Difference between revisions of "Evenki and English/Contrastive Grammar"

Revision as of 18:52, 10 May 2023

Differences

Comparative Particles

There are no comparative particles at all in Evenki.

Мурин орон-дук хегды-тмер.

horse reindeer-abl big-cmpr

A horse is bigger than a reindeer

• (evn) Мурин → (eng) horse

  (evn) Мурин<n><sg><nom> → (eng) horse<n><sg><nom>

• (evn) орондук → (eng) reindeer

  (evn) орондук<n><sg><abl> → (eng) reindeer<n><sg><abl>

• (evn) хегдытмер → (eng) big

  (evn) хегдытмер<adj><sg><comp> → (eng) big<adj><sg><comp>

Word order

Word order in Evenki is Subject-Complement-Verb, unlike English where the word order is Subject-Verb-Complement.

An example of this is

Тадук нунгартын аичимни ча-тын

then they doctor-pl become-pst-3pl

Then they became doctors.

• (evn) Тадук → (eng) then

  (evn) Тадук<adv> → (eng) then<adv>

• (evn) нунгартын → (eng) they

  (evn) нунгартын<n><pl><nom> → (eng) they<n><pl><nom>

• (evn) аичимни → (eng) doctor

  (evn) аичимни<n><pl><acc> → (eng) doctor<n><pl><acc>

• (evn) чатын → (eng) become

  (evn) чатын<v><pst><pl><3> → (eng) become<v><pst><pl><3>

Necessity of to be verbs

Unlike in english, even can easily remove the verb to be.

Тар орон ньами (bi-si-n).

that reindeer female (be-prs-3sg)

'That reindeer is a doe

• (evn) Тар → (eng) that

  (evn) Тар<adj><sg><nom> → (eng) that<adj><sg><nom>

• (evn) орон → (eng) reindeer

  (evn) орон<n><sg><nom> → (eng) reindeer<n><sg><nom>

• (evn) ньами → (eng) female

  (evn) ньами<adj><sg><nom> → (eng) female<adj><sg><nom>

Case system

All evenki nouns operate under a case system, unlike english nouns. Compare the word for reindeer in the two sentences:

Мурин орон-дук хегды-тмер.

horse reindeer-abl big-cmpr

A horse is bigger than a reindeer

Тар орон ньами (bi-si-n).

that reindeer female (be-prs-3sg)

'That reindeer is a doe

• (evn) Тар → (eng) that

  (evn) Тар<adj><sg><nom> → (eng) that<adj><sg><nom>

• (evn) орон → (eng) reindeer

  (evn) орон<n><sg><nom> → (eng) reindeer<n><sg><nom>

• (evn) ньами → (eng) female

  (evn) ньами<adj><sg><nom> → (eng) female<adj><sg><nom>

Negation

Evenki, when translating a list of things that are not the case, does not negate the verb, instead simply opting for a negative particle along with a negative subject, similar to the word nor in English.

With the sentence ӈи-вэл[prn] кэсэгӣчивунду[noun], са̄рича̄нинду эвки[the negation] бидемэчин[verb], which translates to English No one[prn] shall be subjected[verb] to torture[verb] or to cruel,[adj] inhuman[adj] or degrading[adj] treatment[noun] or punishment.[noun], the only negation in the Evenki sentence is эвки, as opposed to english where there is a positive or, but the only negation is in the subject.

identify at least five differences between the two languages, trying to cover a range of phenomena (e.g., don't make everything about nouns).

These can be anything where the analyses of equivalent phrases look different when the roots are ignored: i.e., differences in tags used (will appear as # in full pipeline output), differences in basic word order, etc. It can also be where a word is added (e.g., adding a definite article in English where one doesn't occur in another language) or where a tag determines a new word (e.g., a negative morpheme on a verb being realised as "not" in English).

evn-eng Tests

Use the TransferMorphTest and TransferTest templates. For each example, use both templates. The use of these templates is demonstrated above and on the Transfer rules page. You'll scrape the content of these templates into a file later for testing, so make sure to use them correctly!