Henrik Theiling wrote:
> Dear fellow Conlangers!
>
> I have just finished a preliminary version of the syntax chapter of my
> current conlang project S9 whose preliminary name is 'Da Mätz se
> Basa'.  It's a Germanic conlang, derived from German, so syntax is
> quite interesting.
>
> Because that chapter is quite long (with many tables, not so much
> text), I'd like to give you a pointer to the www instead of posting
> things here:
>
>    http://www.theiling.de/projects/s9/s_03#04
>
> Enjoy reading and please comment!
>
> Bye,
>   Henrik


Wow - nice language! And how curious to see a conlang that has nearly
exactly the same word order as Dutch.

I see that you have borrowed the negative complement "nie" from
Afrikaans. Cool! I like it. But is it your intention to put the
complement (changed to "nä", I see) in the same clause where the first
negation ("nich") appears? Afrikaans puts the complement *after* any
subordinate clause:

As die weervoorspelling saans gelees word, weet ons veral nie waar wat
[...] gaan gebeur nie.
When the weather-forecast in-the-evening read is, know we [?] not where
what [...] is-going-to happen not-COMPL.
When the weather forecast is read in the evening, we don't know what is
going to happen where [...]. (snipped stuff irrelevant to the example)

(interesting word BTW: za:"saans" ~ nl:"'s avonds" ~ de:"abends" (en:"in
the evening"))

Moenie die deur oopmaak voor die trein stilstaan nie.
Must-not the door open before the train stands-still not-COMPL.
Do not open the door before the train stands still.

So in order to use the same word order as in Afrikaans, your example:

..., dat ich nich kan sä nä, dat du de Buch äna Kota lis
..., that I not can see not-COMPL, that you the book in-the village read
..., that I cannot see that you read the book in the village

should read:

..., dat ich nich kan sä, dat du de Buch äna Kota lis nä
..., that I not can see, that you the book in-the village read not-COMPL
..., that I cannot see that you read the book in the village

Since your site does say that "its usage is quite similar to Afrikaans
'nie'", I guess this feature slipped through?


Baie groete :)
René