Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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Imralu
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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

Post by Imralu »

Really? That's far from the first interpretation my brain jumps to.
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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Maybe I'm just used to seeing weird sentences in linguistic examples (and so it doesn't necessarily occur to me to make semantic sense of them, except maybe when they're really short and translated as something that doesn't even sound grammatical in English, like 'seeing go down!'). I mean, my heritage language is the one where for some weird reason, the most common linguistic example people present is 'the kid pinched the elephant'. :P

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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

Post by Benturi »

Just wanted to say that I haven't abandoned the challenge, but my computer's hard drive failed, and writing and formatting text on a tablet takes too long.
I think I understand how comparatives work in Wena.
Last edited by Benturi on Sat Jul 16, 2016 9:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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Benturi wrote:Just wanted to say that haven't abandoned the challenge, but my computer's hard drive failed, and writing and formatting text on a tablet takes to long.
I think I understand how comparatives work in Wena.
Cool, not cool, and cool, respectively. Good luck with your hard drive!
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

Post by Benturi »

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(Still writing on a tablet; sorry for the lack of formatting)
This is an incomplete list of things I have identified. I won't indicate word classes for now:
yu is a complementiser.
zyu looks like a contraction of zyi yu (3.GEN + C)
nda = strong
zyonda = smart (looks like a compound zyo + nda, containing the same element zyo found in mizyo "mind")
mye = but
zinye = still
gi (+ Adj.) = less
ba (+ Adj.) = more
I'm not sure what word class ba and gi are. I will say more about them when I'm finally at a keyboard.
lo forms action nouns: lo mo = eating
ne forms nouns referring to the object of an action: ne ngge = that which is hunted
gwe = make, cause to (be)
hu = man
mwe = can
ngge = hunt
eda = cassowary
me = companion
wana (nom.) / wona (gen.) = 1PL.incl (wa + na)
I forgot to gloss dwi from the previous set of sentences, it seems to mark the following noun as feminine.
OK, that's it for now.
EDIT:
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I like Wena's conciseness, some things remind me of Classical Chinese literary stile like Confucius'.
I'm also intrigued by Wena's phonology. Does it have voiceless stops? Or voiceless fricatives other than /h/?

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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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Benturi wrote:(Still writing on a tablet; sorry for the lack of formatting)
No problem at all! Thanks for still being interested!
This is an incomplete list of things I have identified. I won't indicate word classes for now:
yu is a complementiser.
zyu looks like a contraction of zyi yu (3.GEN + C)
Hmm, that wasn't the path I had imagined. I was imagining an earlier infixed /j/ to mark genitive and ... and something like /jju/ became [ʒu]. Zyi yu could conceivably give more or less the same outcome though ... and while yu, in the modern language, cannot be marked as definite, maybe it wasn't always so.

You're on track with just about everything. I will give some more examples to show ba, gi and dwi ... which may clear things up or just muddy the waters.
I like Wena's conciseness, some things remind me of Classical Chinese literary stile like Confucius'.
Thanks! Can you give me an example of what you mean by the latter?
I'm also intrigued by Wena's phonology. Does it have voiceless stops? Or voiceless fricatives other than /h/?
I'll answer that in the examples.
We zehu i nge u bya.
= Non-men (ie. women and children) talk differently.

Hu i nge zyi dyiyu we gwo i ze bya vye ndwa mye la amye dingo i nge zyi dyiyu we kwo i se pya fye ntwa.
= A man says "we gwo i ze bya vye ndwa," but a woman or a child says "we kwo i se pya fye ntwa."
( = "Unreal things are not different from real things.")

Ba ngoho nga i nge zyu alu i nye li ba mye na i zyu i zinye gi.
= A good friend of mine said the rain is getting heavy but I think it's still light.

Ha wa i nwiho?
= Are you alright?

Ba ndwa! Ha wa?
= Very much so. And you?

_____________________________

Some of the following account might seem a bit weird without any cultural information.

U na i dingo do nginwa i yu aba nga i dwi zo mbala do i dwi nge u gyu i na, zyu lu zyi ama nga i ma.
= When I was a (young) child, my father once came to the women's house and asked me where my mother was.

