Re: Articles, determiners, quantifiers, whatever...

Sally Caves wrote:

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> No, it was me who was inattentive.  When I went back and looked at your
> original post, I understood finally what you were asking for.  Sorry.
Apologies accepted.  ;-)

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>>vo valhça kik'be djife te'kja.
>>[vo va4.ça kik(i)'be: djife te:'kja]
>>[from]the sky (descriptor)'(case marking) color (indicative past)'I.
>>= I saw the color of the sky.
> Where does the concept "see" or "seeing" come in here?  I'm confused by the
> second line with the brackets around your Shaquelingua, and the numbers.  I
> guess I need to visit your site.  I do like the tense-marked pronoun! :)  (I
> remember THAT thread!)
The second line is the phonetics in (C)XSAMPA and [4] is the alveolar flap
(japanese r/l). And I make a little mistake... The "ç" should be "C".

[val.Ca]

About "seeing", everything is in the descriptor "kik" which litteraly means
"to acquire an immaterial quality". So the sentence could be translated into
"I became green like the sky" but it make no sense then "kik'be djife" (to
acquire the immaterial quality "color") is an idiomatism for "to see the color".

kik'be ratja = to acquire the vision = to see/to look
kik'be døkil = to acquire the sound = to hear/to listen

but...

kik'be køpëç = to acquire the beauty = to become beautiful
kik'be købisju = the acquire the strangeness = to become strange

If I really want to say "to become green like the sky", I will use another
descriptor meaning "to acquire the physical quality".

vo valhça rar'be pølika te'taja dapei.
[vo: va4.Ca xax(a)'be: p9lika te:'taja: dape^i]
[from]the sky (descriptor)'(case marking) green (indicative past)'his face.
= His face became green like the sky.

>>vir'be pølika teo'pevaa.
>>[vix(i)'be: p94ika te^o:'peva^a]
>>(descriptor)'(case marking) green (indicative atemporal)'*resumptive*
>>= *It* is green.
>>= *The color* is green.
>>If I change the resumptive into "povaa", now it means "the sky". It makes
>>no sense here but I could change the resumptive into "pavaa" to represent
>> "I".
> So "I am green"?  pevaa, pavaa, povaa... how are these working to suggest
> the order of reference?
Yes, you are green!  ;-)  Well, that's easy: p(1)v(2)(2)

There are 7 possible cases in Shaquelingua which are always represented by a
vowel: o e a ë i u ø. In a simple sentence there can usually only be one of
each. You choose which one you want to repeat, that's the (1). The (2) is
the declension applied to the resumptive pronoun in the new sentence.

In my exemple, the declensions are here:

v*o* valhça kik'b*e* djife te'kj*a*.

So I can have pov(2)(2), pev(2)(2) and pav(2)(2). Neat, isn't it?

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> Nice examples with the pronouns and their various antecedants.
Thank you, I like them too.

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>>Now, I know these are adjectives everywhere except in Shaquelingua.
Besides, the first paragraph of the old page about the quantifiers contain
the sentence "Other aspects for which you, Humans, would use a pronoun or
and adjective join in the same way, without peculiarity."

I didn't remember I've ever written this sentence! Alzheimer!  ;-)

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>>>Essentially, then, anything that can "determine" a noun
>>>in a closed list (short of words like "flowery," "shadowed," "unctious,"
>>>"unhallowed," "benighted," "free," or any other endless parade of
>>>descriptors.
>>That's more or less the description of an agglutinative language.
> Not at all, Remi.  Ergative, accusative, synthetic, analytic and
> what-have-you languages use articles, determiners, quantifiers and
> adjectives.  I don't quite understand you.
Yes, Sally, it is! I understood that you suggested to put together the
(real) articles and all the possible adjectives in one word, that looks like
much agglutinative too me. Partially agglutinative, accretive,
(poly)synthetic are just variations around the theme of agglutination.

> What I was trying to suggest for
> your category (but it seems that you have to work this out yourself) is a
> "closed class" or list of words that determine or quantify or modify a noun.
> This doesn't make it agglutinative.  A closed class (you obviously know
> this) is a series of words that are not subject to innovation or change,
> like our English words "the, that, a, an, each, all, every, his, hers,
> theirs, my, your," etc. as opposed to a list of attributive or predicate
> adjectives that one can borrow endlessly into the language and expand it.
> Words like  "flowery, unctious, shadowed, unhallowed, benighted, magnifique,
> typical, brazen, agglutinative, bizarre, existential, fast, blue, azure,
> muslim, karate-like..."  That's what I meant.
That's clearer this way. And that's exactly what I've done in Shaquelingua
with the closed (although very large) class of the quantifiers ("real" or
possessive or adjective articles) and the open class of the qualities
("real" or attributive adjectives, adverbs and more).

>>Shaquelingua is agglutinative sometimes but not that far!
> You might be using this term a little loosely just to mean "accretive."
Very loosely! I should learn more about natlangs' grammar. I didn't know the
word "accretive" applied to grammar. I thought that accretion only concerns
the formation of the planets.

