Re: Fluency Wish-List

On Thu, 13 Apr 2000, Matt Pearson wrote:

Doug wrote:

> >Skerre handles the animal legs with the dual plural.
I've never given much thought to animal legs, but Valdyan might do
something similar - a person, after all, has _ibar_ "two feet" (no
"leg" just yet) and a horse might have _ibari_ "pairs of feet". It
works the same with other pairs: _nane_ "mother", _inane_ "parents"
(that is, someone's father and mother) _inani_ "parents" (several
parents, for instance all the parents of a class in school).

> inna    "eye"
> inie    "pair of eyes"
>
> mol     "hand"
> molie   "pair of hands"
I like those words! Can I steal "mol" and "molie"? (Not to mean
"hand", there's already a word for that, but there's probably
something that fits).

> Words like "inie" and "molie" take a singular determiner when referring
> to a single person's pair of parts, and a plural determiner when referring
> to more than one pair, so Sally's "raise your hand(s)" example can be
> disambiguated four ways:
>
> tiyisò  mol
> raise.Imp-the.Sg  hand
> "raise your hand"
> [talking to one person]
All right, I'll play:

rainea     hinay
hand-acc-s raise-PRS-2s
"raise your hand"

(the present-tense second person serves as imperative)

> tiyisots  mol
> raise.Imp-the.Pl  hand
> "raise your hands"
> [each person raise one hand]
rainena    hinaye
hand-acc-p raise-PRS-2p
"raise your hands"

This is not in the dual, so it's clear that though several hands are
to be raised, nobody raises both hands.

> tiyisò  molie
> raise.Imp-the.Sg  pair.of.hands
> "raise your hands"
> [talking to one person]
iraina       hinay
d-hand-acc-s raise-PRS-2s
"raise your hands"

Note that "pair of hands" gets both the dual prefix and the singular
inflection.

> tiyisots  molie
> raise.Imp-the.Pl  pair.of.hands
> "raise your hands"
> [everybody raise both hands]
irainena     hinaye
d-hand-acc-p raise-PRS-2p
"raise your hands"

And here there's the dual prefix and the plural inflection.

   Irina

--
           Varsinen an laynynay, saraz no arlet rastynay.
irina@valdyas.org (myself) - http://valdyas.conlang.org (Valdyas)
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