Pretty little girl's school

[Ear of the Sphinx]

How would your languages parse the different meanings? Would they make a difference?

[Xing]

(1) Ne marokeili xerelāla poe mitī ō gami.
INDEF school pretty CONJ little GEN girl

(2) Ne marokeili xerelāla ō ne gami mitī.
INDEF school pretty GEN INDEF girl little

(3) Ne marokeili ō ne gami xerelāla poe mitī.
INDEF school GEN INDEF girl pretty CONJ little

(4) Ne marokeili mitī keune ō gami.
INDEF school little pretty(ADV) GEN girl

(5) Ne marokeili ō ne gami mitī keune.
INDEF school GEN INDEF girl little pretty(ADV)

[pmitxki]

I'd say the ambiguity of “pretty little girl’s school” in English comes from several issues. First, it’s unclear which of the nouns “little” is modifying – the girl or the school. Second, it’s unclear if “pretty” is an adjective synonymous with “attractive”/“comely”/etc. or if it’s an adverb synonymous with “very” or “notably.” If it were an adverb it would be modifying the degree of the adjective “little.” If it were an adjective, however, there would still be the ambiguity of whether it were modifying the girl or the school.

I think the issue of whether “pretty” is the adverb or the adjective can be solved with vocabulary in other languages. English has this ambiguity simply because that same word has two completely different meanings dependent on context.

I know of at least one natlang that could solve all the problems, and that would be Latin. For one thing, the adjective pretty “bellus/a/um” could modify the girl or the school with the adjective and noun agreeing in gender, case, and number. Furthermore, the adverb form of “pretty” is handled differently altogether than the adjective form. So these would be the solutions in Latin according to the numbers on your chart.

aliquantulus/ae=small, bellus/ae= attractive (us/ae depending on modifying the school or the girl), aliquanto=considerably, ludus=school, puellae=girl’s (singular genitive)

1. Aliquantulus bellus ludus puellae
2. Bellus ludus puellae aliquantulae
3. Ludus puellae aliquantulae bellae
4. Aliquanto aliquantulus ludus puellae
5. Ludus puellae aliquanto aliquantulae

Pmitxki has the word “iabmuitse” for attractive and “didi” or "di-" prefix for the adverb “very.” This would clear up the adj/adv status of “pretty.” In addition, the adjectives “attractive” and “small” can be expressed by prefixes and suffixes on the nouns themselves.

e- prefix=small, ae- suffix= attractive, di- prefix=very, mipse=school, beape=girl, su- suffix=genitive

1. Emipsae beapesu
2. Mipsae ebeapesu
3. Mipse ebeapaesu
4. Diemipse beapesu
5. Mipse diebeapesu

[eldin raigmore]

I know of at least one natlang that could solve all the problems, and that would be Latin. For one thing, the adjective pretty “bellus/a/um”

Can you think of a situation where there's ambiguity between the adjective "bellum" and the noun "bellum"?

[pmitxki]

I know of at least one natlang that could solve all the problems, and that would be Latin. For one thing, the adjective pretty “bellus/a/um”

Can you think of a situation where there's ambiguity between the adjective "bellum" and the noun "bellum"?

Only to the extent that war and beauty are mentioned in the same sentence, which seems Roman enough...

[Visinoid]

Romance languages habitually clearly shows which noun is being described.

The translation of the English "of the", " 's" aren't always translatable as "de" in French.


1. La jolie petite école pour filles
[The pretty little school for girls]
2. La jolie école pour petites filles
[The pretty school for little girls]
3. L'école pour jolies petites filles
[The school for pretty little girls]
4. L'assez petite école de la fille
[The girl's pretty little school]
5. L'école de l'assez petite fille
[The pretty little girl's school]

In French, it has even more possibilities than those 5, using alternately "pour"/"de", "jolie/assez".

Pour = The girls is going to that school.
De = The school belongs to her.
Jolie = Pretty / Beautiful
Assez = Pretty / Enough

Typing them all would be more tiring than useful.

[eldin raigmore]

Romance languages habitually clearly shows which noun is being described.

The translation of the English "of the", " 's" isn't always translatable as "de" in French.


