Talk:Empotle7á/Lexicon

I've just uploaded a version of the Empotle7á lexicon with improved formatting, especially with regard to the etymologies. I originally did this on my local wiki at home to get a better overview of ideas I could possibly adapt for my own Western languages, and I found it too useful not to share. Hope you don't mind!

There are a couple of words though which might be off a bit... let's see:

• kulótlená 'bear' must be from *kʷułuʔu-džĩʔĩ-ta or similar, which is said to mean 'honey-eater', but *kʷułu means 'wolf', so I interpret the source as something like 'honey-animal of the wolf', which doesn't make much sense. If you want the meaning 'honey-eater', suitable PW source words would be *wecu-džĩʔĩkʰa-daya or *wecu-džĩʔĩkʰa-lawa, which might give reflexes like otsútleŋáé or otsútleŋálo respectively, if the *-ʔĩ- gets contracted away.
• phétlópása 'bronze' is given as (phétlo-7ú pásá 'son of copper'), and wokuwolé 'eagle' is given as < *γʷekudu-γʷeley 'mountain eagle'. However, in both of these words the component order should normally be head-final AFAIUI, resulting in the meanings 'copper of the son' and 'mountain of the eagle', which is probably not what you intended. A similar objection, though not as severe, applies to Lé7úlawo 'The Smoke Snake (a constellation)' (lé-7ú lawo), which literally means 'smoke of the snake' but seems to be intended as 'snake of smoke'. So it might be a good idea to swap around the components here (note that the "construct case" in Proto-Western is a misnomer, it works more or less like an ordinary genitive case!), which would give something like pásáophétlo 'bronze' < 'son of copper'; wolúwoku < *γʷeley-ʔu γʷekudu 'eagle of the mountain'; and Lawólé 'snake of smoke'.

Cedh (talk) 13:33, 22 May 2018 (PDT)

The same comment applies to the newest addition, lalláokhápá, which is probably intended to mean 'ear of the tree', but would seem to actually have the meaning 'ear-tree' instead. IMO the reversed form khápáolallá would make more sense. Cedh (talk) 04:26, 29 April 2019 (PDT)

Re: Thanks for the Review

Thank you for your insightful comments, Cedh. I must confess that my extensive training in Arabic has biased me towards the understanding of 'construct state' in the way that you see so evidently in the examples above :D Good to know more about how PW's construct state functions now.

I certainly don't mind at all; the new lexemes you conjured up have a nice ring to them, and it's always good to have review of one's work, especially in such a niche hobby like conlanging!