Difference between revisions of "Kamba and English/Lexical selection"

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'''Example ii.''' Mbui, Ngiti ''na'' Ng’ombe mai anyanyae anene. → Goat, Dog, ''and'' Cow were great friends.
 
'''Example ii.''' Mbui, Ngiti ''na'' Ng’ombe mai anyanyae anene. → Goat, Dog, ''and'' Cow were great friends.
  
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'''Generalization:''' default is 'and'
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'''Generalization:''' default is 'and' (couldn't find a good generalization for context, especially because lots of the sentences in the Bible translation begin with 'na' as 'and,' and we can't really distinguish between two clauses that are contrasted vs just added together.
  
 
  '''Case 2'''
 
  '''Case 2'''

Latest revision as of 17:22, 30 April 2023

Kam → Eng

One-to Many Mappings

Case 1
(kam) na → 
i. (eng) and
ii. (eng) but

Example i. Na syaatu ii ni nzau. → But these shoes are new.

Example ii. Mbui, Ngiti na Ng’ombe mai anyanyae anene. → Goat, Dog, and Cow were great friends.

Generalization: default is 'and' (couldn't find a good generalization for context, especially because lots of the sentences in the Bible translation begin with 'na' as 'and,' and we can't really distinguish between two clauses that are contrasted vs just added together.

Case 2
(kam) nthĩ → 
i. (eng) ground 
ii. (eng) earth
iii. (eng) country

Example i. Nĩyavalũkile nthĩ na yanyaĩka tũlungu tunini. → It smashed into pieces on the ground.

Example ii. Nake ngai wa matu Nyame aĩ na ũĩ w’onthe ĩũlũ wa nthĩ. → The god Nyame up in the sky had all the wisdom of the earth.

Example iii. Ĩndĩ no nginya ũsyoke nthĩ ĩla nasyaĩwe... → But thou shalt go unto my country...

Generalization: (In the corpus, country was often followed by a possessive pronoun, and it would be weird/less likely for either the ground or earth to be possessed). So if followed by a possessive pronoun, select country, and we're just making the default "earth" because earth works where ground could work, but ground often wouldn't work where earth could like above.