Speak Eldraeic Like a Semi-Literate Barbarian (3): Descriptive Metaphors

Posted by Associated Worlds

In today’s episode of Speak Eldraeic Like A Semi-Literate Barbarian, we cover descriptive metaphors. These are the least accurate and thus, inevitably, the most common type of modified word, a phrase that can take the place of an análar in any part of a sentence where one may be used, including both the anesprel and the rélar.

The descriptive metaphor (or the atratanálar, “typed-concept-word”, to give it its native name), is the least accurate type of modified word because it avoids the complexity of precisely defining the nature of the relationship with sub-clauses and cases by relying on metaphorical interpretation by the listener. For example, the name for a certain common weapon, tragalrás athánar, “Meat Machine”, or by its extended gloss, meat TYPE-OF machine, actually says very little about the relationship between meat and mechanism.

Is it a machine made out of meat? A meat-covered machine? A machine implant for meat? A machine for growing meat? A machine that serves the function of meat? Or a machine, as it in fact is, for reducing folks to meat?

There’s no way to tell. It depends on interpretation of the metaphor¹, so it is a form best avoided in scientific or technical discussions, unexplored areas of intercultural or interracial exchange, and other precisionist-grade speech. To use them is to assume the risk of being misunderstood in exchange for briefer expression.

That said, atratanálar are the closest equivalent to the adjective-noun² or adverb-verb combinations found in Anglic³, which also blend two concepts in a type-of relationship. It should be noted, however, that while it and other languages have rules concerning which words are allowed to modify and be modified, in Eldraeic, any análar may modify any other; you have complete freedom of metaphor generation, limited only by the comprehension of your listener.

Simple Atratanálar

So, some examples (using a few words that aren’t in articles we’ve reached yet, but not in the vital parts):

pí tramúlet lórravár
This-here is-a apple-type-of-tree.
This is an apple tree.

ádar Méris tradúëlin nissívár
The-person-named Méris is a young type-of female.
Méris is a young woman. or Méris is a girl.

val tralaras hainár
I words-type-of fight.
I argue. (Probably. Heh.)

This is the basic form of the atratanálar. The descriptive análar is placed before the described, and prefixed with tra- to indicate its descriptive function. Within the atratanálar, the first component is referred to as the carylan, the modifier-concept, and the latter as the cadarylan, the modified-concept. The cadarylan carries the primary meaning and the carylan modifies it with secondary overtones to be applied in a manner appropriate to the cadarylan. (For example, in the second example, tradúëlin should be interpreted as “young in the manner in which nissí, i.e., females, are young⁴”.

Complex Atratanálar

Sometimes we need more complex descriptions, either attaching more than one descriptive metaphor to the same cadarylan, or using a descriptive metaphor to describe the carylan of a second descriptive metaphor. To combine this with an example of ambiguity resolution, consider the following Anglic phrase⁵:

That’s a little girl’s school.

If treated as an example of the former, it would be interpreted as

That’s a little school for girls.

And if treated as an example of the latter.

That’s a school for little girls.

Many languages use intonation, stress, or rhythm to show the grouping. Eldraeic does not, by design. Rather, it structures such sayings in the form of a stack of stacks, thus:

pá tracalma tradúënissí alathyravár
That-there is-a small TYPE-OF [and] girls TYPE-OF school.
That’s a little school for girls.

pá tratracalma tradúënissí alathyravár
That-there is-a (small TYPE-OF girls) TYPE-OF school.
That’s a school for little girls.

In constructing these complex atratanálar, the prefix tra- binds the carylan to the next cadarylan to its right on the same level of the stack. In the first example, therefore, both calma and dúënissí modify alathyra. In the second example, the doubled prefix tratra- does so at the next level of the stack; i.e., it binds the carylan “calma” to the cadarylan “dúënissí”, and does so before, interpretatively speaking, the single tra- present there binds the now-complete carylan “tracalma dúënissí” to the cadarylan “alathyra“.

