Ring B: 1/20: Da Mätz se Basa

This is the original original my wife wrote:

Maßnahmen gegen die Winterdepression

Eines Morgens im Dezember konnte man gegenüber der Bushaltestelle Zeuge des folgenden Schauspiels werden:

Ein Jüngling, offensichtlich auf dem Weg zur Schule, stand vor einer Gartenumzäunung, einen dicken, roten Kater auf der Schulter. Der Kater balancierte geschickt, während der Jüngling sich mühte, das Tier von seinen Schultern zu kippen. Dabei schaute er zunehmend panisch zur Bushaltestelle herüber, wohl wissend, daß der Bus jede Sekunde kommen müßte. Den Kater störte das nicht. Einmal setzte er eine Pfote auf die Mauer, fand diese offenbar zu kalt und zog sich wieder auf den Rucksack des Schülers zurück. Als er es sich gerade darauf bequem gemacht und die Pfoten untergeschlagen hatte, kam der Schulbus.

Der Kater hatte danach vermutlich noch einen interessanten Tag.

• Da Mätz se Basa is an a posteriori language derived from Modern German with influence from Dutch, Afrikaans, Chinese, and others.
• Morphology is very limited. The lexicon lists words unchanged.
• Case: direct (collapsed nominative + accusative), dative.
• Number: singular, plural.
• Definiteness: definite, indefinite
• Case, number and definiteness are all marked on the article.
• Adjectives, relative clauses and possessives precede the phrase they modify.
• Articles precede nouns (and their modifiers) and are optional in front of possessive constructions, and are forbidden before determiners ("some", "no", etc.). Articles are also used before mass nouns. Ex.: Ich dräk ne Nai. I drink a milk 'I drink milk.' If left out, definiteness, case and number information must be inferred.
• For prepositions that can be followed by both direct and dative case, dir. denotes a direction, dat. a location.
• Articles and 3rd person pronouns are indistinguishable. Be careful, this can be confusing!
• Preposition + 3rd person pronoun/article fuse into one word if adjacent, even if they belong to different phrases. The lexicon list such fusions.
• In a verb phrase, auxiliaries precede the main verb. The first verb in such a phrase, the head verb, is shifted to first or second position when the word order changes.
• There are three word orders:

  V-Last Order (this is the basic order)

  SOV: in certain subordinate clauses

  V1-Order

  The first verb of the verb phrase is shifted to the front. Used in questions, suggestives, and in certain subordinate clauses triggered by some conjunctions.

  V2-Order

  Starting from V1-order, the subject or an adverb is shifted to the front. Normal propositional order: the fronted constituent is the topic. By default, this is the subject, so you get SVO order here.

  In the lexicon, conjunctions will show which order is selected.
• The very end of a clause is often decorated with a complement for truth value ("ja", "nä", "ima") and/or for speech act ("höma", "to", "he"). "ja" (positive truth value) and "höma" (propositional speech act) are optional -- if they are present, they are emphatic.
• 'se': a frequent particle in the construction:

  A 'se' B

  There are two possible interpretations:
  1. If B is a noun, then A is a general modification of B. This is used for relative clauses, possessives, and composition. A bit like Chinese 'de' or Japanese 'no'. In the neighbourhood of vowels, the word reduces to 's'. Ex.:

     kom  se Man
     come SE man
     "coming man"

     In relative clauses, a subject article is optional:

     (de)  Man drik  ne  Nai  se Zäk
     (the) man drink a   milk SE time
     "time when the man drank milk"

     If A is a noun phrase, it is in dative case:

     da  Man se Modo        ('da' is dat.sg.)
     the man SE mother
     "the man's mother"

     Compounds are also formed with 'se' (often, the article of A is then dropped):

     Ä        se Man
     marriage SE man
     "husband"

  2. If A is a verb and B is an adjective, the resulting adjective describes a quality of the action denoted by A. Ex.:

     mach se hau
     do   SE good
     "well-done"

• Adjectives may be used as adverbs without modification.
• All nouns are capitalised.