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

H. S. Teoh wrote:

>On Mon, Jan 15, 2001 at 09:01:54PM -0500, Steg Belsky wrote:
>[snip]
> > Well, you could have one word for all of them.
> > Or you could have any number of distinctions ~ this/that; este/ese/aquel,
> > etc...
> > You could make them different than your native language's uses.  For
> > instance, like English, Rokbeigalmki has two - _dhaz_ "this" and _dhu_
> > "that".  however, _dhaz_ is only used for something immediately at hand.
> > If you can't reach out and touch it, or it's not laying at your feet,
> > it's _dhu_, as opposed to English where "this" has a somewhat wider
> > range.
>
>Or like Greek, which has *three* demonstratives: (1) _hode'_, which
>corresponds to your _dhaz_; (2) _hou^tos_, which is somewhere between the
>English "this" and "that"; (3) _ekei^nos_, which is "that".
Some languages distinguish between currently visible or not instead of
distance.

>[snip]
> > I'm not sure what you mean by "particles".  Is it some kind of technical
> > linguistics term that i don't know yet?  When writing my new website, i
> > used "particle" to mean anything i couldn't fit into a real category.
>
>Hmm. Greek has particles whereas English doesn't.
English does have particles. They are the "prepositions" that don't modify
anything.

"Sally tore the letter up."
"John and Peter threw the ball around."
"Emily put the bag down."

>  So it *is* a linguistic
>category proper. I'm not sure what's the precise definition of "particle",
>though.
Particles is not a real category. It is a catch-phrase linguists use to
describe independent that don't fit into the other classifications.


Marcus Smith

"Sit down before fact as a little child,
be prepared to give up every preconceived notion,
follow humbly wherever and to whatsoever abysses Nature leads,
or you shall learn nothing."
                -- Thomas Huxley