Re: Bowtudgelean
| From: | Eldin Raigmore <eldin_raigmore@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, April 28, 2008, 20:49 |
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On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:06:11 -0400, Carl Banks
<conlang@...> wrote:
>[snip]
>1. Bowtudgelean has ten states of definiteness. Most languages only
>distinguish between definite and indefinite; mine distinguishes
>different types of definiteness and inflects nouns, pronouns, and
>adjectives accordingly:
Actually, many natural languages distinguish between specific or referential,
and non-specific or non-referential. I'm not sure how many mark both
the "specific vs non-referential" and the "definite vs indefinite", and how many
mark only "specivic vs non-referential", and how many mark only "definite vs
indefinite".
I saw an article in one of the Greenberg volumes -- I forget by who -- that
had six "statuses" of definiteness/indefiniteness or specific/nonspecific or
referential/nonreferential.
(I don't remember what they were; but "definite", "indefinite specific",
and "nonspecific" were among them.)
This set of six may not have been the same as the ones mentioned by others;
because they were arranged in a cycle, not in a hierarchy.
Can anyone tell us which article I'm thinking of? Or which author(s)? Or which
cycle and what it's divisions were?
(Thanks for even trying, anybody who does so.)