1. La jolie petite école pour filles
[The pretty little school for girls]
2. La jolie école pour petites filles
[The pretty school for little girls]
3. L'école pour jolies petites filles
[The school for pretty little girls]
4. La petite école pour filles
[The little school for girls]
5. L'école pour petites filles
[The school for little girls]

In examples 5 and 6 you have no translation for the ad-adjectival degree-adverb "pretty", and so the English
[[pretty little] [girl's school]] and
[[[pretty little] girl]'s school] are not completely translated.
You might use "assez" to gloss "pretty" when "pretty" is used as a degree-word modifying "little".

4. L'école assez petite pour filles
[The rather small school for girls]
5. L'école pour filles assez petites
[The school for rather small girls]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, please.

[Visinoid]

Haaaa. I just forgot it while typing it. (Trying to translate 4 and 5 with "pretty")

2 secs... Verifying.

EDIT: Found it. The problem is, there's more than 5 ways to express the English phrase above.
I used the first 5 that came to my mind.

[xinda]

Mandarin:

1. 漂亮的小女子校
piao4liang4 de xiao3 nv3zi xiao4
pretty GEN small female school
a small school for girls which is pretty

2. 漂亮的小女孩的學校
piao4liang4 de xiao3 nv3hai2 de xue2xiao4
pretty GEN small girl GEN school
pretty school of little girls

3. 漂亮的小女孩的學校
piao4liang4 de xiao3 nv3hai2 de xue2xiao4
pretty GEN small girl GEN school
school of the pretty little girls

2,3 are the same and are ambiguous.

4. 漂亮的小女子校
piao4liang4 de xiao3 nv3zi xiao4
pretty GEN small female school
school of girls which is pretty and little

1,4 are the same and ambiguous.

5. 又小又漂亮的女孩的學校
you4 xiao3 you4 piao4liang4 de nv3hai2 de xue2xiao4
also small also pretty GEN girl GEN school
school for girls who are both pretty and little

[Creyeditor]

Kobardon

(1)
dofar mífima ut prifindos
dof-ar mí<fi>m-a pri<fi>nd-os
happy-INDEF.SG school<DIM>-INDEF.SG woman<DIM>-INDEF.PL
happy little school for girls

(2)
dofar míma ut pritindos
dof-ar mím-a ut pri<ti>nd-os
happy-INDEF.SG school<DIM.ELA>-INDEF.SG for woman<DIM.ELA>-INDEF.PL
happy school for little girls

(3)
míma ut dofas pritindos
mím-a ut dof-as pri<ti>nd-os
school<DIM.ELA>-INDEF.SG for happy-INDEF.PL woman<DIM.ELA>-INDEF.PL
school for happy little girls

Time to show off my diminutives. Also, I don't think I can do (4) or (5) because you cannot modify a diminutive by an adverb, I think. No ambiguity because there is no compounding or possessive construction here. Also, the adjective agrees with the noun it modifies in number, so even less room for ambiguity.

[lsd]

3SDL:
Cp¼q©§ª-©¸x¼\©¼IÔ°©d«K©Ê©Iy§JI-©¸q§ªp¼C
(pretty house of smallness and of girls of youth and learning now and of prettyness...)
just delete the extra arguments,
knowing “little” is not the same in 3SDL if it applies to school (small) and girls (young)...

[Flavia]

The Abaniscena do not have the human concept of gender, so I'm going to use cielnas, meaning 'human'. They would probably borrow nouns for human gender from Latin, but these would be very specialised vocabulary.

ischola i cheviar i iashi i cielnaresnemor
school that happy that small that human<O>-PL
'a happy little school for humans'

ischola i cheviar i cielnaresnemor iles iashi
school that happy that human<O>-PL that<PL> small
'a happy school for little humans'

ischola i cielnaresnemor iles iashi iles cheviar
school that human<O>-PL that<PL> small that-PL happy
'a school for happy little humans'

[Creyeditor]

Oh cool. So is it mainly number agreement that helps to disambiguate in the Abaniscena language?

[Flavia]

Oh cool. So is it mainly number agreement that helps to disambiguate in the Abaniscena language?

Thanks. Order is important as well, but number agreement is definitely the main disambiguating factor.