Leima
Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2020 4:11 am
Thanks for asking! For context, Leima's not a very naturalistic conlang. The role a language's verbs typically perform is divided between auxiliaries, a small closed class which are semantically light and can carry a lot of marking, and verbs, a large open class which have very limited marking. Auxiliaries are also required for most modifying phrases.bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Sep 04, 2020 9:10 pm Lots of interesting things happening in this sentence! I’d like to ask some questions about it:
- Is there any particular reason why the habitual is marked on the noun rather than the verb?
- What does ‘ABST’ mean?
- yeinoh-odu ‘too easily’ looks like an adverb, but is marked with the instrumental case — how does that work?
- And a minor typo: you glossed ‘end’ as complete when surely it should be onnih.
The allative auxiliary houh coordinates two arguments with the sense of 'X is oriented towards Y'/'Y is X's destination', and here it carries the habitual aspect. Yarhouha means 'I come to', 'I arrive at'.
ABST is probably a poor glossing choice - it's an abstract nominalizer for verbs, so ABST-end = ending, completion. Might update my conventions to NMLZ.
Instrumental gum is another auxiliary, 'X uses Y'/'X happens in the manner of Y'. Here it's the head of the adverbial phrase, modifying the predicate.
Leima uses a lot of nouns of quality, having no class of adjectives. By itself, yeinohodu is a quantified noun meaning 'too much ease', but placed correctly can mean 'too easy', for example, with PROP being the auxiliary of property:
Dalro yeinohodu
- Dad-ro
- PROP.PST-DIST
- yeinoh-odu
- ease-too.much
That was too easy
Typo fixed!