Re: Interesting discoveries

 --- John Leland wrote:
> On two different kinds of "to": in Rihana-ye, there are "be" and
> "de".  Literally, "be" means "to higher place" and "de" but from the
> earliest existence of the language the distinction has usually been
> social, with "be" meaning "to a socially superior person" and "de"
"to a
> socially inferior person." Where there is no social rank distinction,
> "de" is usually used.
Interesting distinction and one that might be good for a certain
conlang that I may someday invent, where there would be a
strongly-ingrained distinction between levels of social status.

However, my consultant tells me that the distinction between the two
words for "to" is that mentioned by someone else here a bit earlier -
that between destination and recipient.  (No, my consultant didn't use
those terms; this is what he said: "'ma' is for just normal 'to', if
someone's going somewhere, or anything like that.  'mita' is special,
it's for things like gifts, where someone's getting something.")

Estel

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