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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