Conlang Relay 17/SIAL
Translations
SIAL from Kamakawi
Humano Fi-molto
- Celvetto ne fidele.
- Ante, Celvetto ma nama Humano no miko.
- Nee; sofo da Humano bi-molesta lo no.
- Koze, tetropodazo gina pugna nama Humano no duopodazo.
- Meza duo zu-pugno, Celvetto klame, i mutco celvo vene rrapide.
- Sekole, elo celvo fa-kurra Humano vade i seke.
- Lo kapta to i molda to mo toto kolpo.
- Lo fa-molta Humano ele.
Smooth English from SIAL
The Death of Human
- Littledeer isn't trustworthy.
- At one time, Littledeer had a friend named Human.
- But the truth was, Human bothered him.
- So, the quadruped started fighting the biped named Human.
- While the two were fighting, Littledeer called out and a number of deer quickly arrived.
- Then those deer made Human run away, following him.
- They caught him and bit up his entire body.
- They killed Human there.
SIAL Notes
"SIAL" stands for Second International Auxiliary Language.
Grammar
Content words (verbs, quantifiers, and nouns) are mildly inflected. There's no agreement or morphological tense or number, or articles. The final suffix of a content word indicates its syntactical function, regardless of its lexical class. The final suffixes used in this text are:
-a verbal transitive -e verbal intransitive -o nominal intransitive
Verbal forms are used in primary predicates, secondary predicates, and for all adverbial elements, while nominal forms are used as syntactical nouns, noun modifiers, and action nominals. An action nominal construction is distinguished from an attributive one by having an explicit subject.
Clauses are SVO in general, i.e. Subject followed by predicate and predicate being Verb followed by Object.
A transitive form must be followed by an explicit object (with one exception not relevent here) while an intransitive form must not be, although there's often an implied object! The object of an auxiliary verb is just a predicate, rather than a whole nominal clause.
All noun modifiers -- demonstratives, quantifiers, adjectives, genitives, and relative clauses -- precede the noun (which is not always a lexical noun). Each syntactical noun or noun modifier must have nominal form; for clauses, this is accomplished by adding the particle |no| at the end. For attributive possession, the particle |mo| (which may be considered the nominal form of |ma|) is added to the possessor.
Aspect and some other things are indicated by prefixes (these are optionally set off using hyphens). The unmarked aspect of a dynamic verb is perfective, while that of a static verb is stative.
Following a coordinating conjunction (e.g. "and", "or"), the subject of the clause may be omitted if the same as that of the previous clause.
Abbreviations
adv adverb etc. conj conjunction N noun (common) NP noun, proper post post-posed particle pref prefix prep preposed particle pron pronoun Q quantifier V verb (transitive, non-defective) VA verb, auxiliary VD verb, defective (and must take object) VI verb, intransitive
Vocabulary
| ant-a | V | occur before, until (+ phrase) |
| bi- | pref | (habitual aspect) |
| celv-o | N | deer |
| Celvett-o | NP | (means little deer) |
| da | VD | (copula of identity) |
| du-o | Q | two |
| duopodaz-e | VI | having two feet |
| el-e | VI | yon, yonder (remote spatial) |
| fa- | pref | (causative derivation; P VI becomes A V P) |
| fi- | pref | (inchoative derivation) |
| fidel-e | VI | trustworthy |
| gin-a | VA | begin |
| Human-o | NP | (means human) |
| i | conj | and (+ clause) |
| kapt-a | V | catch |
| klam-a | V | call, yell |
| kolp-o | N | body |
| koz-a | V | because of (+ phrase) |
| kurr-e | VI | run |
| lo | pron = | 3rd person obviative |
| ma | VD | have |
| mez-a | V | in the middle of (+ phrase) |
| mik-o | N | friend |
| mo | post | possessive, genitive |
| mold-a | V | bite |
| molest-a | V | bother |
| molt-e | VI | dead |
| mutc-o | Q | much, many |
| nam-a | V | named (the object is effectively quotative) |
| ne | prep | not |
| nee | adv | no, (contradicts positive) |
| no | post | makes clause attributive or nominal |
| pugn-a | V | fight (usually reciprocal) |
| rrapid-e | VI | rapid, fast, quick |
| sek-a | V | follow |
| sekole | adv | immediately after |
| tetropodaz-e | VI | having four feet |
| to | pron = | 3rd person proximative |
| tot-o | Q | all, whole, entire |
| vad-e | VI | go (away), depart |
| sof-e | VI | true |
| ven-e | VI | come (towards), arrive |
| zu- | pref | (progressive aspect) |