Which is to say, it is simply two nested atratanálar. Various combinations of nested atratanálar form the basis of all the more complex descriptions we will cover below.

It should be clear that this system can recurse through arbitrary depths of modifiers, with increasingly repetitive prefixes of tra-, tratra-, and tratratra- – although as is a common feature of Eldraeic grammar, the language permits syllabic numerals (discussed in a later article) to be used rather than repetition⁶ – and that any construct thus assembled is necessarily unambiguous.

Digression

It’s worth saying, of course, that the equivalents of “pretty little girl’s school” in Eldraeic don’t have quite as many variations as those in Anglic. For example, aelva strictly means “beautiful” and does not have the auxiliary “very” sense that “pretty” does. Likewise, calma means only “small in size” and cannot mean “young” (which would be dúëlin). And, of course, alathyra technically doesn’t mean school, inasmuch as the Empire doesn’t use such institutions – it means institute/academy/university.

So we’re still going to use this convenient phrase in our example, but do bear in mind that we’re discussing a Beautiful Academy of Short Young Women.

Complex Examples

There are five ways in which the análar of “pretty little girl’s school” can be grouped using tra- without reordering them:

traäelva tracalma tradúënissí alathyra
pretty TYPE-OF [and] small TYPE-OF [and] girls TYPE-OF school
a school which is beautiful, small, and for girls

traäelva tratracalma tradúënissí alathyra
pretty TYPE-OF [and] (small TYPE-OF girls) TYPE-OF school
a beautiful school for small girls

tratraäelva tracalma tradúënissí alathyra
(pretty TYPE-OF small) TYPE-OF [and] girls TYPE-OF school
a beautifully small school for girls

tratraäelva tratracalma tradúënissí alathyra
(pretty TYPE-OF [and] small TYPE-OF girls) TYPE-OF school
a school for girls who are beautiful and small

tratratraäelva tratracalma tradúënissí alathyra
((pretty TYPE-OF small) TYPE-OF girls) TYPE-OF school
a school for girls who are beautifully small

And that’s all she described!

See also later: inverted descriptive metaphors; logical connection in descriptive metaphors.

While no general theory of interpretation exists, it is considered appropriate to maintain regularities of usage. Inasmuch as, for example, calma (“small”) and zahúën (“large”) are parallels, so too should be tracalma azik (“small stone”) and trazahúën azik (“large stone”), and in approximately the same way.
Eldraeic only has análar, which serve all these functions.
The closest convenient transliteration of “English” into Eldraeic phonology.
Quite dissimilar, obviously, to the way in which yoghurt, buildings, or stars, are young.
Yes, we’re going to use “pretty little girl’s school” as our example phrase, just like everyone else who gets here.
Common examples being totra-, the little-used equivalent of tratra-, tetra– for tratratra-, and fotra- for tratratratra-. Not incorrect but never heard is netra-, identical to simply tra-, and using nitra- to mean something that does not describe the cadarylan at all is considered entirely too precious.

And yes, there’s a contemporaneous update of the vocabulary page, too.

Speak Eldraeic Like a Semi-Literate Barbarian (2): Predication

Posted by Associated Worlds

(In the course of reading through this, the attentive reader and language hobbyist may note that Eldraeic bears more than a few similarities to Loglan and/or lojban. This similarity is, of course, purely intentional.)

To examine the grammar of a language, one must start by breaking it down into its most basic elements. In Eldraeic, being a language of logical form, the basic compound element is the predication, or esprel, an assertion of something about the world:

sá fidúrár
It is blue.

A predication (esprel) is made up of several components. At its center, you find the anesprel, or predicate, the assertion being made. An anesprel is one of the análar, or concept-words (derived from anála, concept, and laras, word) which make up the majority of the Eldraeic vocabulary, which has been adorned with -ár, the predication suffix, which marks it as the anesprel. (The predication suffix may be lengthened to -vár when the análar ends with a vowel.)

análar, thus, effectively serve as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and many adverbs, all of which are types of assertion.

