I need help with grammar of several sentences for translatio

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Durakken
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I need help with grammar of several sentences for translatio

Post by Durakken »

What I'm doing is creating a conlang, but how I'm going about doing it is tranlating english into this conlang. This has so far helped me to make see things that I need to add/fix with my conlang.

The problem is that I never really cared much for grammar and such, like most people, so even though I've self taught myself over the course of a few months, I'm having trouble finding help in whether I've got the breaking English sentences apart correct or not.

So, what I need is to know if I've broken down and re-arranged these sentences correctly in this translation into my conlang. I am not asking if my conlang is "correct", but it obviously requires me to give some info about it.

Here are the 17 Sentences of the original text

Long ago, all the elements were mixed together with one germ of life.
This germ began to mix things around and around until the heavier part sank and the lighter part rose.
A muddy sea that covered the entire earth was created.
From this ocean grew a green shoot.
It grew and grew until it reached the clouds and there it was tranformed into a god.
Soon this god grew lonely and it began to create other gods.
The last two gods it made, Izanagi and Izanami, were the most remarkable.
One day as they were walking along they looked down on the ocean and wondered what was beneath it.
Izanagi thrust his staff into the waters and as he pulled it back up some clumps of mud fell back into the sea.
They began to harden and grow until they became the islands of Japan.
The two descended to these islands and began to explore, each going in different directions.
They created all kinds of plants.
When they met again they decided to marry and have children to inhabit the land.
The first child Izanami bore was a girl of radiant beauty.
The gods decided she was too beautiful to live in Japan, so they put her up in the sky and she became the sun.
Their second daughter, Tsuki-yami, became the moon and their third and unruly son, Sosano-wo, was sentenced to the sea, where he creates storms.
Later, their first child, Amaterasu, bore a son who became the emperor of Japan and all the emperors since then have claimed descent from him.

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It's the first part of tha japanese creation myth ^.^

Here is a link to the translation and break down

I don't think I got glossing completely figure out yet and so in the line giving the grammar info it's giving information its come from both directions rather than the one I think it's supposed to be, but hopefully it's informative enough to tell you what I was doing.

The language is SOV, places genitives after the noun, and places adjectives and adverbs before the respective part.

Structural order


Sentence Structure Order : [Subject] [Indirect Object] [Direct Object] [Verb]
Noun Phrase Order : [Adjective] [Noun] [Possessive] [Adpositional Phrase] [Complementizer]
Verb Phrase Order : [Adverb] [Verb] [Copula] [Adpositional Phrase] [Complementizer]
Adjective Phrase Order : [Adjective Adjective?] [Adjective]
Adpositional Phrase Order : [Noun] [Preposition?]

Here's the Lexicon

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Thanks for any help you guys can give.
Sumelic
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Re: I need help with grammar of several sentences for transl

Post by Sumelic »

Hello again! I posted a short comment earlier over on Stack Exchange, I will try to give more feedback in this post.

As I said, I think you may have misunderstood the concept of the predicate. The predicate is, broadly speaking, everything in a sentence but the subject (the only exception I can think of, is that I don't think the predicate includes sentence level-modifiers like a question particle.)
Feliassuh el jenkai argeein theksdreiglu wift.
Feliassuh is definitely the subject. "Wif" is a verb, and the core of the predicate and verb phrase, but usually any objects or prepositional phrases associated with the verb are also considered part of the verb phrase, and part of the predicate. So "el jenkai argeei" is also part of the verb phrase/predicate. "theksdreiglu" "long ago" could be analyzed either as part of the verb phrase, or as a clause-level modifier. I don't know enough grammar to tell you the right analysis for this part.
Durakken
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Re: I need help with grammar of several sentences for transl

Post by Durakken »

Yup I replied there too with...

"I split up "predicate" from "verb phrase" to keep it seperate in my head, but I know that verb? verb phrase? is supposed to be part of the predicate. It was just easier to reckon like the way i have it for me."