Na i zyemu zyi. Lu zyi e zwazo. Do de i zobye u ze dwi nge.
= I told him / I answered him. She was at the river. Then he left without a word.

I myegi nginwa gwe na nwagi e vwe zyi u lu i hi dozye na i li zyu ha i ndwa ngi.
= It was only once and only I had seen him there so I started to wonder if it had really happened.

U na i zi li gahu do na i nge u gyu i de, zyu ha i zi ndwa mye de i nge zyu i ze.
= After I became a ≈boy, I asked him if it had been real but he said no.

Zyo nga i vwe zyu de i ngegwo. / Na i zyu de i ngegwo.
= I think he was lying.

EDIT: Swapped distribution of the syllables gwe and zye ...
EDIT: Fixed typo/braino ... ngwiho should be nwiho.
Last edited by Imralu on Sun Jul 31, 2016 11:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

Post by Imralu »

I've just swapped the distribution of the syllables gwe and zye just because I like me some [ʒ] and using the language was showing me that gwe was a really common syllable.
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

Post by Benturi »

Regarding word classes:
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Initially I said that words like mo, ngu, etc were nouns (specifically agent nouns); this was supported by the facts that these words can be used as subjects (mo nga i de mba) and that the direct object is marked with the same case as the modifying noun in a genitive construction (lu zyi mba / mo zyi mba). From your answers I assumed that this was the right analysis, but now I'm wondering if it wouldn’t be more correct to say that Wena has a class of content words that includes verbs and nouns (and probably adjectives and adverbs) and that a word’s function is determined by word order and its position relative to function words like i or ya.
Another incomplete list of words:
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we (nominative) / vye (genitive) is used to form collective plurals. I can’t say if it’s used only as a determiner or also as a pronoun like de / zyi.
zehu = ze “not” + hu “man”
nge “talk, say”
bya “different”
gwo “unreal”
ndwa “real" (maybe “true”? - see ba ndwa)
la “woman”
amye “or”
dingo “child” (maybe di + ngo, this last element being found in ngoho “friend”)
You already said in another thread that homo means "tasty thing". It seems to be composed of ho and mo “eat”. This and words like ngwiho “alright” and ngoho “friend”, as well as the sentence I he ho wo, suggest that ho some positive meaning – I’m gonna gloss it as “good” for now.
do “then”
aba “father”
ama “mother”
zo “come”
mbala “women’s house” is transparent
zyemu “tell, answer” = zye + mu ("cause to know")
zwazo “river” = zwa “water” (you mentioned zwambo "lake, pond" and buzwa "swamp" in another post) + zo (is this the same zo = "come"?)
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“Classical Chinese” refers always to the literary form of Old Chinese, so what I said before is redundant. My first contact with Classical Chinese was a bilingual edition of Confucius’ Analects. At that time I had been learning Japanese intensively for over two years and had a basic knowledge of modern Mandarin, so I could identify many characters or look them up in a kanji dictionary, and noticed that the Chinese original often dropped everything that wasn’t absolutely necessary. I’ll look for good examples for my next post. I suggest you reading on Classical Chinese grammar, if you haven’t already.

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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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Benturi wrote:Regarding word classes:
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Initially I said that words like mo, ngu, etc were nouns (specifically agent nouns); this was supported by the facts that these words can be used as subjects (mo nga i de mba) and that the direct object is marked with the same case as the modifying noun in a genitive construction (lu zyi mba / mo zyi mba). From your answers I assumed that this was the right analysis, but now I'm wondering if it wouldn’t be more correct to say that Wena has a class of content words that includes verbs and nouns (and probably adjectives and adverbs) and that a word’s function is determined by word order and its position relative to function words like i or ya.
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Yeah, basically. I find it easiest to think of them as nouns just because they're unmarked when used nounishly, and it makes the genitive construction easier to explain, but essentially this is just semantics. The particle i can be regarded as the only verb in the language, or it could be regarded as just a particle that indicates the predicate.
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Benturi wrote: Another incomplete list of words:
More: show
we (nominative) / vye (genitive) is used to form collective plurals. I can’t say if it’s used only as a determiner or also as a pronoun like de / zyi.
Strictly speaking, we and de etc. are not actually marked as nominative. You can use ya with the unmarked forms, it's just that they tend to collapse together when adjacent. They can be split, though. Eg.

