LING 115 Spring 2017 Conlang Relay's homepage

4. lalaɬeβaβa (Sal)

Text

ɮʃiːe woʃu lala aɮʃiaja. laː u aɲaː sβizimɬazaː ɸejo.liɬilili βawʃsɨɲɨ̀ːɲ e ile aʃamiwìːw jɔʃ aɸeɸeɸe.lalaː ɮmes alɬaɬàː, lalaː ɔ: wiɸìːɸ. se βɨuʎosɸaz mio ɲŋuʃ e asa am ɮaŋ, laː aʃaː, “woʃu ɮa, lɨɬili mio, aleʃesama weo, lalaː ɮa ɬaɬ neɬeɬ ʃaːɸβa βiwiɸwiɸíːɸ. ɬeɹ ʃaːɸβa lalaː ɹalreséːs ɲɨβ: ɮaɮeje saɲ sɮera.

Backtranslation

The good fire burns them (those little things). I write what I see with difficulty. Us friends chatted and then finished eight cigarettes. We sat together, we didn't move. Because my translator is tired and wants to go to sleep, I say, "Please, my friend, Atekesama Weho, we will be passengers for six hours tomorrow. The day after tomorrow we will easily arrive: the white valley ends.

Note that the : after ɲiβ is a colon, the rest are length markers.
Prepositions don't translate well. 'Then' comes through more like 'later', and 'what I see' as 'that I see'. Move can also be translated as go. Neither Anita nor I translated 'with difficulty' as a prepositional phrase, but as far as I can tell there isn't a straight adverb way to say it in English.

Grammar

Reduplication of noun and verb for pluralization dog ɮse:ɸ dogs ɮseɸ.e:ɸ bird mner birds mner.er Pronouns also reduplicate (see pronouns). Special plurals exist for words that end in too many vowels. burn, S aɮʃia burn, PL aɮʃiaja Personal (nominative) pronouns. There is a dual distinction in pronouns, self and not-self, differentiated by length. I la: you/it¹ la Plurals maintain the length differentiation only in the final syllable. we lala: they lala ¹no gender distinction-- you/it/he/she/ey/ze = la Person and number marking Subject and verb must agree in person and number. Base form is the short vowel, meaning not-self. you¹ know la mas they know lala masas Self marking is elongation of final vowel. I know la: ma:s we know lala: masa:s Definiteness The base state is indefinite, which takes no marking. Definite nouns take the affix -e. a dog ɮse:ɸ the dog ɮse:ɸe If the word already ends in /e/, /j/ is epenthesized. nose-the ɬse-je Infinitivals are formed by adding the word 'for' to a present tense form. to compose ɬaza am The language is head-final and SOV. Adjectives come after the noun they describe, and adverbs after the verb. ɸβan-e riɰu ɬɮeβa-e ʟɨʟ sɨ ɬil ɬilà child-the young person-the old to song sing.PST "The young child sang a song to the elder." Predicate nouns function as verbs and inflect for agreement. la ɮseːɸ it dog "It's a dog" Predicate adjectives function as verbs and inflect for agreement. I'm old la: ʟɨ:ʟ we're old lala: ʟɨʟɨ:ʟ you're old la ʟɨʟ you (pl) are old lala ʟɨʟɨʟ Descriptive adjectives appear in the same place, but do not inflect. old person (self) ɬɮeβa: ʟɨʟ old people (self) ɬɮeβaβa: ʟɨʟ old person (other) ɬɮeβa ʟɨʟ old people (other) ɬɮeβaβa ʟɨʟ There is no morphological difference between adjectives and adverbs. What is being modified is determined by syntax. ɸβane woʃu ɬil ɬilà "The good child sang a song." ɸβane ɬil ɬilà woʃu "The child sang a song well." Tense is encoded in the tone of the last syllable of the verb. sang ɬilà sing ɬila will sing ɬilá Possession is done postpositionally: ɮse:ɸ-e mio dog-the mine "my dog"