Conlang Relay Nineteen: Some Final Observations

Habot is the word for rock or stone.  The plural is botí, which makes the stem bot with different affixes for the singular and plural.  It is also the word for milestone, and by extension the word for mile, the measured distance between stones.

Bena, mountain, is a feminine noun.  The genitive is benas.  After a verb of motion the indirect object is the accusative benan, otherwise bena is used for the indirect object as well.

This language has three gramatical genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.  Masculine nouns are usually unmarked after the stem.  Feminine nouns end in -a, neuter nouns in -on.  The plural endings are -í, -e, and -a.  There are other plural endings that have slipped into the language like the marker -ga.  Nouns and adjectives agree for endings in gender, number and case.

I have used surut, stream, to translate river, and ríon, brook, to translate valley as I don't have these words yet.  This would mean that ríon has the extended meaning of a watercourse that may be dry for part of its time.

Shradye means 'heart, emotional organ', different from heart, physical organ which pumps blood.  The phrase for 'sad' literally means 'troubled heart'.  The construction is repeated in the final quote as a balance.  Shradye is a feminine noun with a soft ending.

There are two stems for the word 'be at, be here': âya for inanimates like rocks, and íya for people and animals.

The associative preposition has different forms.  If it governs a masculine or neuter noun it is ya or a.  If it governs a masculine or neuter noun in an indirect clause after another preposition it is ye or e.  This form is also used before plural nouns.  If the noun is feminine it is yí or í.  The y is dropped if the word before it ends in a consonant.  In context it can mean 'and' or 'with'.  It can join verbs together as an infinitive marker.  It cannot join clauses.  In that case the conjunction dok is used.

McGuffey 1:7-13

Since I have time it is worth posting the next page from the McGuffey Reader.  Especially since I have worked them out, and I can see the number of hits you gave me for posting.  Please feel free to comment, question or complain.  Maybe I can improve the messy presentation that blog-composer gave me last time.  Cross fingers!

[7] Binú tag' ume! See the man!
[8] Binú tago taknok as umena! See the boy and the man!
[9] Ta ume tent údnon pillon, The man has a hat.
[10] A tent ta taknok údnon pillon? Has the boy a hat?
[11] Ta taknok pohat kúrina, The boy can run.
[12] A pohat ta ume kúrina, Can the man run?
[13] Ta ume pohat bina tago taknok kúrina, The man can see the boy run.

Binú is the imperative of bina to see.

Tago drops the final -o before a noun beginning with a vowel.

Ume means man, husband.  In the genitive form of the noun after as the stem is umen-.

Tent is the form of the verb to have, to hold, when the subject is a noun.

Údnon is the neuter form the indefinite article.  It comes before the neuter noun pillon, hat.  The neuter noun and the indefinite article have the ending -on in the Eclectic Tongue.

Kúrina means to run.

A is the question marker.  It comes at the beginning of a sentence. When it is used the sentence changes order so that the verb comes directly after it, and then the subject of the sentence.

McGuffey 1:1-6

The Journal of an Eclectic Tongue has been dormant for the first half of 2012.  Did you miss it?  I needed an exercise that would give this project some life.  McGuffey's First Reader seemed like a good exercise to challenge me.  It's available from Gary Shannon's website Fiziwig.  Here's a go at the first page.

[1] Bodú bin údnígo taknok,  I see a boy.
[2] Bodú bin údnan kalkan,  I see a girl.
[3] Bodú bin tago taknok ís kalkas,  I see the body and the girl.
[4] Ta taknok pohat bina dan kalkan,  The boy can see the girl. 

[5] Bodú poham bina dan kalkan as taknoka, I can see the girl and the boy.

[6] Bodú poham bina dan kalkan, I can see the girl.

That's a lot of information.

Bodú is the usual word for the pronoun I.

Bin is the word for see, look at.  The infinitive form of the verb is bina.

Poha is the stem for the auxiliary verb can, be able to.  If the subject of poha is bodú then the ending is -m.  If the subject of poha is a noun then the ending is -t.

Údnígo and údnan are both articles meaning a (certain one).  Údnígo is masculine animate accusative, and údnan is feminine accusative.  The Eclectic Tongue is heavily inflected and the inflections have to be learned.

Taknok means child, boy.  It is a masculine noun in the Eclectic Tongue.  Masculine nouns do not alter in the ending in the nominative and accusative forms.  After as in sentence [5] taknok takes the genitive ending -a.

Kalkan means girl, with the accusative ending -n, which is added to feminine nouns.  Feminine nouns in the Eclectic Tongue do have a separate accusative form of the noun, unlike masculine nouns.  The nominative form, kalka, is not used in this group of sentences.  After ís in sentence [3] kalkan replaces the accusative ending with the genitive ending -s.

Ta is the definite masculine nominative article.  Ta takes the ending -go before an accusative masculine noun.  Dan is the feminine accusative definite article.

Ís and as are conjunctions and both mean and-the.  After both conjunctions the noun is always in the genitive form, although it is not always a possessive.  In these sentences it is understood to accompany the previous noun, not to be the possessor of it.

That's enough for this lesson.  Bye for now.

Pronoun notes

The feminine article is da, accusative dan. Kalka, girl, is a example of a feminine noun; accusative kalkan. So far, so good. Nowela, new, is a feminine adjective, accusative nowelanian. Now that's just odd. The feminine accusative adjective has a long ending! What's more I think the ending is subject to sandhi. Put all three together and it becomes dan nowelaniang kalkan. The fun of language!

I could have used chona, woman, instead of kalka. I decided against it as the accusative takes a longer ending chonakan. Too much information at once.

Because this language has a feminine a-ending I wonder if I've invented a Teach Yourself Alien language.

Pronoun notes

This is what the existing notes say:

Kolon, bicycle, neuter noun.

Ten kolon, the bicycle, correctly ten is the neuter pronoun.

Mes kolon am, my bicycle. Mes is the neuter possessive adjective. Possessive pronouns tend to be a bit belt-and-braces, literally my bicycle of-me. Most people don't even use this language unless they are someone in charge: a boss, a lord, your older sibling. Actually looking at the lexicon the Shente have a lot of language for people in charge. I'll write more about that another time. When people are not pulling rank they say kolon a bodú, (the) bicycle of your servant. There is no possessive adjective for bodú.

There are two words for you: kembí and ako. Kembí is the more common word; ako is used for addressing servants and employees, children, younger siblings and animals. Kembí and ako are like bodú in that they don't have possessive adjectives.

An Occasional Word: Taknok

Da tí yodin taknok-se, She has one child.

Taknok means child. When counting children the language uses 'to be' rather than 'to have' and counts the children as a reflexive. The plural of taknok is a different word: Deti. Taknok has a derived plural, takneta. I think this is a diminative plural and is used to mean 'lads'. Initially I thought that this was a gender-inclusive word. Now I'm not so sure. Takneta might be a group noun for the Boys, the Lads, as a social group. I think the female equivalent might be Kalketa, the Girls, the Lassies.

The stem is also used in an abstract noun takniost, childhood, childishness