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The Latin words in the etymologies are given in ALL CAPS. The forms used for inflected words are infinitive and accusative singular (even in derivations from other cases), and adjectives will be *masculine*. Plural and non-accusative forms may occur for pronouns. à (prep) AD
Abbreviations(a) Adjective
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Atentzón Al Infant!Ai, gofrê! Qué est passad? Èbian, dijar una værgen formosa mais estota ven-t à nuæstra casa, è teneva què cantar pole laitant. Ella fege lò tod què podeva porquè geogar congle laitant: ella geogau dez geuægs con loi, loi cantau "duærme, gatinhe, duærme", ed esto àgeudava. Mais tonc, el infante l assotau è la talhau à piatzas! Ill la manceau è puæs dègeitau las rèmaniantzas pella fenestra. Qué on puæd fâere nos? Àjàjai, dunuæv sejons profonda ment engla miarda! Qué vâmes à fâer? Èbian, dentra tante tiampes vâmes à dever estar silent sobe questa causa. Jo, lò plus de tod, non voj ir ales vìlantes volontæres! Ciart! Elles pausan dez quezzons sufigiantissmas. Attention to the Infant!Oh, no! What the heck has happened? Well, yesterday a good-looking but foolish young woman came to our house, and was having to sing for the baby. She did everything she could in order to play with the baby: she played some games with him, and sang "Sleep, Kitten, Sleep", and this was helping. But then, the baby assaulted her and cut her to pieces! He munched on her and threw the remnants through the window. What might they do to us? Aarrgghh, once again, we're sitting profoundly in excrement! What are we going to do? Well, at a time like this we'll have to be silent about this matter. I, more than anything, don't want to go to the police! Of course! They pose most sufficient questions. Notes on grammarNote: Some things typical of romance languages will be assumed. General There is a phenomenon called Mobile E, where 'e' can be added to a word form according to the circumstances. It can be added at the beginning, before sp, st, squ, or x, and at the end after any consonant.Nouns There are 2 genders: masculine and feminine.
Adjectives Adjectives agree in gender and number with their nouns, although some adjectives have the same form for both genders. If the feminine form ends in -a, it is dropped to give the masculine, otherwise the genders are the same. Consequently, the feminine singular will be the form of adjectives listed in the glossary. Comparison is analytic. However, there's an absolute superlative formed by adding -issma (which is also adjectival, so this gives the feminine singular form) to the masculine singular form. Adverbs Most adverbs are formed by placing ment as a separate word after the feminine singular. Some have the same form as the masculine singular, and some aren't derived from adjectives. Articles Articles also agree in gender and number with their nouns. The definite article also has an "abstract" form lò. The other regular forms are: l(e) masculine singular los masculine plural la feminine singular las feminine plural el may occur for masculine OR feminine singular before some
vowels.
The indefinite articles occur only in the singular: un, una. However, there's also a plural partitive article: dez. Pronouns Pronouns are the only words which distinguish case. The cases are: subject, direct object, indirect object, object of preposition, and possessive, the last of which may be an adjective. Verbs Verbs are conjugated according to person, number, tense, mood, and aspect. There are also compound verbs. The infinitives will be the forms listed in the glossary The regular endings which occur here are: STEM + -r Infinitive STEM + -d Past/Passive Participle STEM + -va 3ps Imperfect Indicative STEM + -u 3ps Preterite Indicative STEM + -n 3pp Present Indicative After this it gets tricky, so the relevent information will be given in the glossary. For some 3rd person verbs, a -t is appended in certain situations. Translator's notes(not sent to the person next in line) The smooth translation above isn't perfectly smooth. This is partly because I wanted to keep close to wording of the Vallés text, and partly because the Vallés text itself isn't perfectly smooth, reflecting apparent rough spots in the Silesian source. Of course, I'm not a native speaker of Vallés, either. Some of the phrases chosen for the Vallés text may warrent some explanation. "Ai, gofrê" Although ai can occur by itself, this is really a set phrase. It's rather slangy, but still good vallés. There is little or no consensus concerning its origin. Just to give you an idea, I'll mention one theory. It claims that gofrê, or perhaps the whole phrase, comes from the dark jungles of the New World, and relates to an arcane native ritual wherein a temple or shrine is burned to the ground, perhaps as a sacrifice to a dog-deity. You can see why not everyone agrees. "vìlantes volontæres" Literally, those who are voluntarily vigilant, referring to a group of people who are neither paid nor coerced and perform this task in their spare time. I considered translating this as polidzía or guardia. However, the former is used mainly for foreign civic officers who are payed salaries (I think "Professional Law Enforcement" is used by some) while the latter is dedicated to a particular station or task. Thus, to give the story a better local context I chose the above term. I should also note that the more enthusiastic members of the VV are sometimes called "los violentes volontæres". |
© Jan van Steenbergen, Jeff Jones, 4 Sept. 2004