Re: Spanish demonstratives (was: RE: yet another romance conlang)

FFlores wrote:
> Yes, they do require acutes, because they could be confused with
> the 'adjectival' demonstratives; so
>
>         E'ste es mi padre.        'This(masc.) is my father.'
>         Este hombre es mi padre.  'This man is my father.'
Well, I doubt there's any possibility of confusion.  If it precedes a
noun, it's the adjective form, while if it precedes something else, it's
a noun.  So, it's an interesting orthographic, but ultimately
non-essential, distinction.  Like como/co'mo and the like.

>         Esto es una casa.   'This is a house.'
Interesting that the accent isn't used there by analogy with
e'ste/e'sta.  Is it often "miswritten" as "e'sto"?

--
"Old linguists never die - they just come to voiceless stops." -
anonymous
http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Conlang/W.html
http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor