two words

[David D. Robertson]

Kloshe chee polaklie, Colin,

Has anyone answered you yet?  These both are happen to be very good
questions about Jargon, as they touch on the expression of aspect, a key
area of CJ grammar.  In case it's worth getting into, your own formulations
are excellent and would probably allow you to make yourself understood.
Here are a couple notes:

"Clean" is rendered in some folks' fluent Jargon as just "clean", that is
as a pretty transparent loan from English.  In some other folks' Jargon,
I've come across a synonym "halo illahie", literally "without dirt".  By
correlation, "pahtl illahie" would be "dirty":  Literally "full of dirt".

"To begin to" do something...hmmm, I've got to consult sources.  The first
thing that comes to mind is "chee", in its meaning of "just now, just this
instant", *BUT* it seems to me this word tends to lend a sense that the
action's already been completed.  So for example, "chee (or chee alta) nika
mamook tzum" would be best understood as "I've just (now) written [it]."
George Gibbs (1863), which you can find online, furnishes just one
example, "chee nika ko" = "I have just arrived", which isn't tremendously
useful here since "arrive" has a valency of completed action to it already!

There is just one source where a casual glance rewards me with a way of
expressing "to begin", but it's an informal dictionary which doesn't
provide an example of the usage it mentions.  In brief, what you'd do is
say "mamook alta", literally "do [it] now".  I'm unable to tell you whether
this is attested in commands only, or in indicatives and so forth, or in
more than one mood.  Neither can I confirm for you whether there's
documented use with verbs other than "mamook", for example *"klatawa alta"
for *"start out (on one's journey)" or *"nanich alta" for *"start looking
[for something]".

However, experience in reading and hearing Chinook-Wawa teaches that it's
indeed worth relying on context, and I daresay you'd be very well
understood if you were to extend the example of "mamook alta" in the ways
suggested here.  Perhaps someone else reading this could teach us more.

Thanks for asking,

-- Dave



On Wed, 17 Jul 2002 07:51:07 +1000, Colin Bruce <cbruce at SMARTLINE.COM.AU>
wrote:

>I've been wrestling with two concepts.
>
>1) how to express cleanliness [klonas wik humm pe wik poolie]
>2) how to talk about the start or begining of something.  [klonas iktie
>klatawa pe okok chee]
>
>If anyone knows how these ideas are customarily expressed I'd appreciate
>hearing.