Na i lele wo. (= Na i lele ya wa.)
= I love you.

Nwagi na i lele wo. (= ya wa.)
= Only I love you.

Na i nwagi lele wo. (= ya wa.)
= I am only one person who loves you. (ie. many others may love you, I am only one.)

Na i myegi lele wo. (= ya wa.)
= I only/merely love you. (ie. all I am is someone who loves you)

Na i lele ya nwagi wa.
= I love only you.

Also, a translation of a poster around here, encouraging people to speak up against nazis - Ich bin viele (picture of person with mouth open showing rows of teeth going right back ... Found nothing on google.) The English translation "I am many" sounds really dumb.

Na i (ba)we.
= I am many.

Other than the particles, there basically aren't any words can't occur on their own if it makes sense. In fact, even particles can sometimes introduce nothing.

Na i vwe.
= I see. / I can see. / I am sighted. / I see (it/something/someone.)

Na i vwe ya.
= I see something/someone.

Na i lele wo gwe.
= I love you and (others). / = You're not the only one I love.

benturi wrote:nge “talk, say”
Zegyu i ngembe.
= Deaf people sign.

Gyu i banggwa ngengga.
= Hearing people usually speak orally.

Ha i mbe gwe mizyo ye mwa zyi do i mwe ngegyo
= If you have hands and a brain that controls them, then you can write.
benturi wrote:amye “or”
Ha i eme azye buzi wo do wa i bahe zyemwemo zyi (we).
= If you have a dog or a cat, you have to feed them.
ndwa “real" (maybe “true”? - see ba ndwa)
1. Wa i ze la.
= You're not a woman.

2. Na i ndwa (la).
= I am (too) (a woman).
dingo “child” (maybe di + ngo, this last element being found in ngoho “friend”)
Dyi banggwa i (dyiyu) dingo mye (we) amba i banggwa nge (zyi) (dyiyu) didi. I dyi hyo.
= The normal word is dingo but parents often say didi. It's a cute word / term of endearment.
You already said in another thread that homo means "tasty thing". It seems to be composed of ho and mo “eat”. This and words like ngwiho “alright” and ngoho “friend”, as well as the sentence I he ho wo, suggest that ho some positive meaning – I’m gonna gloss it as “good” for now.
I ho!
Good!
zo “come”
zwazo “river” = zwa “water” (you mentioned zwambo "lake, pond" and buzwa "swamp" in another post) + zo (is this the same zo = "come"?)
Wana i he zo.
= Let's go.

Wana i he zo mbagyozo.
= Let's go to the cinema.

Na i ze mwe mwazo ya dyazo.
= I can't drive a car.

Wena i he zoni Bomozibi
= Let's fly to Port Moresby.

Wena i he zodya nambi.
= Let's drive to the beach.

Wena i he zozwa u lu i zwada.
= Let's swim in the ocean.

Wena i he zongwo mbalwe.
= Let's walk to the hotel.

Ngo i vu zondi mye zondi e ze vu ngo
= Humans are animals but animals are not people.

Mba nga i lyu ya gwa zwombazo gwe nwa zwombavwe.
= My house has two doors and one window.

I ba nizo wi gyanye.
= It's very windy today.


Let me know if there are any words you're struggling with or interested in seeing more of so I can give some examples of them. :-)

I will check out Classical Chinese grammar ... I think I read about it years ago. I know that, as Chinese phonology simplified and words became homophones, they started clumping together to disambiguate and that's been a big inspiration for Ngolu, especially forming words like nwimu (understand.AG). Ngolu's almost oligosynthetic (not strictly so, though) and in my head this justified with a bit of handwavium and also the idea that it's gone through a stage in its history fairly recently where something like an avoidance register took over because it began to be always used around children, who then grew up not knowing much of any other way to talk ... an avoidance register that basically avoided multisyllabic words and clumped monosyllables together to make more complex meanings.
Last edited by Imralu on Sat Jan 28, 2017 5:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

Post by Benturi »

I'm bumping this because I still want to post something before the thread is pruned but haven't had the time.
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So most polysyllabic in the samples words are actually formed by two or more monosyllabic roots, right? I guess ama, aba and eda are exceptions.