It was just easier to reckon Object/Predicate/Verb Phrase in that weird way to give more information to to me... It's really divided more along Subject/Object/Verb and their connected parts rather than Subject-Predicate, but there is nothing as far as I know to describe that entire set of words in its own right so I just adpated it...

The first few lines I think are fairly simple, but then it gets into clause in clause in clause and uses phrases like "the dog that saved the stone, Spot" in which case I'm not sure how that goes together structurally and which is the head, "the dog" or "Spot"

Another issue is that "prepositional phrases" are supposed to be post-positional, but in this language there isn't a preposition, so much as there is cases that indicate the preposition... which I don't know then what is the prepositional phrase...

"theksdreiglu" is a work around for "long ago" which i've made for those particular words... "in the beginning" "in the distant past" "in the past" "presently" "soon" "in the far future" "at the end" so I think they're a specific case, but I'm not sure...

"-lu", "-jeer", and "-sruh" are the cases that indicate the preposition, but because they are how they are I don't know if that defines them as the prep-phrase or how the words should be arranged around it.
Sumelic
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Re: I need help with grammar of several sentences for transl

Post by Sumelic »

Oh, I hadn't realized you meant "predicate" as shorthand for "the rest of the predicate." In any case, I think what I said about the verb phrase including the objects (and any prepositional phrases associated with the verb) may still apply.

In terms of verb-final structure, I think you've not quite followed it in this segment of the following sentence:
Object Indirect Verb Verb
things mix around and around began to
N. "thing" acc-gpl V. "mix". prs ADJ. "around" CNJ. "and" ADJ. "around" V. "start" pst
felgohkuh wif ehmmak en ehmmak emuht
Here the verb "mix" is subordinated to the main verb "start". It's possible you intend to use different word order for subordinated verbs, but I would expect "mix" to come after "around and around": "things around and around mix began_to".

Another example of non-V-final order I think is
children to inhabit the land have
N. "child". acc-pl V. "dwell". prs N. "land". acc V. "have". prs
druhagskuh droh feltelkuh mof
I would expect "druhagskuh feltelkuh droh mof" instead.

I also wondered about
they her up put in the sky
N. "god" nom-du 3PN. "god". acc ADV. "up" V. "put". prs PREP. N. "sky". loc
aneliar lakuh og triln retjeer
Bu then I saw you say that "Verb phrase order" is [Adverb] [Verb] [Copula] [Adpositional Phrase] [Complementizer]; does this mean that verbs are in fact followed by adpositional phrases, but preceded by pretty much anything else?

Another thing I noticed: you form passive verbs with the past form and a form of the word "to be," as in English (e.g. "luvt nast" "created was"). I think that's mostly common in Indo-European languages in the real world. Not that it's wrong, but it certainly isn't the only way to have passives.
Sumelic
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Re: I need help with grammar of several sentences for transl

Post by Sumelic »

Durakken wrote:Yup I replied there too with...

"I split up "predicate" from "verb phrase" to keep it seperate in my head, but I know that verb? verb phrase? is supposed to be part of the predicate. It was just easier to reckon like the way i have it for me."

It was just easier to reckon Object/Predicate/Verb Phrase in that weird way to give more information to to me... It's really divided more along Subject/Object/Verb and their connected parts rather than Subject-Predicate, but there is nothing as far as I know to describe that entire set of words in its own right so I just adpated it...
Got it.
The first few lines I think are fairly simple, but then it gets into clause in clause in clause and uses phrases like "the dog that saved the stone, Spot" in which case I'm not sure how that goes together structurally and which is the head, "the dog" or "Spot"
In this case, the two refer to the same thing; this kind of structure is called an "appositive" and I think the first noun acts as the head in English.
Another issue is that "prepositional phrases" are supposed to be post-positional, but in this language there isn't a preposition, so much as there is cases that indicate the preposition... which I don't know then what is the prepositional phrase...

"theksdreiglu" is a work around for "long ago" which i've made for those particular words... "in the beginning" "in the distant past" "in the past" "presently" "soon" "in the far future" "at the end" so I think they're a specific case, but I'm not sure...

