Re: CHAT: Unconventional pronoun systemsshow us yours!

Steven Williams <feurieaux@...> wrote:

> to other conlangers. I used 'paucal' for the longest
> time to represent a closed group of objects, like a
> box of crayons, or a convention of Star Trek fans.
> This seems like false terminology.
> By the way, what _would_ be the term for a closed
> group like that (the crayons in the box, the Trekkies
> in the convention)?
I'm not sure.  Collective? John Quijada's Ithkuil
has a bunch of unusual number distinctions, including
several different kinds of collective grouping.
But his terminology is not standard.

http://home.inreach.com/sl2120/Home.htm


> > In my 20-word language, there was only one
> > root pronoun, for 1st-person.  2nd-person was
> > derived as "un-me" and 3d person as "not-me".
> > I don't recall the phonological words I used.
> Wow! That _is_ weird. I feel thoroughly intimidated.
I didn't work on it for very long.  This I think
is the only online documentation about it:
http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9906c&L=conlang&F=&S=&P=26245

I started translating the Tower of Babel story into it,
but didn't finish.  Nor did I ever put up any document about it
on my web site.

Anyway,

pi - I, me

sa - lack, absence; negating particle

!i - reversal, complement, the other of a pair; can be used like
Esperanto "mal-"

!i pi - you

sa pi - he, she, they...


- Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/conlang/tokipona/tokipona.htm