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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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No problems! Thanks for still being interested.
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Benturi wrote:So most polysyllabic in the samples words are actually formed by two or more monosyllabic roots, right? I guess ama, aba and eda are exceptions.
Correct!! I'm basically trying to keep roots as short as possible and build things out of short roots where possible rather than create a longer root. I tend to do what I want without worrying too much about realism, but this one, I'm explaining as possibly being caused by an avoidance register which, unusually, came to be used in the presence of children (some kind of misguided "Use only one syllable words around the kids" thing) and thus suddenly a generation grew up not knowing any other way to speak and thus most multisyllabic roots were forgotten over time and were replaced by compounded short roots.
So, because I'm indecisive and keep doing little reforms to the vocabulary, you'll have to bear with me a bit. I've already swapped gwe and zye, but just now, I've swapped lu and lyu. You haven't met the original lyu yet, but it is now lu and what was lu is now lyu ... which creates a completely coincidental similarity with a well-known natlang. I've also changed the meaning of bye and I realised it doesn't actually require me to change the only place it appears in this thread so far ... zobye still means the same thing as it did before, although now, just bye on its own would also suffice for this meaning. I'm doing these little changes as I'm using the language. I'm trying to have sounds I like and more simple syllables (CV without preceding nasals or semivowels before the vowel) occupy the roots that are likely to appear more often because I want it to sound nice to my taste and not be too much of a mouthful. It's a pain because I have to open all of my documents and search through them to make the changes and hope that I don't miss any.
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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Benturi wrote:So most polysyllabic in the samples words are actually formed by two or more monosyllabic roots, right?
I had to laugh when I re-read this. I mean, I know my English isn't perfect, but what this actually shows is how hurriedly I often post. I wrote the whole sentence and then decided to add "in your samples" but didn't pay attention and inserted it in the wrong place. That weird syntax can't possibly be a case of Spanish or German interference (and if it were an interference of one of my head-final, noun+determiner langs it should be something like "in the samples polysyllabic words most" :P).
Imralu wrote:I tend to do what I want without worrying too much about realism, but this one, I'm explaining as possibly being caused by an avoidance register which, unusually, came to be used in the presence of children (some kind of misguided "Use only one syllable words around the kids" thing) and thus suddenly a generation grew up not knowing any other way to speak and thus most multisyllabic roots were forgotten over time and were replaced by compounded short roots.
Cool! Is this based on something that actually happened in a natlang? I think I've read that (some) avoidance registers tend to have words with very generic meanings, and I guess they'd tend to contain fewer roots and have oligosynthetic traits.
Last edited by Benturi on Fri Aug 19, 2016 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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Benturi wrote:
Benturi wrote:So most polysyllabic in the samples words are actually formed by two or more monosyllabic roots, right?
I had to laugh when I re-read this. I mean, I know my English isn't perfect, but what this actually shows is how hurriedly I often post. I wrote the whole sentence and then decided to add "in your samples" but didn't pay attention and inserted it in the wrong place. That weird syntax can't possibly be a case of Spanish or German interference (and if it were an interference of one of my head-final, noun+determiner langs it should be something like "in the samples polysyllabic words most" :P).
Ah, I make that kind of mistake all the time ... and I didn't even notice it in your text. In fact, I looked back up to where I quoted you to see if you were misquoting yourself.
Benturi wrote:Cool! Is this based on something that actually happened in a natlang? I think I've read that (some) avoidance registers tend to have words with very generic meanings, and I guess they'd tend to contain fewer roots and have olygosynthetic traits.
No, nothing specific. Just an idea I had. Check this out though: Kewa Pandanus Language. Pandanus avoidance registers came about out of the belief that many words in everyday language are harmful to the pandanus plants. It's such a bizarre thing - human minds can come up with funny ideas and spread them ... so the idea that polysyllabic words are bad for kids doesn't seem so far fetched.