"-lu", "-jeer", and "-sruh" are the cases that indicate the preposition, but because they are how they are I don't know if that defines them as the prep-phrase or how the words should be arranged around it.
Ah, those would just be postpositions then. It's common for English prepositional phrases to translate into other languages as postpositional phrases. They're act more or less the same as part sof speech, just expressed differently.
Durakken
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Re: I need help with grammar of several sentences for transl

Post by Durakken »

Sumelic wrote:
things mix around and around began to
N. "thing" acc-gpl V. "mix". prs ADJ. "around" CNJ. "and" ADJ. "around" V. "start" pst
felgohkuh wif ehmmak en ehmmak emuht
Here the verb "mix" is subordinated to the main verb "start". It's possible you intend to use different word order for subordinated verbs, but I would expect "mix" to come after "around and around": "things around and around mix began_to".

Another example of non-V-final order I think is
children to inhabit the land have
N. "child". acc-pl V. "dwell". prs N. "land". acc V. "have". prs
druhagskuh droh feltelkuh mof
I would expect "druhagskuh feltelkuh droh mof" instead.
I debated this back and forth, and while it wasn't the first time Iv'e come across "copula" it's the first time I looked into it and I tried to figure out which way it should go.
"things around and around mix began" I shifted all over the place. Originally I had it "things began to mix around and around" and then "things around and around began to mix" and then I settled on what it is now... I have no idea if that is right. Similarly I'm not sure if "around and around" should be considered just "around and around" or a single word concept that in english just happens to be 3 words.
I also wondered about
they her up put in the sky
N. "god" nom-du 3PN. "god". acc ADV. "up" V. "put". prs PREP. N. "sky". loc
aneliar lakuh og triln retjeer
Bu then I saw you say that "Verb phrase order" is [Adverb] [Verb] [Copula] [Adpositional Phrase] [Complementizer]; does this mean that verbs are in fact followed by adpositional phrases, but preceded by pretty much anything else?
Sorta yes... the thing I care most about is the adpositional phrase being postpositional and adverbs before the verb. Copula and Complementizer I'm still working on understanding, but I pretty much wanted most other parts after the verb, rather than before.

How "up is used is screwy so I had lots of trouble with that and the other sentence with it in it that has "pull back up"...
Another thing I noticed: you form passive verbs with the past form and a form of the word "to be," as in English (e.g. "luvt nast" "created was"). I think that's mostly common in Indo-European languages in the real world. Not that it's wrong, but it certainly isn't the only way to have passives.
I haven't even thought about that. My basic intent with this is to create a core proto-language that takes on attributes of the oldest languages so that it can evolve naturally. That is why it is SOV and supposed to be Postpositional... The genitive currently is after the noun which I may change to fall more in line with common attributes of SOV languages. Another thing I was aiming for is making it sound somewhat like english which I'm not sure how successful I was with that. But with this in particular, it pretty much went, "oh copulas are a thing, that should go after the verb... now what are they? Oh, so this should be "created was" rather than "was created" (as i originally had it)." and then i fixed them all that way ^.^
Durakken
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Re: I need help with grammar of several sentences for transl

Post by Durakken »

Sumelic wrote:
Object Indirect Verb Verb
things mix around and around began to
N. "thing" acc-gpl V. "mix". prs ADJ. "around" CNJ. "and" ADJ. "around" V. "start" pst
felgohkuh wif ehmmak en ehmmak emuht
Here the verb "mix" is subordinated to the main verb "start". It's possible you intend to use different word order for subordinated verbs, but I would expect "mix" to come after "around and around": "things around and around mix began_to".

Another example of non-V-final order I think is
children to inhabit the land have
N. "child". acc-pl V. "dwell". prs N. "land". acc V. "have". prs
druhagskuh droh feltelkuh mof
I would expect "druhagskuh feltelkuh droh mof" instead.
Thought about it. you're right. The first one I think it probably should be that way and just "around and around" confused me. The second one was just a mistake on my part ^.^

Do you see any other errors or things that are "wrong"
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