Yonuz'u Wede:i?

[Iscun]

Is that right? ... I want to say "Who speaks Wede:i?"

Anyway, out of all Almean languages it seems that Wede:i is the least popular. It's probably because the vocabulary is so limited. I was bored, so I planned on writing a paragraph in it and posting it, but with so few words I wouldn't have been able to express most of what I was going to write.

So anyway, I'll just say this:

Gojing yaujino.

hee hee

[zompist]

Is that right? ... I want to say "Who speaks Wede:i?"

Yikes, this made me realize that Wede:i doesn't seem to have any interrogative pronouns! I've been working on Elkar?l all night, so I have no more words in me. But you could say:

Yonilz'u Wede:i? 'Do you speak Wede:i?'

So anyway, I'll just say this:

Gojing yaujino.

I steal my beetle? I'm not getting that...

[Iscun]

Gojing yaujino.

Well, I wanted to say "I steal beetles."

Goju means steal, and attaching ing to the end would requite dropping the -u. Yauji is "beetle." Yaujin would be "beetles," and attatching -o at the end would make it the object of the sentence.

Am I right?

[Iscun]

Z'omingok z'ongono z'ueni.
(RESIST-I/we-past OPPONENT-object-my BROOM-ind. object)
I resisted my opponent with a broom.

Ponuzero ngunnino!
(JUMP-negative-imperative GRAPE-ind.object-my)
Don't jump on my grape!

Juking ra worin jukingka ra jin.
(SNEEZE-I/we in WEST-ind.object SNEEZE-I/we-and in EAST-ind.object)
I sneeze in the west and I sneeze in the east.

Koksilokyu wawono gin.
(KILL-you-past-tentative BABY-object-my BATTERING.RAM-ind.object)
You may have killed my baby with a battering ram.

How did I do?

A problem I had conciously was that I didn't know when to drop the vowel at the end of a word for another ending. For example, in the last sentence, should ga be gin or gain with the indirect object affix? Also, I didn't know whether or not to use ra or the locative affix -do in the third sentence. In the latter case, it would be Juking worindo jukingka jindo, I think...

One more thing bothered me, and that was the usage of prepositions. From reading the grammar I assumed that, except for some special cases, you don't really need to use prepositions, but just the indirect object affix. Did I do this right?

[eodrakken]

Okay, let me try one...

Losu makzinowo kimokur...
(MOOSE COUSIN-female-my-object BITE-remote-past)
A moose once bit my sister...

I notice that Kebreni and Wede:i share -u as a verb-ender. Verdurian pseudo-scientists could use this as evidence of an Almean Nostratic. ;>

[zompist]

Heh, those are my kind of examples. Nice work! I'm realizing that I didn't provide an instrumental; I'm going to decree that it's -li, same as the 'having' suffix, so that do:nli means both 'having a horse' and 'using a horse'.

Here's your sentences, corrected a bit:

Z'omingok z'onguwono z'ueli.
(RESIST-I/we-past OPPONENT-object-my BROOM-instr.)
I resisted my opponent with a broom.
(object affix is wo after a vowel.)

Ponuzero ngunnodo!
(JUMP-negative-imperative GRAPE-my-loc)
Don't jump on my grape!
(I think a locative works better here)

Juking wordo ra jukka jindo ra.
(SNEEZE-I/we WEST-loc in SNEEZE-and EAST-loc in)
I sneeze in the west and I sneeze in the east.
('Prepositions' are really postpositions. They're optional in this case, but I left them in to show how they're used. It's also good style to omit suffixes from a -ka verb that duplicate those on the first verb.)

Koksilokyu wawawono gaili.
(KILL-you-past-tentative BABY-object-my BATTERING.RAM-instr)
You may have killed my baby with a battering ram.

[JT_the_Ninja]

An inflection infection. Not that I'm against them.

But I personally get a little lost when people start talking about locative and genitive, and all that. Straightforward names would be a lot easier to understand. eh, that's just me.

Which is why Tigerian only has the possessive case ending, plus function word suffixes, and why verb conjugation is only a matter of adding the right ending for person, and then for tense. Simplicity can be beautiful.

[eodrakken]

Since the only suffix rule we're given is that -VC precedes -CV, does that mean the suffixes can otherwise be put in any order? Is there any difference between these:

Jauka ma:inunni wayuta.
(WOLF STAR-plural-ind.obj BARK-tentative-desiderative)
I wish a wolf would perhaps bark at the stars.

Jauka ma:inunni watayu.
(WOLF STAR-plural-ind.obj BARK-desiderative-tentative)
I might wish a wolf would bark at the stars.

Also, I'm not quite sure what the "remote" verb suffix means. You translated yonuril as "you had spoken"; does this mean it's basically just a "past-in-past" tense, or does it have other meanings as well?

[zompist]

Since the only suffix rule we're given is that -VC precedes -CV, does that mean the suffixes can otherwise be put in any order? Is there any difference between these:

Jauka ma:inunni wayuta.
(WOLF STAR-plural-ind.obj BARK-tentative-desiderative)
I wish a wolf would perhaps bark at the stars.

Jauka ma:inunni watayu.
(WOLF STAR-plural-ind.obj BARK-desiderative-tentative)
I might wish a wolf would bark at the stars.

You missed one rule-- the direct object suffixes must come at the end-- but it doesn't come into play here.

Either order above is fine. I'd be hesitant to give them different meanings; they're all supposed to modify the root. So you want the barking but you're not so confident that it's going to happen.

Also, I'm not quite sure what the "remote" verb suffix means. You translated yonuril as "you had spoken"; does this mean it's basically just a "past-in-past" tense, or does it have other meanings as well?

It's been about 8 years since I wrote that, so I'm not entirely certain; I think I meant for it to be used for the remote future as well. But it looks like there's no future (I hope the Wede:i can get by with the desiderative and the future participle). So it seems to be a remote past only.

[zompist]

I just realized that this topic belongs in the Almea forum...

[Raphael]

But I personally get a little lost when people start talking about locative and genitive, and all that. Straightforward names would be a lot easier to understand. eh, that's just me.

Which is why Tigerian only has the possessive case ending...

In wich way is the word "possessive" simpler and more straightforward than "genitive"?

And what is this "possessive" anyway? We don't have no damn "possessive" in German! Why do you have to invent such strange technical terms for describing your grammar?

Don't forget that Wede:i, on the other hand, doesn't have all those short words that Germanic languages use for describing the things that are indicated with simple word suffixes in Wede:i. Those words and the way they are used would probably look very confusing and complicated to a Wede:i speaker.

Also, how would you describe a grammar with straightforward names anyway? (That is, without cheating yourself out of it by declaring the terms used for it to be straightforward) There are straightforward words for things most people know of and talk about from time to time, but most people don't talk about grammatical features very often. (That's also the reason why there's no straightforward term for "cerebral cortex")

As ranskaldan noted, it's surprising how complicated one's own language looks if one actually reads a desription of it.

[Drydic]

Yes, but Jonathana is only (I think) being unduly influenced by the forever-damned american English Grammarians, who think that anything 'classical' makes no sense. And yet they still subscribe to the double-negative rule. HA!