And this is a classic: Damin It's pretty clearly a conlang.
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

Post by Benturi »

A short post dedicated to zo.
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So zo is a general verb of movement. I’d gloss it as “go.AG” or “move.AG”. The following words contain it:
zwazo “river” (water-move.AG)
zobye “leave.AG” (bye alone also means “leave”)
mbagyozo “cinema” (house-image?-move.AG, “house of the images in movement”)
dyazo “car” (instrument-move.AG - I glossed dya as instrument before; since Wena words tend to have broad semantic scopes, maybe it also means “device, machine, tool, object, thing...”)
mwazo “drive (a vehicle)” (control.AG-move.AG)
zoni “fly” (move.AG-air)
zodya “drive, go somewhere in a vehicle”
zozwa “swim”
zongwo “walk” (Is ngwo perhaps "foot"?)
zondi “animal” (Na i ze mu zyu dyi “ndi” i ma.)
zwombazo “door” (I’m guessing zwo means “opening, hole”, so: hole-house-move.AG)
zwombavwe “window” (hole-house-see.AG)
nizo “wind” (air-move.AG)
EDIT:
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go.AG might be better than move.AG because the latter suggests the transitive meaning of "move"* ("change the location of something", instead of the intended "change one's location"). Even go.AG doesn't feel quite right to me (can one call the "goer" an agent?). In this line, is Wana i he zo ya mbagyozo possible?
*"move something" would be zyezo, right?

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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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Benturi wrote: zobye “leave.AG” (bye alone also means “leave”)
Yeah, previously, the zo was necessary because bye meant "source", "starting point" etc, but I decided to make it mean leave.

Old way:
Na i zongwo u bye i mba.
= I walked away from the house.

New way:
Na i zongwo u bye (ya) mba.
... or ...
Na i bye (ya) mba u zongwo.
dyazo “car” (instrument-move.AG - I glossed dya as instrument before; since Wena words tend to have broad semantic scopes, maybe it also means “device, machine, tool, object, thing...”)
Not quite all of those, but yeah ... here are some more dya words.

We oviza i za dyabwa gwe za dyagu.
= Police officers wear heavy boots and carry weapons.

U dyahye / dyazoni i li zoni do i we hye ye ne ndyi.
= When the plane took off, there were many scared birds.

Dyazoda i gu ya dyazowe.
= A truck crashed into a bus.

Na i ne gudya.
= I've been attacked (with a weapon).

And now a challenge for you:
  • Ha wa i nyu dyazyo?
    = Do you have a _______?
zongwo “walk” (Is ngwo perhaps "foot"?)
Ze.

Nevwezyo wo i ba ho mye ze dyundwa.
= Your thought is very good but not correct.

U lu hi do nenge Wena i gi hya.
= On this point, Wena is a little bit strange.

Bawe nenge i ne myegi nwa dyi u nedyi e mbe gwe ngye mye nenge Wena i ne gwa dyi.
= Many languages have only one word for both hand and arm but Wena has two words.

We dyi u nedyi e vundi ye ndu do i go mye i ndwa ba hya wi gi.
= Words for the low parts of the body are similar but they're even stranger.

Mwango i ne du ye da.
= The chief has big feet.

Mwango i za du ye da.
= The chief has a lot of power.

Godu zyi dihu i lyu buvwi u zye i yu i zi bwi u lu mwi ye lu vyo (zyi) zwazo.
= The boy's feet are dirty from playing in the mud at the side of the river.

Ngwo i vundi ye zwi vye du amye godu.
= Ngwo are body parts that are above feet.

