Sentences 4.26-27

Ten ítí eng kotte ot niwú?

Moniant pena kebalnia tratia, magari ya kembí en dâkotte

Where are there some on sale (It be-at some sold away-from-speaker at.where?)

If you go on the main street perhaps you may buy some (going-on in main street, perhaps of you some come-buy)

Interesting structure to the sentence, borrowed from the original Chinese dialogue, just to confuse me.

Moniant is the verbal noun, to go up, to mount, to ascend. It appears that it is even used to what would be flat ground, on main street.

Kebalnia, main, has the adjective ending for a feminine noun. The stem of the word means 'head'; and tratia is 'street'.

Magari is the word for 'perhaps', borrowed from Italian, and looking a bit too obvious, IMO. I may have to disguise it further. It is followed by the preposition ya, which in this position acts as a jussive, let.

And en is the pronoun some, which takes the n-ending before a word beginning with D.

Sentence 4.26

Ten ítí nassodin kotte ot dâ

There were none on sale here.

The pronoun none is based on Italian nessuno. The first morpheme is na- rather than ne- in this language so the vowel changed. Then I substituted the second morpheme uno for slavic odin which has become the default for 'one' in this language. I kept the linking double-ss in the centre so it's the same word really.

Sentence 4.25

A ítí ten eng kotte ot dâ?

Are there any on sale here?

Ten ítí, it is-at, is used to mean 'there is'.

We have used em twice in these sentences. Eng is a varient form that occurs before words starting with k-. It is an example of sandhi at work in this language.

We have seen dâkotte, buy, or transaction coming to me. Its partner is kotte ot, sell, or transaction away from me. Away-from-speaker has its own particle, ot.

The stem of the verb 'come' ends the sentence being used as an adverb of place.

Sentence 4.24

Nimaraga

In the market.

A sentence of a single step. The stem word is maraga, market. It's classified as a place word and can take the coordinate prefixes, the same as was used in the previous sentence.

Sentence 4.23

Kembí ve dâkotte te niwú?

Where did you buy them? (You bought them at-where)

Two new words:

Dâkotte, bought. The stem is kop-, buy or sell. With dâ-, come, prefixed the transaction is towards the buyer.

Niwú, where. The interrogative place word wú, where, has a coordinate of place ni-, at or in, prefixed to it.

Sentences 4.21-22

Te katatôkí tí duon, kodin?

Shim monion duon

Those cigarettes are good, aren't they?

Not very good.

The word for 'very' is the neuter of moní, great, used to mean 'greatly'

Sentence 4.20

Nam, da tí meskoren

No, it belongs to the teacher.

Usually tí is followed by ya when it means 'belong'. An exception is made here. The word for teacher is made of two parts. The first part means 'my', a possessive adjective; and the second part means 'lord' or 'sir' as a title. The first part of the word has the genitive ending mes so ya is dropped; the second part of the word has the oblique ending koren. Literally the sentence is It is of-teacher.