Re: CHAT: Definite/Indefinite Article Distinction

bn wrote:
>
>  --- Dirk Elzinga <Dirk_Elzinga@...> wrote:
> >
> > At the risk of getting lost in the crowd, here's a
> > sketch of
> > Shoshoni's rather complex but pretty nifty deixis
> > system.
> >
>
>might as well jump on the bandwagon and do bac :
Deixis is starting to look alot like a black hole, but I thought somebody
might be interested in Tairezazh's system too.

Basically, there's two stems _a_ "this" and _li_ "that". When used infront
of a noun (or nominalized adjective or whatever) they're completely
unchanged in all cases and numbers. When used as demonstrative pronouns
(this one, those ones etc) they inflect like nouns (it may be noted that the
gen sg and pl of _li_ are _lei_ and _lein_ respectively).

Some very frequent phrases with these have fossilized fairly recently. In
particular, _anév_<_a mév_ "this day" now simply means "now", _linév_
similarly "then, at that time", _ated_ means "here" and _lited_ means
"there". They're now effectively adverbs, and generally don't need any
prepositions; _ta stlavz ated_ "I work here" is equivalent in meaning to _ta
stlavz ek ated_ "I work here/at this place".

                                             Andreas


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