Wa i zyu ma i ngwo?
= What do you think ngwo are?
Benturi wrote:zondi “animal” (Na i ze mu zyu dyi “ndi” e ma.)
You might see it compounded fairly transparently in the examples above. ;-) Good work on the sentence too! The mistake is minor ... the rest of the sentence is correct, which is a feat.!
zwombazo “door” (I’m guessing zwo means “opening, hole”, so: hole-house-move.AG)
zwombavwe “window” (hole-house-see.AG)
Technically, zwombazo refers to the doorway, not the door itself, which is nuzwombazo, but yeah, often when we say "door" we mean "doorway" ... like, "walk through the door" definitely isn't telling anyone to move through solid matter.

go.AG might be better than move.AG because the latter suggests the transitive meaning of "move"* ("change the location of something", instead of the intended "change one's location").
Yeah, you're right! I've been glossing it as "move.AG" because that covers both "come" and "go". Since glosses are always with the full translation below, it should be clear that it's the intransitive meaning ... but I guess it's not clear that it's only the intransitive meaning. I might shift to "go.AG".

I've been glossing a bit in German recently and it's even more frustrating. German verbs of motion annoy the hell out of me. There's no simple way to say go that isn't also walk, and "move" as an intransitive is sich bewegen ...
Even go.AG doesn't feel quite right to me (can one call the "goer" an agent?)
Sure. It might not always be an agent in the language of thematic role, but what else does the "-er" in "goer" signify? I considered putting "-er" in my glosses ... zo = mover, mo = eater but it gets very awkward in some places. Ceaser to indicate the noun that corresponds to the cessative aspect? Lacker?
In this line, is Wana i he zo ya mbagyozo possible?
Yes, but strange and the ya would usually be left out. It's kind of like being a cinema's goer. Zo usually just stands in apposition with the destination, but ya is also not incorrect there. There are a lot of cases where appositional or genitive modifiers could be used without much change in meaning. There are some other situations where there's a bigger difference.

Na i bahe wo.
= I need you.

Na i bahe wa.
= I need to be you.

... and there are a lot of cases where apposition doesn't really get the intended meaning clear enough.
*"move something" would be zyezo, right?
Yeah, well, that's at least one way. You could also do this:
De i zi lude do na i zye zyu de i luna.
= It was there, then I moved it here.

Or even... do na i zyeluna zyi, which is starting to get weird.

This way doesn't focus on the motion itself like zyezo does, just the final location.
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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I’m afraid I’m going to keep writing short weekly posts here.
Imralu wrote:
Benturi wrote: And now a challenge for you:
  • Ha wa i nyu dyazyo?
    = Do you have a _______?
Computer? Yes, I have a new one (with Windows 10, which I haven't got completely used to yet) and I'm also going to repair the old one.
Wa i zyu ma i ngwo?
= What do you think ngwo are?
"leg(s)" then?
Benturi wrote:zondi “animal” (Na i ze mu zyu dyi “ndi” e ma.)
You might see it compounded fairly transparently in the examples above. ;-) Good work on the sentence too! The mistake is minor ... the rest of the sentence is correct, which is a feat.!
Ah, I forgot that rule again...
ndi "body"?
I've been glossing a bit in German recently and it's even more frustrating. German verbs of motion annoy the hell out of me. There's no simple way to say go that isn't also walk
I miss a more general verb of movement too. Like when I say that I want to go to Spain in December and don't care if I "fly" or "drive" there...
and "move" as an intransitive is sich bewegen ...
But zo is "sich bewegen", isn't it?
A few more glosses:
eme “dog”
buzi “cat” (in non-men register pusi < Eng. ‘pussy’)
oviza “police officer” (ofisa, obvious loan)
za “wear.AG, carry.AG”
dyabwa “heavy boot” (Dyi “bwa” i ma?)
dyagu “weapon”
gu “attack”
dyahye / dyazoni “plane”
li = inchoative particle?
hye “bird”
ndyi “scare.AG”
dyazoda “truck”
da “big, large”
dyazowe “bus” (we “group, collective”?)

