hiatus

I picked up two new grammars from the 24 Hour Book Sale at the Regent Theatre yesterday. One was Teach Yourself Hindi from Hind Pocket Books, rather than Teach Yourself Books, which is the copy I am still looking for; and Mastering French. TYHindi has added some rules about how endings of nouns change depending on the case, more complications for nouns. And now I am working through Mastering French to add more notes to my grammatical information on my eclectic language. This will delay further translation work on the dialogues. Back later.

Sentence 1.4

The next exchange is between two men in the house.

A tí ta chomú?, who is it?

Tí is the normal word for 'is', when 'is' means something exists rather than at a place. Compare it with the earlier sentence.

Ta here is being used as a pronoun meaning 'it' or 'he'.

The other man replies:

Bodú úwedshim, I don't know.

Bodú is the normal word for 'I'. It is used between people of equal status or strangers talking to each other. Originally it meant something like 'your servant' and is quite humble. Now it is more common than the me-pronoun.

Úwedshim is a combination of two different words or morphemes. Úwed is a verb for 'I know'. It is a definite verb, used for a single action of 'coming, or getting, to know'. The ending -shim is a negative suffix and means 'not or do not'.

Sentence 1.2

The next sentence is A ítí ta chomú?, Who is there?

A is the normal word to introduce a question.

ítí means 'is'. It is only used when 'is' points out where something is, so it means 'is (at a location)'.

Ta is a pronoun. In this case it is used to mean 'there' and is the subject of the verb ítí.

Chomú means 'who?' It is the object of the verb ítí.

Unlike English chomú is not moved to the beginning of the sentence. Literally the sentence is translated 'Is there who?' which is a different order to English.

The stranger outside the door replies Ei'm, 'it is me'. Ei is the topic marker discussed previously used again. After the topic marker the pronoun in this case is reduced to 'm, 'me'. Note that in this dialogue the 'me' pronoun is only used by people in charge when they are talking to servants. There is another pronoun 'me' used for talking to friends which will be introduced in a later sentence.

Sentence 1.1 redux

I looked at this sentence again. Especially at the word piras. It is a survival from OT1.0 where it was pulta from porta, borrowed from Quechua or something like that I believe. Borrowing from the old form of the language did not satisfy me so I went looking through my notes again. I discovered the word drúí. It is a plural word 'double doors' which acts as a singular 'door'. Ghostian is not as particular or irregular at marking case in plurals as it is in singular nouns. The plurals appear to have leveled out. So the revised form of this sentence is: Ei chomú-dâ kú drúí.

Sentence # 1

I took a hiatus from this blog while I made new notes from two new grammars that I have bought: Living French and TY Italian. The notes are now finished although I haven't assimilated them yet. There is new material that I haven't included into the preposition list.

To resume activity I shall start revising the first dialogue.

The first sentence is Ei chomú-dâ kú piras.

Ei is a common word in the language. It marks the topic in a sentence, usually something that can be sensed by the speaker. In this case it is translated as 'there is'. In other sentences it can be used for 'about' or 'for'. It is included as a preposition. In this case it takes the place of a verb.

chomú means 'who', and with the ending dâ it means 'someone'. The dâ ending means the person is unknown.

kú is another preposition. It means 'at a location'. It is followed by the genitive case.

piras, 'door'. The -as ending marks it as a feminine noun in the genitive case.

Dialogue 1: A Friend Arrives

Host: Ei chomú-dâ kú piras	There is someone at the door
Servant: Chota ítí ta?	Who is there?
Friend: Ei'm	It is I
Visitor: Chota tí ta?	Who is it?
Host: Bodú úwedshim	I don't know
Visitor: Bodú ve kayir siestant	I will go see
Host: Kain gieruk. Bodú ve kabâm Shinuwin yirant	No need, I shall tell Shinuwin to go
Host: Shinuwin!	Shinuwin!
Servant: Íe!	Yes!
Host: Dâo dâ!	Come here!
Servant: Íe!	Yes!
Host: Ei chomú-dâ kú piras. Yirú siestant chota tí ta.	There is someone at the door. Go and see who it is.
Servant: Íe!	Right!
Servant: Korí ya, kakai sinú tí kembí?	What is your name, sir?
Friend: Moi sinú tí Trushikan. A ítí korí Kinig kú soi?	My name is Trushika. Is Mr Kinig at home?
Servant: Íe, taní ítí kú soi. Kulahú penyirant dâ	Yes, he is. Please come in
Friend: Âriget	Thank you
Servant: Korí Trushika ítí dâde	Mr. Trushika has come
Host: Kulahú ten penyirant dâ	Ask him to come in
Host: Korí Trushika ya, a ítí kembí duono ya?	Hello Mr. Trushika, how are you?
Friend: Duoní. Korí Kinig a koren Shirab ya, a ítí ba kembien duono	Quite well. Are you Mr. Kinig and Mr. Shirab, both well?
Host and Visitor: Duoní, duoní. Kulahú siedant súdakembí	Quite well. Please take a seat
Friend: Âriget âriget	Thank you, thank you
Host: Brobú chân!	Prepare tea!
Servant: Kembí guôt dâ nena dok bodú dâ	Coming in a moment
Host: Kulahú, korí Trushika, pihant chân	Take some tea Mr. Trushika
Friend: Âriget	Thank you
Host: A pohatíshim siedant súdakembí nidolgon bikkon	Can't you stay a little longer?
Friend: Púch! Ta tí chota-dâ so kapena bodú kiekant. Bodú múhe tai redyir	Sorry! There is someone waiting for me. I must return
Friend: Ûhim'na príantantie.	Don't get up.
Host and Visitor: Ishikude dât talik a nena!	Where do such words come from!
All together: Dua sieh, dua sieh	Good-bye, good-bye

Prepositions, again

I'm back at this for the holidays. I think prepositions ending with a dental stop are going to change their forms.

kot will become ko, from
nad will become na, above, over
niúrut will become niúru, in the middle
kaúrut will become kaúru, to the middle
ishiúrut will become ishiúru, from the middle

These forms will be used before consonants. Before vowels they will end in a d.