Re: question about classifiers

> Okay, not really.  Here's the story.
>
> I'm working on a new language, an alien language spoken by the Advena, a
> race of amphibian-algae-symbiots with a penchant for peaceful (i.e.
> economic) conquest.  They're the leaders of all intelligent races in the
> galaxy (which ain't many) because they're the ones with the secret of
> bending space-time (and thus with gravity control and FTL travel).
>
> Their language consists entirely of verb-like words, say, "krz" "to give".
> Each word has a number of possible arguments -- krz has three:
I have to wonder how these are vocalised.

> krz
> 1. subject
> 2. object
> 3. indirect object
>
> A verb would be conjugated with a large number (probably about sixty or
> so) pronoun suffixes.  So
>
> krz-qa-tu-xa
>
> where qa = "I"
> tu = "any small manufactured non-mechanical object"
> xa = "you"
>
> Thus, "I give it to you."
>
> To define what "it" is, we'd have to use another verb, for instance, "zdu"
> (to read).
>
> krz-qa-tu-xa zdu-se-tu.
>
> "I give it to you.  One reads it."
>
> Or, "I give the book to you."
>
> My question is, therefore, if I'm going to have these fifty or so pronouns
> but no nouns, how did these pronouns evolve?
Perhaps the ancient language originally had a very limited number of nouns,
and these wore down into pronouns. For example, Japanese pronouns ALL
originated as nouns (boku, I, meant manservant. watashi, I, meant private).
These original nouns had very wide definitions. So, just as the arabic kitba
could theoreticaly refer to any written thing in existance, the original
nouns would have similar wide meaning. Your aliens would no doubt think of
these words as nouns, but from a human perspective, they would be pronouns.

Actually, apart from the personal pronouns, wouldnt they be de facto nouns?
In order to be a pronoun, doesnt it have to abstract a genuine noun?

---
Fabian
Ikun li dik il-kitba tpatti it-tieba ta' qalb ta' patruni tieghi.
Ikun li ttaffi ugigh tal-Mitlufin u tal-Indannati.
Ikun li ilkoll li jaqraw il-kitba, qalbhom ihobbu is-Sewwa u l-Unur.
U b'dak l'ghamil, nithallas tax-xoghol iebes.