne üdurfam bekat a sutut naak grilo spelut sa ilau mel martökhaxat ilim twins-dual-nom sg I-gen age-gen-sg two years-gen dual allow-neg-pres-dual that I-nom do-pres-masc sg much except play-pres-masc sg with them-abl and feed-pres-masc-sg they-acc My two-year old twins d...

Ni evlekat melavun ilbad. On ünat malenk melavel One-nom-sg can-pres-masc-sg argue-inf that-acc. It-nom sg is-neg-masc-sg good masc-sg-nom argument-nom-sg You can argue that; it's not a good argument A denat bekat Trump kuxodas u 2016 be nideneknae ümogasamma Clintona xaq toklo qa oneb I think-pres-...

Option 2 is implausible. I can't see anyone from the arctic conquering anything, so it's a choice of 1 or 3. Given that once an empire is established the general shipping lanes will end up going to Irthiron, I'm not fussed about it starting a bit out of the way - indeed having to go far to get anywh...

Drel? Khuma on sutut ba?
Why? What he-nom -do-pres-masc-sg question-marker?

Why? What does he do?

I'm asking the same question here as I do on Bradrn's ergativity thread, at his suggestion. It comes out of his description of syntactic ergativity and while I think I understand how A-bar movement works with relative clauses, I'm less clear as to how it works with wh-questioning and how that works ...

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 8:06 pm Ah, interesting question! I actually don’t have a clue (I’m not too good at syntax myself),

Well there's true honesty

This is great. Really clear, but I do have a question about questions (or wh-questions). If A-bar movement involves (well) movement then "John kicked the cat".... "Who kicked the cat?" involves no movement; the subject is in the same place. So in a language with syntactic ergativ...