Ring C: 3/11: Obrenje

Measures to take against the evil feeling of winter time

One december morning, the following scene can be observed across the street from a bus stop.

A boy, clearly on the way to school, waits in front of a garden, and a fat red male cat sits on his shoulder. The animal can keep his balance well, while the boy tries to shake him down. During this, he panicks more and more, since he knows the bus will arrive soon. The animal would cause a disturbance there. At one point the cat places a paw on the fence, but it seems too cold, so he hides himself in the backpack of the school boy. Once he is comfortable, the bus arrives.

Finally, it's going to be [1] an interesting day for the cat.

----- Notes: [1] This used to be perfect aspect, but it makes more sense to be in a future tense.

This is a really ugly skeletal painful compactification of Obrenje
grammar... if you have the time and leisure, you can check out the 
grammar webpage at http://www.cinga.ch/langmaking/obrenje_index.htm , 
though it might confuse you more than it would help.

-    The most basic word order is VSO(O). The verb usually comes first, 
     then the subject, then the object(s). Adverbs that belong to the
     whole sentence can appear almost anywhere, particularly at the
     beginning.

-    Obrenje has two unconventional noun cases called "predicative" and
     "directive", rather than the classical accusative and dative cases.
     In a nutshell, the directive case shows the target or origin of the
     verb action, whereas the predicative is a part of the verb action 
     itself. You may also consult 
          http://www.cinga.ch/langmaking/obrenje_nouns.htm#2 . 
     It's explained in few words and some pictures. =P  

-    The subject is unmarked, while the objects are tagged with 
     prepositions. Even the grammatical object cases of Obrenje
     (predicative, directive) are marked with prepositions: i for 
     directive and u for predicative. Only personal pronouns can exhibit
     case through inflected forms rather than prepositions.

-    Often an object is placed *before* the verb in the sentence: OVS(O).
     In this situation, an unmarked object (no preposition) is taken to 
     be in the predicative case. In other words, if you place the 
     predicative object before the verb, you can drop the preposition u. 
     Even though unmarked, it cannot be confounded with the subject, since
     that must always come *after* the verb. Example: Tog ny warve u sawne
     and Sawne tog ny warve both mean the same, "dogs in general eat meat
     (sawne)".  Furthermore, personal pronouns (both predicative and
     directive forms) are often also placed before the verb.

-    There is no special construction for modal verbs. They are simply 
     verbs which take the gerunds of other verbs as predicative objects: 
     Moze u torva "I am a grown man", Kwoze u moa u torva "I want being a 
     grown man" = "I want to be a grown man". The OVS syntax mentioned
     above is often employed here for its brevity: Kwoze u moa u torva
     means the same thing as Torva moa kwoze (any object before a given
     verb has to be its predicative object). 

-    Verb conjugation is rather non-trivial...  I'll simply show you how 
     to identify the few forms you'll need.  In fact, the most difficult
     verb forms are even given as vocab items.  If you're really
     interested, there's a more complete treatment at:
          http://www.cinga.ch/langmaking/obrenje_verbs.htm .

     There are two basic verb conjugation paradigms: Consonantic and
     vocalic verbs. I will simply demonstrate the forms you need for the
     text on the example of the consonantic verb gwan- "to hear" and the
     vocalic verb olja- "to drink".  

     - Gerund: gwana "(act of) hearing", oljae "(act of) drinking"
     - Explicit 3rd person present: gwan "hears", olje "drinks"
     - Implicit 3rd person present: gwane "he/she/it/they hear/s", olja 
           "he/she/it/they drink/s"
     - Impersonal present: gwance "one hears"; oljac "one drinks" (the
           impersonal verb form is also used for constructions like "it's
           raining").
     - Continuous active present participle: gwanamma "hearing", oljamma
            "drinking"
     - Continuous explicit 3rd person present: gwanaq "is/are hearing",
           oljaq "is/are drinking"

-    Nouns do not inflect for number (singular/plural), but they do
     inflect for definiteness... for example, tin means "a man, men"
     while tine means "the man, the men". The basic form of the noun is
     the indefinite form. The definite form is derived either by adding -e
     to the basic form, or exchanging the final vowel and consonant (e.g.
     warve ['warv@] -> warev [wa'rEv]). In both cases, the stress is drawn
     onto the last syllable.

