5MOYD – A Kleptomaniac's Conlang

1470th Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

May 20, 2021 tryddleLeave a comment

Hapi

tàahoih pihi hasáa-h=tài sáá-h=kóa tóixia-soa

1 girl be.best-1=DEM eat-1=DECL maracuya-PL

‘I, the best girl, am eating (some) maracuyas.’

Notes

A demonstrative may be suffixed to a finite verb to form relative clauses.
The Hapi can't read and aren't familiar with the concept of books, so I changed the sentence so that it would be realistic for a native speaker of Hapi to utter it like that.
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1469th Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

May 18, 2021 tryddleLeave a comment

Hapi

tóíha-aí títo-a=í hoi-a=ká=xa koí-haí

news-NEXT.TO hear-2/3=S/A>S(SE) be.at-2/3=DECL=CONT hut-NEXT.TO

‘Listening to the news, he is standing outside of his hut.’

Notes

The Hapi people know neither of balconies nor of newspapers, so I had to change some words: 'reading the newspaper' became 'listening to the news [someone else is telling]' and 'on the balcony' became 'outside of [his] hut'.
there's some differential argument marking happening with the O of títo 'to hear'; you'd usually expect tóíha to be in the unmarked absolutive case, but since it's a stimulus and concerns sensory perception, it takes the 'next to' relational case instead.
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1468th Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

May 16, 2021 tryddleLeave a comment

Hapi

kíso-soa háhíí-h a-kaai-hi-áh=kóa

cheese-PL accidentally-TRANS PASS-be.bad-INT.PAST-CAUS-DECL

‘The cheeses have deteriorated.’

Notes

I have returned!
the adverbal háhíí marks an action as being performed 'accidentally', but may also express that an action has 'happened just like that', without external influence. Like all adverbals, háhíí takes a transitivity agreement suffix, in this case, -h.
the verbal morphology of our VP head here is quite funky. In this example, the verb stem takes both the causative and the passive affixes. Since in most cases, the passive can only be marked on a transitive verb, the causative's semantics are applied first. kaai 'to be bad', kaai-[...]-áh 'to make bad', a-kaai-[...]-áh 'to be made bad'.
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1447th Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

May 9, 2021 tryddleLeave a comment

Hapi

kóóh-soa siho-a=kóa tohípi-sáahi

fruit-PL choose-2/3=DECL volition-PRIV

‘(He) is picking fruits at random.’

Notes

the privative case marks the lack of the marked noun. In this case, the notion of an action that is happening 'at random' is expressed by the construction tohípisáahi, literally 'without intention/volition'.
siho can be translated as 'to choose (from a similar set of entities)'; it contrasts with kah 'to select, to pick out (from an unequal set of entities)'.
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1446th Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

May 9, 2021 tryddleLeave a comment

Hapi

páhaikíí a-xíihaxi=hákoo í-tàa-h=kóa

why PASS-tell.a.story=must INTRG-AUX-1=DECL

‘Why do I have to listen to this story?’

Notes

As with Cawlo's example, the Hapi don't know the act of 'watching movies'; they are a slash-and-burn society and live in a large rainforest, and haven't had much contact with the outside world. I therefore translated it more freely using 'being told a story' per analogy.
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1445th Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

May 9, 2021May 9, 2021 tryddleLeave a comment

Hapi

ahá takóhóótìih há háa-xí=kóa ó-háa-ha-tah

only Tanglewood:DAT EGOPH go.to-REC.PAST=DECL 2POSS-go.to-NMZ-PERLAT

‘I only went to Tanglewood because you did.’

Notes

cause and reason subordinate clauses are formed by nominalizing the subordinate verb using the marker -ha and then attaching the perlative case suffix -tah
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1444th Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

April 4, 2021 tryddleLeave a comment

Hapi

kápihoóh aikí-i sahá-xì-i patáta-a tóó-h=kóa híhaí-taó

father:ERG shake-DEP fall-out.of-DEP potato-PL PROG-2/3=DECL sack-BELOW

‘Father is shaking the potatoes, (so that) they fall out of the sack.’

Notes

this is an example for a cause-effect SVC. More about Hapi SVCs can be found in my reddit post on the topic here
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1443rd Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

April 3, 2021May 9, 2021 tryddleLeave a comment

Hapi

kaóxìì-íh kì-patía-ha=à ahíkixii sòi-a=kóa kì-kaxá-a-xapa

jaguar-ERG 3sPOSS-catch-NMZ=LINK deer:DIM want-2/3=DECL 3sPOSS-eat-NMZ-PURP

‘The jaguar wants to catch the little deer in order to eat it.’

Notes

sòi 'to want' takes an NP as an O argument, so the verb needs to be nominalized using the general nominallizer -(h)a.
purpose clauses are also formed using that nominalizer, which then precedes the purposive marker -xapa.
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1442nd Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

April 3, 2021 tryddleLeave a comment

Hapi

patía-h́ xòih-ìih hóí-hi=kóa tapáxi haí ài-i

woman's.name-ERG brother-DAT give-INT.PAST=DECL candy therefore do-DEP

‘Maria gave my brother a sweet so that I wouldn't have to.’

Notes

1441st Just Used 5 Minutes of Your Day

March 29, 2021 tryddleLeave a comment

Hapi

íí háá papah tiihtá-a=koa pohaoh-haixá híó papáh sóóha-i ài-a=kóa ótí-ki-haixá

3sINAN:A EPIST dog's.name.ABS surpass-2/3=DECL tastiness-SEMBL but.DS Barbas.ERG do.like.this-ITR do-2/3=DECL cute-NMZ:ADJ-SEMBL

‘It is probably tastier than barbas but less cute.’

Notes

I think I've never translated a comparative before in Hapi, so let's talk about that. The basic relative superior quantitative constructions (eg. Susan is taller than Peter) is formed using the verb tiihtá, 'to surpass', with the comparee and the standard of comparison (in this case, 'it' and 'Barbas' respectively) as core arguments and the parameter of comparison ('tastiness' and 'cuteness') as oblique argument, which is in this case marked by the semblative case marker -haixá.
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