> I
> was giving you a list, not writing a sentence.  Or you might be describing
> an aspect of Shaquelingua and its use or non-use of adjectives that I'm not
> privy to, yet, because I have forgotten which site is yours (I think I got
> it mixed up with Jonathan Knibb's T4 site).  But I think you need to rethink
> your term "agglutinative."
Certainly but it doesn't really matter; I won't say on my site what kind of
language the Shaquelingua is. I don't really know. There are constructed
particles which must be used sometimes alone, sometimes bound to other
words. Maybe should I say that Shaquelingua is polysynthetic to make
everybody happy.  ;-)

And the address is:

http://cakesar.ontheweb.nu 	(Brand new!)

(or directly)

http://perso.normandnet.fr/maxilys/cakesar/index.html

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> Do you see my point?  German is hardly an
> agglutinative language in the strict sense of the term, and yet it commonly
> puts a string of modifiers together before the noun, some of them
> compounded:  "the young, pretty, pink-dress-wearing, yet-to-arrive woman."
> It can be accretive.  It's one of the features of German I find really cool,
> and Mark Twain hated so much as to write an article about it: "That Awful
> German Language."
If that's the definition of accretive, then Shaquelingua is accretive.

vu datsój køpëç kibo-bizëvo løto-suku rayadëj juça
[vu: da.tsOj k9pEC kibo:bizEvo 49to:suku raHadEj juCa]

[about]the young beautiful with-tunic (anticipative indicative future)-here
female person

Sorry for the pink dress, I can't. I haven't much clothes in my lexicon and
I don't master the shaquean colors yet. Besides, it wouldn't fit in here.

And the only words that aren't built someway here are "kibo" (with),
"bizëvo" (tunic), "rayadëj" (female) and "juça" (person).

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>>No verb in Shaquelingua. No adverb either. For your example, I'd use a
>>postposition turned into a kind of adjective that I call "quality".
> Right. Now I'm remembering!  We had that long exchange about verbless
> languages!  Sorry to be so forgetful.  So no verbs and no adjectives?  And
> no adverbs?  Your language is strictly nominal?  That's why I was confusing
> it with T4.
I said "no real adjectives" because the substantives have both values: noun
and quality. For example:

vur'be xuçteo teo'kaa xuçteo.
[vux(u)'be: x\u.Cte^o te^o:'ka^a: x\u.Cte^o]
(quality descriptor)'(case marking) gift (indicative atemporal)'all gift.
= All the gifts are given.
(It's a saying meaning "You can't take back what's been given.)

Where quality+gift = (being) given.

vir'ske kvisëj teo'gava kvisëj.
[vix(i)'ske: kvisEj te^o:'gava kvisëj]
(quality descriptor)'zero tree (indicative atemporal)'(close the) tree.
= This tree isn't a tree.
(It's a grass, like the bamboo.)

Where quality+zero+tree = not (being) a tree.

I didn't use the same descriptor (It doesn't matter.) but here "given" and
"not a tree" have the same (shaquean) grammatical value: quality.

About the adverbs, either they become a full circumstancial complement or
they get integrated as quality in the semantical group they modify.

*ji kaçtólu tyë,* kyó'be flu to'taj.
[ji: ka.CtO4u tHE], [kwO'be: f4u to:'taj]
one soon before, (descriptor)'(case marking) (toward closer) (indicative
future)'he.
= He will come soon.

Or in a more shaquean way:

kyó'be *kaçtólu* flu to'taj.
[kwO'be: ka.CtO4u f4u to:'taj]
(descriptor)'(case marking) soon (toward closer) (indicative future)'he.
= He will come soon.

Here "soon" is an attribute of "toward closer" which is a postposition that
behaves like a noun and is a quality according to the shaquean grammar.
Because of "be" which is a special quantifier that turns a noun into a
quality but, first, because of the descriptor "kyó" which means "physical
evolutive _quality_"; qualities can also have more regular quantifiers.

sjeos'kja re yilaklaju tir'tivrë yekikxa.
[sje^os(o)'kja xe: Hi4a.k4aju tix(i)'tivxE: Heki.kx\a]

(potential atemporel irreal)'I several shadowcaster
(descriptor)'[to](resumptive the)(pl.) quality.

= I could call these qualities "trouble-makers".

;-)

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>>If you want so much to read more from me, go to my site and come back to
>>tell me that it is beautiful. (I like compliments too...)  ;-)
> I will!  But now I have to go shopping for items for my trip.  I'll get back
> to you.  But I'm a slower reader with a poor memory--so many things going
> on--so have patience! :)
No problem. The more you wait, the more you'll get to read. I'm a quick
writer too...

zato'kja hej tul, [zato:'kja x\ej tu4] (I'll express myself again,)

--
================
Remi Villatel
maxilys@tele2.fr
================

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