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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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Computer and legs - correct!
Benturi wrote:zondi “animal” (Na i ze mu zyu dyi “ndi” e ma.)
You might see it compounded fairly transparently in the examples above. ;-) Good work on the sentence too! The mistake is minor ... the rest of the sentence is correct, which is a feat.!
Ah, I forgot that rule again...
I've actually decided that some speakers pronounce i and u as yi and wu after identical vowels, and since syllables beginning in vowels are so rare in the native vocabulary, it would kind of make sense that these particles are from earlier *yi and *wu.
ndi "body"?
Ndwa!
I miss a more general verb of movement too. Like when I say that I want to go to Spain in December and don't care if I "fly" or "drive" there...
Ah, well in German, in this instance, you'd be in luck because when you use a modal verb, you can omit another verb if it's understood from context, so you could just say Ich möchte im Dezember nach Spanien ... (I would.like in December to Spain ...)
But zo is "sich bewegen", isn't it?
Yeah, but it's just so long and clunky for a gloss.
buzi “cat” (in non-men register pusi < Eng. ‘pussy’)
oviza “police officer” (ofisa, obvious loan)
Yep, both from English via Tok Pisin. I decided to not use the ptkfs spelling at all except when discussing the differences. The backstory is that Missionaries came up with the transcription and since the missionaries were all male and only allowed to speak to Wena men, they wrote all the consonants as voiced originally. It means that <b d g v z> will be pronounced differently depending on the speaker.
za “wear.AG, carry.AG”
Ha wa i zinye zandi?
= Are you still alive?

Na i zazyo wo.
= I('ll) remember you.
Dyi “bwa” i ma?
Bwa i zwe ya du o zyeze amye zyemwi ya.
li = inchoative particle?
Alu i li.
= The rain is beginning.

I ze! Li e nizo. He zwe zyi gwa zwogyu wo.
= No. What's beginning is the wind. Use your ears!

Not a particle. Another noun.
ndyi “scare.AG”
Zale nga i vwe ya ndyi u lu buvya.
= My husband saw a demon in the forest.

Ndyi nga i mbihwi.
= I'm afraid of snakes.
dyazowe “bus” (we “group, collective”?)
I ndyo ngo.
= There's a group of people.

I we ndyo ngo.
= There are groups of people.

I bawe ndyo ngo.
= There are many groups of people.
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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Imralu wrote:Godu zyi dihu i lyu buvwi u zye i yu i zi bwi u lu mwi ye lu vyo (zyi) zwazo.
= The boy's feet are dirty from playing in the mud at the side of the river.
Just to be clear: are you using lyu for "location" and lu for something else here?
godu feet (I still have to discover what go and du mean separately. Could you provide a couple more sentences with these words?)
di child
dihu boy
bwi play.AG

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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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Benturi wrote:
Imralu wrote:Godu zyi dihu i lyu buvwi u zye i yu i zi bwi u lu mwi ye lu vyo (zyi) zwazo.
= The boy's feet are dirty from playing in the mud at the side of the river.
Just to be clear: are you using lyu for "location" and lu for something else here?
Yes, this is the new usage, even though it might look confusing. ;-) I'll give you a hint ... to be dirty is essentially to be the place of dirt. And the new meaning of lu is related. They were related meanings and I just swapped them.
Benturi wrote:godu feet (I still have to discover what go and du mean separately. Could you provide a couple more sentences with these words?)
De i gohu.
= He didn't pass the initiation. / He's a failed man.

I ze dwo. I ndwa ba godwo.
= It's not black, but it is very dark.

Na i ze bo go de.
= I don't want to be like him/her.

Godu zyi la zyi mwango i ne ngwa.
= The chief's wife's foot got injured.

di child
dihu boy
bwi play.AG
Dihu ye di e bwi u zwe ya du ye nggwendi ye ne livwe u lu lyuvwi.
= The small boy is playing with a man's severed foot that he found in the rubbish pile.

Ooh, sorry for the grossness ... wanted to kill a few birds with one stone in that sentence.
Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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Ah, so many loose ends!
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Are these sentences grammatically correct? (and do they mean what I think they mean?):
De di e (ba) zyonda u gi e de da. “The small one is smarter than the big one.”
We hu ye nda i ngge (ya) eda. “The strong men hunt cassowaries.”
We hu ye ngge (ya) eda i nda. “The men who hunt cassowaries are strong.”

