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Re: question about classifiers

From:Patrick Dunn <tb0pwd1@...>
Date:Sunday, December 5, 1999, 7:06
On Sat, 4 Dec 1999, Nik Taylor wrote:

> Patrick Dunn wrote: > > My question is, therefore, if I'm going to have these fifty or so pronouns > > but no nouns, how did these pronouns evolve? > > Hmmm, a former noun-possessing stage? Or a former serial verb stage. > For instance: > > krz qa xa etu > give I you it.is.manufactured > > And word order was fairly free. Then, later, _etu_ was shortened to > _tu_ and migrated to a fixed order, in the process losing it's > "verbness", and evolving into a suffix
I like this. There could be, in fact, Advena languages with this pattern still in existance, but in Advena "third world" nations, perhaps, without the economic wherewithal to get to space.
> > In Earth languages with things like classifiers (you know, like in Thai), > > how do these words evolve? Are they just worn-down forms of the thing > > they clasify? > > I believe so. I suspect that what originally motivated their > development in languages with them is either areal influence, or, in the > case of the original language with it, too many homophones. For > instance, if a word _zang_ could mean "chicken", "boat" or "book" you > might have "food-zang", "travel-zang" and "thing-zang" or something like > that, with the first element evolving into a classifier by becoming > restricted in use.
Ah. That makes sense.
> > Or are they separate words with their own evolution? And > > how would the Advenae develop classifiers for things like "space crafts" > > or even "mechanical object"? > > Why have classifiers? You already use seperate verbs for things like > "read". You could have something like > > "They buillt it. You fly in it" for "They built a space ship"
Well, they're not *really* classifiers. They're just very specific gendered pronouns -- for example, a pronoun with the gender "large mechanical craft". Although perhaps I won't get that specific. The larger the number of pronouns I have, though, the bigger "verbal webs" I can weave. What I like about this idea is the amazing amounts of information that can be jammed together in a little space. krz-qa-tu-xa mda-qa-xa zdu-se-tu tlek-qa-tu. give-i-it-you love-i-you read-one-it enjoy-i-it. I give the book which I enjoyed to you whom I love. In four words, essentially.