-    Obrenje does not distinguish adjectives from nouns. When two 
     noun-like words stand next to each other, the leftmost is the head
     noun of the phrase, and the ones to the right modify it. Example:
     From the words setam "guarding, guard" and warve "dog" we can make
     both warve setam "watchdog" and setam warve "dog watcher". Sometimes
     the choice of head noun can convey nuances: naq ral "a friend that is
     good" and ral naq "a good one of friends" are both valid ways of
     translating "a good friend".

a conj. "and"
ae pron. 3rd person inanimate, nominative case
amil n. "comfortable; emotionally supported"
aste- v. "shake #, quake; dance ecstatically"
aw pron. 3rd person animate, predicative case
bace n. "garden, park"
baw pron. "that which" (relative pronoun)
bis- v. "can, be able to"
blize adv. "then, when..." (relative)
bontcinja n. "gloom, depression" (from bom "heavy" and cine "the 
     emotional part of the mind")
caj- v. "do, make"
ce, cej pron. "one"
chem- v. "cause, make ... be/do ..."
comu past implicit 3rd person form of chem-
culle prep. "inside, within"
cyn- v. "hide (... in ...)"
dejne n. "year"
densur n. "month"
dri lizni adv. "soon" (lit. after a short amount of time)
drinje n. "next, following, subsequent, upcoming"
dume adv. "down, on the bottom"
duvi n. "foot"
dys n. "place, location"
dys- v. "put, place"
dzha prep. "before"
essad n. "winter"
ew- pref. marks the hypothetical verb mood
fango n. "shoulder"
fyse n. "interesting, fascinating"
genta, getan n. "fear"
gore n. "the last, latest; loser (of a race)"
gwaj adv. "too, too much"
gykwa n. "trouble, disturbance, turmoil"
i prep. marks the directive case
-in suff. "male"
jem pron. 3rd person animate, genitive case
joq adv. "but, however"
karac n. "wall"
kel- v. "see"
ki prep. "to, up to"
kilmu adv. "clearly, understandably"
kitsaj n. "student, learner, apprentice"
kura- v. "balance; tune; mediate between, pacify"
kwete n. "thick, fat"
leva- v. "try, attempt"
lis n. "cold"
lize n. "(point in) time, instance, round"
lynse- v. "sit on; man (a vehicle); fig: beleaguer"
maj adv. "yes (when refuting a negative statement), after all, 
     contrary to previous expectation"
miv- v. "come, arrive"
mivi future explicit 3rd person form of miv-
miza n. "day"
mjec future 0th person form of mo-
mo- v. "be"
ne pron. reflexive pronoun, directive case
nedja- v. "know; recognize"
nok- v. "go; happen"
nu pron. reflexive pronoun, predicative case
pal- v. "grow; become, turn into"
pan, pandee n. "animal"
pidra- v. "wait; await, expect"
priklese adv. "so, therefore" (< pri kelese "from what is seen")
qar n. "red"
raw adv. "well"
ro prep. "in, on, at (generic locative)"    
roj prep. "through; across"
roj tse conj. "while, during" (lit. through that)
salim n. "cat"
setas adv. "(over) there, yonder"
tenne n. "morning"
ti pron. "this (here)"
tjo- v. "seem, appear" (CAUTION: consonantic type)
toj conj. "because, for, since"
tse conj. "that" (generic subordinate clause marker)
tsemmaja n. "school" (lit. teacher-collective)
tukan prep. "against, versus, anti"
tuksom prep. "on the other side; opposite of, facing"
tummo n. "bag, backpack"
tumpoj n. "bus"
u prep. marks the predicative case
ur prep. "of, pertaining to (non-possessive genitive)"
ximme- v. "settle into; grow roots"
zun n. "child"