LEP Vocabulary

[wm.annis]

A new post today: Vocabulary Update.

Of special note is a verb phrase for "to please" (like Spanish gustar) which gives us something other than prrte' lu for expressing the English "I like X" — sunu oeru X.

For everything else, check out the post.  He gives plenty of examples, and — even better — is marking verb transitivity for us.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

I wonder if sunu is at all consciously related to snu.

Now we can invent an etymology for our unofficial dirty word.

[wm.annis]

It occurs to me there's one other big point to mention...

Adjectives of quantity, not just numbers, usually take a singular noun, so 'a'awa 'eylan several friends and pxaya kilvan many rivers.  The plural marking with pxay we've seen is called "colloquial."

[Dreamlight]

Still the language grows. 

[Muzer]

I'll replace "hard" in my version of Still Alive (which still isn't quite correct, I've been meaning to figure out the best alternative for a while...) with the new "hard".



EDIT: Alu! Fantastic! Only just noticed that! I'm sure I've used much more cumbersome versions in loads of places, but I can't remember offhand... damn it, I hope I won't have to go through everything again

[Carborundum]

Sunu oeru teylu. 'I like teylu.' (Teylu sunu oeru is also possible.)

What's with the annotation? Is there any reason SVO wouldn't be permissible? What about other permutations, are they unacceptable?

[Dreamlight]

Hm, "palulukan" can be "palukan" colloquially.

[wm.annis]

Sunu oeru teylu. 'I like teylu.' (Teylu sunu oeru is also possible.)

What's with the annotation? Is there any reason SVO wouldn't be permissible? What about other permutations, are they unacceptable?

There are some idioms where the verb is expected to come first (the possessive lu + dative construction, or example).  I suspect he's just pointing out that even though he used V DAT SUBJ for the example, sunu isn't one of these idioms.

[Plumps]

I gather that

- nìhek    N    'oddly, strangely'

should be ADV instead, kefyak?

And what happened to the glottal stop of vä' in ftxìvä?

[Keylstxatsmen]

It occurs to me there's one other big point to mention...

Adjectives of quantity, not just numbers, usually take a singular noun, so 'a'awa 'eylan several friends and pxaya kilvan many rivers.  The plural marking with pxay we've seen is called "colloquial."

I was happy to see this as well, I wrote pxaya sute a few times lately and was wondering if like numbers pxaya tute would be more correct.  It's neat to have more colloquial stuff too, makes the language seem more alive.

-Keyl

[Ftiafpi]

I wonder if sunu is at all consciously related to snu.

Now we can invent an etymology for our unofficial dirty word.

HRH! I thought I was the only one who would pick up on that. ROFL, where's skxawng, he's going to get a kick out of this.

Anyway, really good stuff, I don't really have any questions he seems to have done a great job of filling in all the details that we could ever want to know.

[Plumps]

One thing I am really surprised about is the infix position of newomum

[Tsamsiyu92]

One thing I am really surprised about is the infix position of newomum

There has always been that the infixes has been in only one of the verbs if it's a compound word, but it has always been the latter.

[Plumps]

That's exactly what I meant — I expected the infixes in omum

I presume that the ›main‹ verb is seen as something where the ›punchline‹ is. So, rather then ›to know‹ something, the emphasis lies on the ›wanting‹ to know, which makes it »curious« in the first place

Any thoughts on ftxìvä ? why not ftxìvä'  

Also the form of nìfya'o a hek — from the »Why is this night?« bit, I'd expected it to be nìfya'o ahek ... sure, not really a difference in spoken language but then I'd think that it would have to have been nìfya'o a letrrtrr ... and that, for me, makes a difference...

Thoughts?

[Tsamsiyu92]

Also the form of nìfya'o a hek — from the »Why is this night?« bit, I'd expected it to be nìfya'o ahek ... sure, not really a difference in spoken language but then I'd think that it would have to have been nìfya'o a letrrtrr ... and that, for me, makes a difference...

I can actually answear this one, hek is not an adjective, but a verb, thus making it nìfya'o a hek.

[Plumps]

Tolel!

Oe lu skxawng! Nìngay ngaru tìyawr nìwotx – irayo!

[Kemaweyan]

Irayo nìngay

Slä pe'ut ayngal fpìl lì'uteri san zeyko sìk? Ftxey lu tsaw san z<eyk>o sìk fuke? Pelun Pawlìl ke'ut ke poltxe fìlì'uteri, hufwa pelun solung tsat 'upxaremì? Nìngay tsun fko ngivop tsat fa san zo sìk sì san <eyk> sìk. Ha lam oer fwa fìlì'u ke lu letrrtrr ulte kxawm tsun fko sivar fìlì'uhu hemlì'uvit a yem fko mì <sre-awve>.

[Kemaweyan]

Oeyä tìpawmìri tìeyng:

@Kemaweyan: Ngeyä tìpawmìri irayo, ma Kemaweyan. Nìngay lu ngar tìyawr, lu ngar tìkxey. Tsalì'uri alu zeyko lu kemlì'uvi (lì'u atxantsan nang!) mì kamtseng: z-eyk-o . . . Ha lu lì'u letrrtrr nì'aw. Oel lumpe tsat solung mì upxare? Fte wivìntxu futa lesar lu fìlì'u nìtxan. Tsalsungay tsalì'u alu zeykuso lu eyawr. Slä zene fko pivlltxe san zäpeyko sìk. (*Zeykäpo lu keyawr.) Ulte kawkrr ke tsun fko pivlltxe san *zeykeyko!

Kemaweyan asked a good question, so let me explain this in English so it's available to more people. He noted that zeyko appears to be a garden-variety derivative of zo, with the causative infix -eyk- added: zeyko = z-eyk-o. If that's true, then why give it a special place in the vocabulary? This led Kemaweyan to speculate it might actually be a separate lexical item not derived via -eyk-, which could then lead to a form like *zeykeyko.

K.'s first impression was correct: zeyko is just the causative form of zo. I called it out only to emphasize its usefulness: it's the standard way to say "fix" or "heal." But he's right: It didn't have to be included.

The question of how the "pre-first position" infixes relate to each other and to the rest of the infix inventory is important, so I'll save it for a future post.

Ha tsun fko sivar <eyk> sì <äp> 'awsiteng srak? Tsalsungay, zene awnga pivey haya 'upxareri ro fìlok

[wm.annis]

I guess kemlì'uvi has been blessed as "verb infix," presumably accent initial.

[Kemaweyan]

Fìtxeleri fpìl oe tengfya