[YG Conlang Archives] > [katanda group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]

Re: [katanda] various



ram,
thank you for the answers.

Stephan Schneider <sts@hidden.email> wrote:

 how do we say:
 "which bike is good?"
 i'd say
 "cansa tungo kiju?"
 but there is no kiju in katanda, yet. isn't it logical that it's
 going to exist?


Look up "which" in the dictionary.  "Kiju" is not a valid word.  If it
were, it would mean something like "which this?", which is gibberish.

so i say "cansanta tango te kivatso" = "which bike is good"?

 > lesson15:
	I saw something like a tiger moving away from that low
	  fence.
	Pi vezdi mi vatsi bate kosne va pedinju mokxe bucinsa niju.
 sts: what if there were "pedingu" instead of "pedinju"? would the
 translation change?
 >

Since "pedinju" is AP/F-d, it implies that the tiger moved under his own
power.  P/F-d "pedingu" would imply that movement occurred without
volition or explicit cause.

Computer translation:
    Pi vezdi mi vatsi bate kosne va pedingu mokxe bucinsa niju.
    = I saw something like a tiger get far away from that low fence.

cool! :) if you understand katanda and use the translator, you can easily learn the target language. i like it.

 > lesson15:
	I thought about the Katanda words after the teacher
	  explained the words to me.
	Pi si mi letadya te Katanda goynde koda kobyo mi letadya.

	[Note that we must repeat the word "letadya".  If we had instead
	used the anaphor "tahi", it would have referred to "Katanda":

	    Pi si mi letadya te Katanda goynde koda kobyo mi tahi
	    = I thought about the Katanda words after the teacher
		explained it (meaning 'the Katanda language') to me.

	Thus, we had to repeat the word "letadya" to get the desired
	interpretation.]
 sts: so how do we say "I thought about the Katanda words after the
 teacher explained them to me." ??


You can't.  Something similar happens in natural languages when an
anaphor would be ambiguous, as in "Bill, Mike, and Joe walked into the
room, and he was very drunk".  In this case, the speaker MUST repeat the
name of the person who is drunk if he wants to be understood.

The difference is that, in Katanda, there is no ambiguity.  Thus, "tahi"
can only refer to "Katanda", which would not have the intended meaning.

but there should be a possibility to say something in katanda that, retranslated, results "I thought about the Katanda words after the teacher explained them to me." - it must work, as katanda has to be superiour, i thought.

stephan,
sts.