Re: Adjectives, Particles, and This ( etc ), and Conjunctions...

On Wed, 17 Jan 2001, Nik Taylor wrote:

> Marcus Smith wrote:
> > Unless you were yelling through a wall or across a valley.
>
> Hmm ... or in a thick fog, I suppose.  Okay, I guess it could've
> happened.  Are there any examples of that in natlangs, then?
Well, probably not exactly what you're looking for, but Shoshoni
has a highly articulated demonstrative system; here's how it
works.

Demonstratives consist of two parts, a proximal prefix and a
demonstrative stem. Most prefixes come in pairs, one with an
initial s- and one without. The s- forms are more definite and
are used for previously mentioned referents. Each pair shows
relative distance--spatial, temporal as well as psychological.
Here are the prefixes with the demonstrative stem -tyn (/y/ is a
high central unrounded vowel):

        si-, i- 'near' (sityn 'this')
        se-, e- 'not quite so near' (setyn 'this')
        sa-, a- 'far, but in sight' (satyn 'that')
        su-, u- 'not in sight, usually far' (sutyn 'that')
        ma- no distinction (matyn 'this, that')

The demonstrative _sutyn_ is often used as an article, and any
of the demonstratives may be used as 3rd person pronouns. In my
experience, diminutives take the si-/i- prefixes regardless of
their relative distance in discourse (though one of my
consultants would front the round vowel of _sutyn_ in noun
phrases whose head was a diminutive).

The prefixes may also be combined with a variety of stems:

si-wittyn 'this special kind of'
si-kkih 'here' (the vowel of the stem harmonizes with the
  prefix: sakkah, sukkuh, etc; the final -h indicates a
  preceding voiceless vowel)
si-pe 'then, about this time'
si-paka 'about this big'
si-nni(h) 'thus, like this'
si-waih 'this way'
si-ahpee 'about this much'
i-syn 'this is, it is (not used with s-)

I suspect that in a thick fog, the su-/u- prefixes would be
used, since these prefixes refer specifically to referents which
are out of sight.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga                          dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu

"The strong craving for a simple formula
has been the undoing of linguists."               - Edward Sapir