Re: Some or any

--- In conlang@y..., Muke Tever <alrivera@A...> wrote:
> From: "Stephen DeGrace" <stevedegrace@Y...>
> >A couple primes that we are dealing with now are
> >SOMEONE and SOMETHING. Tokcir has a word {yer} (the
> >curly braces are a parochial notation of ours to
> >indicate a Tokcir word or phrase in English text)
> >which can be used as a prefix {yer-} and means
> >some/any. You can force a word like {yerdin},
> >"something", to have the "something" meaning by
using
> >the definite article {q yerdin} or the "anything"
> >meaning by using the indefinite article {òl
yerdin},
> >otherwise you rely on context to disambiuguate
where
> >possible. This has, however, been a matter of some
> >debate and I think it is likely to open again.
>
> Well, two things about those universals--
> first, they don't IIRC have to be standalone words
(we get phrases like English
> "there are", not sure if I remember any examples
that were specifically bound
> morphemes in any sample lang though), and second
they may not be culturally
> relevant (some examples I remember were 'word' in
Chinese and generic 'I'/'you'
> pronouns in Japanese)
>
> Anyway.  As for that anyway, if {den} (or whatever
the root is) means "thing"
> generically, and can be indefinite on its own (maybe
use {òl din}, if that's the
> grammatical way to put it), it would be able to
stand for the prime SOMETHING.
> {yerdin} seems to me to be too much of an English
relex--it doesn't have to have
> "some/any" in it.
Hmm, really interesting point. The root, by the way,
is {din}.

> Having SOMETHING as a lexical universal means you
can speak about indefinite
> things as things.
> For example you would use it in sentences like:
>
> "something old, something new, something borrowed,
something blue"
> "I just ran over something"
> "Something's happening"
> "Don't tell me it's nothing, I know it's something
bothering you"
>
> How does Tokcir handle these?  I am guessing not
with {yerdin}, if you have to
> "force" the word.
You could use {yerdin} if the sense you want is clear
from context, I think. Lessee, how would I translate
the above, I'll use my own brand of the lang...
bearing in mind that some things in the lang are still
variable and formative :)

"Din inkài', din kai', din kise xauk, din hael"
"Teul xietom ton òl din."
"Ku yerdin gete."
"Mod di ni tokam ke nilje, savom ke yerdin mad
warufe."

Interesting, now that I think of it there's some stuff
I'd just use {din} for... I seem to have an idea what
form to choose, but I may be fooling myself into
believeing there's some kind of logic behind it.

Anyways, thanks for your thoughts! I will try and have
a half-ways intelligent response for any replies I
get... :)

Stephen

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