Kílta Lexember 18: válusórin "ambitious"

The English word ambitious apparently only started to take on positive senses in the 1600s. The Kílta word reflects a deep ambivalence about it, suggesting a certain aggressive, grasping quality.

válusórin /βaː.luˈsoː.ɾin/ ambitious < vál privilege, perq + -ór-in adj. derivation meaning fond of

In new derivations and compounds Kílta will make an effort to avoid sequences of heavy syllables. It's not completely precious about it — there are, after all, roots that have HH patterns — but it will try. In the case of the -ór-in suffix, the usual ligature to add a light element -ar- is too echo-y, so the noun compounding ligature -u(s)- is preferred here.

Válusórin kattëkës në avur nalaikin kata si chasëtiu máko.
ambitious boss TOP 1PL further work ACC do.PURP.CVB.PFV want.PFV
Our ambitious boss wants us to work more.

There are a few common collocations I worry about when generating new words: intensity, approval, good/bad for a purpose. There are others, but those are pretty core. A simple very is usually available, but not very interesting, and in many natural languages, not even usual for many words. Approval for this word is unlikely for Kílta, but I'm going with mákohin covetous as the main term for intense ambition (adverbialized if necessary). Using these collocations is one of the main things I try to do in my example sentences in the lexicon.

The noun is válusóras ambition. Certain actions might expose ambition, which is indicated with ráno signal, gesture, point (out).

Sím vë lár në mákohin válusóras mai ráno.
3SG ATTR word TOP covetous ambition LAT signal.PFV
What he said exposed his intense ambition.

Kílta Lexember 17: líkkis si salko "feed"

Today is another phrasal creation, made up of words that already exist.

In the existing Kílta corpus there are already a very small uses of the word sanëlo, which is just the causative of sano eat, for feed, but I don't like it. I've decided that sanëlo is confined to industrial or mechanical feeding, as well as experimental settings where we might say we're feeding (culturing) bacteria or whatnot. Force-feeding a prisoner, or as a form of torture, would also use sanëlo. For normal feeding:

líkkis si salko feed < líkkis food + salko put, place; with the dative for the recipient

Ton në ké mautur kë líkkis si salko tul?
2SG TOP already cat.PL DAT food ACC put Q
Have you fed the cats yet?

Every once in a while, you have to do this sort of lexical retconning when something that seemed like a good idea at the time turns out later to not be what you want. The light verb expression here is more in the spirit of the language.

Kílta Lexember 16: máchumórama "the middle of nowhere"

There was a recent /r/conlangs post about different language's ways of saying something like "the middle of nowhere." Some are a bit vulgar, and a lot involve animal, or the devil.

My old work office had a very boring view, but due to how the lighting worked at the building, I always had a few spider webs there, to catch the bugs attracted to the evening lighting. So, I had a very close view to the work of the spiders, and their battle with the wasps. I kept track of the spiders a bit in my conlang diary, as something to talk about other than the weather. In part because of this, Kílta has a proverb, a close translation of the Latin lupus est homo homini, man is wolf to man, that is, people prey on other people. In the Kílta, I've simply put spiders into the role of the wolf, kor në kor kë mácha no.

With spiders as wolves in mind, I decided my "middle of nowhere" phrase would involve them:

máchumórama /maː.tʃu.moːˈræ.ma/ (the) middle of nowhere < mácha spider + móro sing + -ama location derivation

So, "where the spiders sing." It is nicely alliterative.

Símur në ta si máchumórama nen vuttë onno?
3PL TOP this ACC middle.of.nowhere LOC why build.PFV
Why did they build this in the middle of nowhere?

An alternate, fuller, phrasing has even more alliteration:

Máchur mórátin ummul
spider.PL sing.PCPL.IPFV forest
the forest where the spiders sing

Kílta has contextually-oriented participles, which can take on a locative sense with place words.