Re: Sayings of the Wise #2

Hi!

Sylvia Sotomayor <kelen@...> writes:
> On Tuesday 19 April 2005 10:52, caeruleancentaur wrote:
> > Never test the water with both feet.
>
> This presented a bit of a dilemma for Kēlen. Apparently I don't have a word
> for "both". So, here are two solutions, you all decide which one you like
> better and let me know...
Ach, no problem!  'both' is just the dual of 'all'.  I'd not be
surprised if there're natlangs that don't have it.

So I'd approximate:
    Never test the water with all feet.

And if feet need inalienable possession in your lang, my favorite is:

> sere anhāri jacēha mo riwānne tēna wē;
> SE+2p.sg.exp water test MO 2p-foot all DON'T
!

> (tēna actually means "of a small set, all of them" as opposed to nāra, which
> means "all" when used with a plural noun, ...
So a paucal version of 'all', that's even closer to 'both' in dual. :-)


I must say that the above example would be only one word in Qthyn|gai.
I'm not going to translate it now -- it would take me too long.  But
the principle would be:

    IMPER.to_test.NEG.ANTIP.APPL_INSTR.water.AGT.feet.DEG.2.all.PAT

    2     = 2nd person
    AGT   = agentive case
    ANTIP = antipassive
    APPL  = applicative
    DEG   = degree
    IMPER = imperative
    INSTR = instrumental case
    NEG   = negation
    PAT   = patientive case

The interesting thing is that Qthyn|gai just *loves* incorporation, so
the written language does almost anything to reach a high level of
incorporation.  Qthyn|gai predicates can incorporate up to two
arguments: agent and patient.  In the sentence above, two derivational
suffixes are used to derive a predicate that can incorporate both
'water' and feet'.

'water' would be easy: it'd be the patient of 'to_test'.

But 'feet' is instrumental.  To incorporate it, an applicative suffix
for instrumental case is applied.  It makes a verbs that has a
semantical instrumental as its patient argument.

However, the applicative overrides the patient position now, which we
would like for 'water'.  To incorporate 'water', another suffix is
applied before the applicative: the antipassive, which makes a patient
argument appear as an agent.

Due to the strong preference of incorporation, Ancient Q'en|gai's
focus changes involved in the voices have gone: things like
'antipassive' are not 'voice' anymore, but mere syntactical
operations.

The combined use of antipassive and applicative is quite common in
Qthyn|gai, actually -- I've used it several times in translations.

**Henrik