The esprel also requires arguments (rélar) to fully define the assertion being made by filling in the complete form (see below) of the anesprel. These can appear anywhere around the anesprel, although conventional, non-poetic form places the subject/actor before the anesprel and the remainder of the arguments after it. The precise function of a given argument relative to the predicate is given by a case tag which is prefixed to the argument, although that for the subject/actor is normally omitted when placed alone before the anesprel. Others are mandatory.

While a full list of case tags will be given at a later date, that for subject/actor is a-; that for object/acted-upon is an-. These two are the most commonly used. More details on forming arguments will also be given at a later date. For now we are using mirílar (lit. structure-word, derived from miríë, order, and laras), words with special grammatical functions, specifically some of those which can occupy the role of a pronoun. Strictly called free variables, the special words sá, sé, sí, só, and sú can be bound to any argument, regardless of any other properties it may have, and used later to refer back to that argument.

Thus, we can see that in the phrase

sá fidúrár an-sé

the first rélar, the subject, is sá (A), the anesprel is fidúr (…is bluer than…), and the second rélar, the object, is sé (B). Or, to write it in plain English simply, A is bluer than B.

Comparative? No, Complete Forms

It should be noted that fidúr, when used as an anesprel, means not simply “blue” but “SUBJECT is bluer than OBJECT” (or to give its full complete form “SUBJECT is bluer than OBJECT by STANDARD”). This is the case for most análar which refer to properties; likewise, relational análar, such as aldren (sister), can have a similar complete form, “SUBJECT is the sister of OBJECT [by bond/tie STANDARD | from parents CREATOR <set> ]”.

Every análar has (and is listed thus in an Eldraeic dictionary) a complete form expressing its full meaning when used as an anesprel, defining the entire meaning of the resulting esprel by showing the places in which its expected arguments sit (and the case tags to be attached to them). This complete form is not binding with regard to which arguments you must supply – you may omit arguments and add additional ones via case tags which are not found in the complete form – but it is assumed that the arguments from the complete form are present, even if unspoken. Thus, all blue objects are bluer than something, all sisters have sororal bonds and/or parents, and when you make something:

mahav (make) has the complete form “SUBJECT makes / assembles / builds / manufactures / creates OBJECT out of materials / parts / components COMPONENT using tool INSTRUMENT”

It is implied that you make it out of something and use a tool to do so.

The Omitted Argument

What then does sá fidúrár, which we earlier translated as “it is blue” mean? Well, technically this is an allowed elision of a slightly longer form:

sá fidúrár an-uis

uis is an indefinite argument (of which more later), which serves as a verbal ellipsis, a placeholder for when an argument is omitted; such incomplete esprel always imply uis. Naturally, it can be elided – in normal speech, you never actually need to say uis – but it can be useful if you wish to draw attention to the argument you are omitting.

As an omitted argument, uis means “something which exists but which I am not bothering to define, except as implied by the esprel I am within”. In the case of sá fidúrár an-uis (or simply sá fidúrár), you are simply saying that the subject is bluer than “something”, which is to say, that the subject is blue.

Observatives

Two special types of esprel are the observative and the imperative. Of the imperative we shall speak later.

An observative, meanwhile, is simply an esprel in which the subject/actor is omitted. These are referred to as observatives because their common usage is to observe that something is happening without details and to communicate that quickly; for example, should one find oneself in a crowded theater, one may cry:

andravár!
Fire!

without wishing to take time to establish precisely what is burning.

The Associated Worlds

…building civilizations with my space elves in space.

predicates

Speak Eldraeic Like a Semi-Literate Barbarian (3): Descriptive Metaphors

Speak Eldraeic Like a Semi-Literate Barbarian (2): Predication