Small Group Notes - November 4th, HS

We met in the seminar room with Harsha and worked on comparatives.
Another group has already done comparative and superlative adjectives, but we wanted to expand on that.

beɽal-ʈa kukuɽ-er t͡ʃʰe beʃi kʰuʂi
cat-the  dog-of  than more happy
The cat is happier than the dog

Here, t͡ʃʰe comes from t͡ʃʰawa, meaning "to want."  Harsha told us it was being used as "than."

dɪkʃəneɹi-ʈa ensaiklopidi-ar  t͡ʃʰe beʃi <quality>
dictionary-the encyclopedia-of  than more <quality>
The dictionary is more <quality> than the encyclopedia

Specifying equality felt a little less comfortable, so we have multiple methods.

beɽal o/ar kukuɽ dud͡ʒone kʰuʂi
cat and dog both happy
"The cat and dog are both happy"
The sentence does not specify that they are equally happy, however.

beɽal  o/ar kukuɽ dud͡ʒone æk-i  matra-e  kʰuʂi
cat and dog both one-only degree-in happy
"The cat and dog are equally happy"

beɽal  o/ar kukuɽ ʂoman bʰabe kʰuʂi
cat  and  dog same way happy
"The cat and dog are happy the same way"

To EXPLICITLY call the two equal, Harsha used a construction he did not feel comfortable with.
beɽal-ʈa d͡ʒɔto(ʈa) kʰuʂi kukuɽ-ʈa o tɔtoʈai  kʰuʂi
cat-the  this much(the) happy dog-the  and just as much happy
"The cat is happy and the dog is just as happy"

"d͡ʒɔto-ʈa" and "tɔto-ʈa", "this much" and "just as much", usually occur together.

enciclopedia-ʈa  ar beɽal-ʈa dutoi motʰa
encyclopedia-the and cat-the  both fat

As an interesting side-note; "dud͡ʒone" can only be used for people, which is why we use "dutoi" here.

We diverged briefly to see if there was any change in the -ar -/er/ morpheme when followed by ar, and.
encyclopedia-ar ar
encyclopedia-of and

ex:
enyclopedi-ar ar dictionar-ir pata gulo holuɖ
encyclopedia-of and dictionary-of page PL yellow
The pages of the dictionary and encyclopedia are yellow  

There was not.  We continued with conditionals.

beɽal-ʈa ag-er  t͡ʃʰe beʃi kʰuʂi
cat-the  past-of  more than happy
"The cat is happier than it was before"

beɽal-ʈa d͡ʒɔto-ʈa kʰuʂi ʈar t͡ʃʰe beʃi dukkʰi
cat-the  as much-the happy of that more than sad
"The cat is more happy than sad" or, more literally,
"However much the cat is happy, the cat is more sad"

beɽal-ʈa kukuɽ-er t͡ʃʰe be-si d͡ʒɔl kʰai
cat-the  dog-of  more than water eat
The cat drinks more water than the dog (does)

beɽal-ʈa dutʰer t͡ʃʰe beʃi d͡ʒɔl kʰai
cat-the  milk-of more than water eat
The cat drinks more water than it does milk
OR
The cat drinks more water than the milk does, in the case of sentient milk
(So, it has the same ambiguity as English!)

Sam was able to construct an example that removed the ambiguity:

beral-ʈa d͡ʒɔto-ʈa dutʰ kʰai ʈar t͡ʃe beʃi d͡ʒɔl kʰai
cat-the  this much-the milk eats of that more than water eats
As much as the cat drinks milk, it drinks water more

Afterwards, we checked counting occurences of a repeated action.
Mollie performed the action (jumping) while Sam recorded Harsha's response.
After each set of jumps, Mollie asked the question:
ami kʰi kot͡ʃla
I what did?
What did I do?
From the response, we got the form "hop" 1-past
tʰumi  lapʰale
you jump-1-past
"You jumped"

We constructed a table of iteratives:

one jump: ækbar lapʰale
two jumps: tubar lapʰale
three jumps: tinbar lapʰale
four jumps: t͡ʃarbar lapʰale

We stopped here because we expected to find more differences in less common numbers.

Mollie Sam-er t͡ʃʰe beʃi lapʰæ
Mollie Sam-of more than hops
Mollie jumps more than Sam, where lapʰano means "to jump"

ami beral-er t͡ʃʰe kukuɽ beʃi dekʰi/ dekte pʰai
I cat-of  more  dogs than look at/see
"I see more dogs than cats"

ami Mollie t͡ʃʰe beʃi kukuɽ dekte pʰai
I Mollie more than dogs see
"I see more dogs than Mollie"
OR
"I see more dogs than I see Mollie"
Again, we have the ambiguity.

ami kukuɽ ʃokbor t͡ʃʰe beʃi kukuɽ dekʰi
I dogs smell-1 more than dogs see-1
"I see dogs more than I smell them"
If there is no "kukuɽ" in the second clause, then "kukur ʃokbor" becomes a sentient thing.
ami kukuɽ ʃokbor  t͡ʃʰe beʃi dekʰi
I dog smelling more than see
"I see more than dog-smelling"