Re: Zaik! (Hi there!) - Description of Lyanjen

Matt McLauchlin <matt_mcl@...> wrote:
>
> I see I've already been introduced by Barry. My name's Matt;
    Welcome to the list.

> I'm a linguistics major (just finished my first year) at McGill University
> in Montreal.
    Do you know Jayne Kennedy?

> Conjunctions can be suffixes, like Latin -que.
> There's an aut/vel distinction.
"Thomas R. Wier" <artabanos@...> wrote:
:
: J Matthew Pearson wrote:
:
: > As a P.S. to my previous post, a quick question:  What is an "aut/vel
: > distinction"?
:
: I was a little confused by this at first, too.  He's talking about Latin
: "aut" and "vel".
:
: [convoluted definition snipped]
:
: So, "aut" excludes one of two terms in a disjunction:  *either* that *or*
: something else (you must choose).  "vel" does just the opposite:  either
: that, or the other, or maybe both.

    In other words, it's what mathematicians call "exclusive or" and
"inclusive or".  In fact, the mathematical symbol for inclusive or, "v",
comes from "vel".

Matt McLauchlin <matt_mcl@...> again:
> [somebody wrote]:
> >How many conjunctions do you have so far?
>
> Suffixes: three. -uj = and; -aut = aut (tee hee), -el = vel (tee hee
> again).
>
> Between clauses or more complex NP's, though, you use the standalone
> conjunctions ju (and), tau (aut), le (vel).
    What is the meaning of "tau" when applied to more than two conjuncts?
Is "A tau B tau C" equivalent to "(A tau B) tau C", in which case it would
mean "an odd number of A, B, or C"?  How are ambiguous nestings of
conjunctions handled?  Does "A ju B le C" mean "(A ju B) le C" or "A ju (B
le C)", or is it left to context and inflection to (hopefully) disambiguate
them (as in English)?
    In Gladilatian each conjunction consists of two words.  For instance
"and" is "za...we".  The second word preceeds the final conjunct and the
first word preceeds all of the other conjuncts, so "A and B and C" would be
"za A za B we C".  This serves to disambiguate nested conjunctions.  For
example, "hra...wo" is the inclusive or, so "(A and B) or C" would be "hra
za A we B wo C" and "A and (B or C)" would be "za A we hra B wo C".
    Gladilatian has eight conjunctions.  The conjuction for the exclusive or
is "fna...wo".  When applied to more than two conjuncts it means "exactly
one of", so "fna A fna B wo C" is not equivalent to "fna fna A wo B wo C",
since the latter but not the former is true when A, B and C are all true..

 ===========================================================================

             Dennis Paul Himes    <>    dennis@himes.connix.com
             homepage: http://www.connix.com/~dennis/dennis.htm
        Gladilatian page: http://www.connix.com/~dennis/glad/lang.htm

Disclaimer: "True, I talk of dreams; which are the children of an idle
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