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Re: Is it necessary to distinguish inclusiveness in possessive markers?

From:Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Date:Wednesday, January 28, 2004, 15:27
Quoting Remi Villatel <maxilys@...>:

> Joe wrote: > > > Which feels most right to you? Some people like rediculously ambiguous > > langs, some people like rediculously precise ones. Do you prefer a > > language to have more flexibility, or more accuracy? > > My conlang has 5 ways to say "we"... I couldn't live without one of them! > > çkarh [Ckax:] = you and I (dual) > kairh [kaix:] = we (inclusive) > çaki [Caki] = we (exclusive) > zaçaki [zaCaki] = he/she and I (dual) > klarä [klax9] = you and I (dual intimate) > > And 6 ways to say "you" > > rja [xja] = thou (sg.) > jära [j9ra] = thou (sg. intimate) > srath [sxat_h] = the 2 of you (dual adressee) > raith [xait_h] = you all (plural adressee) > sari [saxi] = you all (singular adressee) > zasari [zasaxi] = you and he/she/someone (dual)
|r| for [x] is kinda neat ... |ä| for [9], OTOH, is atrocious! Any reason not to use instead |ö|?
> And I've already removed the dual intimate "you". For the moment, I have 18 > pronouns and I think that I will maybe add 4 new oddities: someone, > something, noone, nothing. Of course, each pronoun has its corresponding > possessive article and substantive (my/mine). > > It's precise, flexible and accurate. ;-) I can say without ambiguities: > > He said he will come tomorrow. > > This is a good ambiguous translation excercise!
'Mfraid all my conlangs would have English-style ambiguity here. Possibly, Telenian (Telenzh, Telendlest, Telinzha - I'll never decide how it should properly be called in English!) could pull it - I've not worked much on its syntax, but it might do the distinction like this: Sen sulk stens skenest é ha mév glen. "He said himself will come tomorrow" vs Sen sulk sen skenest é ha mév glen "He[1] said he[2] will come tomorrow" I think I'll make that official. The vocab above, btw, is very Tairezazh-ish. A native Telen would perhaps not express him-/herself quite like that. _É ha mév glen_ "during the next day" is probably a bit too unwieldy for "tomorrow", too. Andreas

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Remi Villatel <maxilys@...>