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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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Benturi wrote:Are these sentences grammatically correct? (and do they mean what I think they mean?):
De di e (ba) zyonda u gi e de da. “The small one is smarter than the big one.”
We hu ye nda i ngge (ya) eda. “The strong men hunt cassowaries.”
We hu ye ngge (ya) eda i nda. “The men who hunt cassowaries are strong.”
Yes, all grammatically correct and your translations are correct too, although where you've got ya a singular reading would probably be assumed. I'm curious about your distribution of de and we. It's just odd that you were very keen to use "de" in the first sentence and then nowhere else.

My computer's being a turd at the moment (or rather, Microsoft is being a turd to my computer) so some slow going on my end.
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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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Bumping this because Benturi told me he's going to come back to it. :-)
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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

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Hi Imralu. Sorry, I'll have to abandon the challenge. I'd like too see your glosses, at least for the words I haven't glossed yet or glossed incorrectly. From what I've seen, Wena not only has agent nouns instead of verbs, but also (like Yagua) nouns instead of adjectives. What are you doing with adverbs?

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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

Post by Imralu »

Since, realistically, no one else is going to do this before it gets pruned, I may as well stop hiding everything.
Benturi wrote:Hi Imralu. Sorry, I'll have to abandon the challenge. I'd like too see your glosses, at least for the words I haven't glossed yet or glossed incorrectly. From what I've seen, Wena not only has agent nouns instead of verbs, but also (like Yagua) nouns instead of adjectives. What are you doing with adverbs?
All good. I understand. My computer's out of action and I'm trying to make do with my phone and a borrowed iPad that I'll have to give back in a few weeks - also, I've been focusing on my mental health and haven't been conlanging lately and I'm forgetting the words. I've got a PDF of the one-syllable roots in my phone, but I can't access my dictionary of longer words so I'm forgetting some of my coinages. Anyway, I'll gloss everything but it might take a while, I'll go one post at a time.

As for adverbs - they're nouns too. They can be present as nouns like ba ("extreme entity") which can be used on its own (eg. Alu i ba = the rain is heavy) and it can be used in apposition with a following modifier. For other adjectival usages, there is the particle u which introduces an adverbial phrase. I can explain that more if you like but from memory, it's present quite a lot in the examples I used.
Last edited by Imralu on Sat Nov 26, 2016 5:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Glossing challenge for Wena, an isolating language

Post by Imralu »

GLOSSES ADDED:


So, here's a bunch of fairly pointless sentences to show some syntax of a new isolating lang I'm working on. Your challenge is to work out what all of the words are. You could either gloss every sentence (pffft!) or just write a word list with a gloss for each word. Please use spoiler tags in case others want to do this after you. Also, don't get too hung up on the "ins" and "ats" ... they're basically just meant to be locatives but it's awkward in English. Just meant to be a bit of silly fun but I'm also curious to see if you can do it and how some things are glossed.

Na i mba.
1s COP house
= I am a house.

Na i de mba.
1s COP DEF.E house
= I am the house.

Lyu nga i mba.
location GEN.1s COP house
= I am in a house.

Lyu nga i de mba.
location GEN.1s COP DEF.E house
= I am in the house.

Lyu ya mba i na.
location GEN house COP 1s
= A house is at me.

Lyu zyi mba i na.
location GEN.DEF.E house COP 1s
= The house is at me.

Na i mo ya mba.
1s COP eat.AG GEN house
= I eat a house.

Na i mo zyi mba.
1s COP eat.AG GEN.DEF.E house
= I eat the house.

Mba i mo nga.
house COP eat.AG GEN.1s
= A house eats me.

De mba i mo nga.

DEF.E house COP eat.AG GEN.1s
= The house eats me.

Mo nga i mba.
eat.AG GEN.1s COP house
= What eats me is a house.

Mo nga i de mba.
eat.AG GEN.1s COP DEF.E house
= What eats me is the house.

Lyu ya mo nga i de mba.
location GEN eat.AG GEN.1s COP DEF.E house
= What eats me is in the house.

Lyu zyi mba i de mo nga.
location GEN.DEF.E house COP DEF.E eat.AG GEN.1s
= The house is in what eats me.

Edit: Swapping lu and lyu.
Last edited by Imralu on Sat Nov 26, 2016 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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