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a couple of sentences
- From: MorphemeAddict@hidden.email
- Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2007 03:33:35 EDT
- Subject: a couple of sentences
- To: saweli@yahoogroups.com
Yen zanwab yaras nuxros zibek zok. Zanwab yasas nuxros zingak?
yen - [present-imperfective disjunct]. This disjunct indicates the present tense. All successive unmarked verbs will have the same tense as the last marked verb before them.
zanwab - have, possess.
za- [F/P-s] - of; -n- = separator; -w- = '+ Focus'; -a- = 'change primary argument to Patient' [thus, "-wa" = P/F]; -b = 2-argument static verb. I follow the Latejami practice of not using the inverse suffix (-ka-) with this classifier to get its derivations. With "-ka-" (which could be optional, I suppose), "zanwab" would be "zankab", which isn't too bad, since the F and the P are just switched, but then changing that to AP/F, "zanweb" (keep, save, retain (possession of), reserve) would become "zankaveb" [ka = inverse, to get the F as second argument; v = no change in dynamicity; e = change primary role to AP], which, in comparison, is clunky.
yaras = I, me.
nuxros = book, volume, tome. The plural "nuxrosi" is not necessary, as the adjective "zibek" already indicates plurality.
zibek = many, much, numerous, lots of, a lot of, plenty of.
zok = a/an, some, any. Without "zok" the phrase would be definite: "the many books".
yasas = you [2p sing].
zingak = how many/much [interrogative adjective], what quantity of. "-ga-" = interrogative suffix.
I couldn't find a reference in Lexical Semantics about unmarked nouns being plural in meaning when followed by adjectives indicating plurality, as in the example above. There was only the following example, from LS 9.1:
I saw kekumo bodami
= I saw many ducks.
stevo