Kodin and Shabinant

I went looking through my notes again and found I was using the wrong form for the indefinite negative article. Kodin will be the final form for now. It is a hybrid of German kein and Russian odin. While adjectives in ghostian have gender, it like the rules for strong and weak adjectives from German governs the form of the adjective. Kodin is what appears before masculine and neuter nouns. I think looking at the rules, the ending -í on adjectives is going to be more restricted in use than I anticipated.

I noticed in the sentence I revised yesterday I left out the verb 'to see'. I have decided to revise this verb. I have a verb-stem from Persian, bin, so I have decided to use that. So the definite verb, which is the more common version of it now will be shabin. The stem for the past tense is borrowed from Greek and is contracted to 'd. A rule from Bengali says the subject of the past tense is in the instrumental case. On top of that ghostian borrows dependent verbs from Irish, and the verb stem for that is waka.

So the sentence 'Go see who it is' reads Yirú shabinant kem tí ta chomú. Phew!

Kodní and Kem

I skipped July as I tried my hand in writing something original in a conlang over July. I got 1500 words into writing a story in my other language Brithenig before I stopped. The opening scenes were written, now I need to know how the adventures of Ill Peleirin and Daisy would move forward to its denouement. Perhaps I will come back to it.

Anyhow there are a couple of corrections that I need to make to ghostian. I have decided that the indefinite negative article will now be kodní so the phrase 'no need' is now kodní gieruk. Works for me.

And I found the word that introduces the subordinate clause would not be tai. Instead in the last sentence it is kem: Yirú kem tí ta chomú. There are other forms of the relative pronoun. In this case kem is used when there is no preceding noun or pronoun which the relative pronoun has to agree with in regards to case or gender. Tai will remain between verbs of wanting and a following verb.

Back in August to describing and updating more sentences in ghostian.

Sentence 1.6

Moving on we have an exchange between the host and his servant, Shinuwin. First the host calls the servant by name, Shinuwin. No use of the vocative marker. This might mean something, I don't know, everyone else will prove to be of equal status.

Shinuwin replies Íe, which means yes. Shinuwin is a good servant, attentive to his master's wishes.

The host calls him over Dâdâ!. It's a reduplicated command. The simple stem for come is dâ. The same verb can be prefixed to other verbs to mean here, hither, to here, to the speaker.

When Shinuwin is in attendance his master gives him his instructions, Ei chomú-dâ kú druí. Yirú shahestant tai tí ta chomú, Someone is at the door; Go and see who it is. Most of this is self-explanatory. (I'm not sure of the order of the subordinate clause yet, we'll see.) Yirú is the simple imperative, it means go! Shahestant is the infinitive following the command and in this case is not joined by a preposition. Tai is a new word introducing the subordinate clause. This language has several different ways of introducing a subordinate clause governed by that or which, and this is the first that we have met. The clause that follows translates as Is he who?

Íe, Shinuwin goes to address the stranger at the door.

Take a look and telling the servant

I have decided that my notes say that the pronoun for 'there' should be the neuter pronoun ten after all. Who is there? becomes A ítí ten chomú?

Onto the next two sentences in the dialogue.

The visitor sitting with the host says 'I will go and see', Bodú yir shahestant, literally I go to take a look. Shahestant is another definite verb and means to take a look. It is more common than the plain verb.

The host replies, 'No need. I will tell Shinuwin to go', Kain gieruk. Bodú bâm Shinuwin a yirant. The word the host uses for telling Shinuwin to do something means 'command' and is perfectly acceptable in this language. Poor Shinuwin! Servants get a bum deal. Fortunately he will prove to be a jolly chap! To tell to do something is joined by the accompanitive preposition which here is a.

It has been a month but I am ready to pick this up again. Lots of new notes made. I figured out the flag for this ficticious language. It is a vertical tricoleur of yellow blue yellow, just like the old books.

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'.