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Re: Case?

From:Roger Mills <romilly@...>
Date:Saturday, January 26, 2002, 22:49
Muke Tever wrote:
>Anyway: > > Status > they Nominative 3rd person pronoun > them Accusative 3rd person pronoun > theirs Possessive 3rd person pronoun > their Possessive 3rd person adjective > >"Possessive" is kind of peculiar to English--it's not exactly the same as >"Genitive" in the familiar languages. Example, example, hmm... Apparently
in
>Latin you can say {acervus frumenti} [pile.NOM grain.GEN] "a pile of
grain",
>while saying "grain's pile" in English wouldn't make the same kind of
sense.
>The English 'case' generally only applies to possession, metaphorical or >literal.
Not to mention "amor dei" "God's love", which is certainly two-ways ambiguous in Engl. and probably in Latin too. (subjective vs. objective genitive)
>As for needing it... If your language can use adjectives substantively, you >should be able to use the 3rd person adjective in the same place. > >For example, (this is 'pseudocodelang'): > > dó a eius su gat > give.I to 3P 3P-ADJ cat > "I give them their cat" > > dó a eius el su > give.I to 3P ART 3P-ADJ > "I give them theirs"
Some sort of proto-conRomance? ;-) Reminiscent of Spanish: les di el suyo, not (IIRC) *les di suyo. However, es mio/tuyo/suyo etc. 'it's mine...' is OK (?). How about "este libro es el mio" 'this book [there are several ] is mine' (?)-- not sure about that. I recently had to figure this out for Kash. There are no possessive pronouns; we use the genitive case of the personal pronouns (generally not used otherwise, since simple possession is marked with suffixes): - yale mami/hati/ini/mili/hili/nili 'it's mine/yours/his,hers/our/yours-pl/theirs' However, in cases like your exs. above, we need a demonstrative: ne ma.vele lapis.ti 3s.dat I-give pencil-your 'I gave him your pencil' (lapis is a temporary loanword) ne mavele yu hati 3s.dat I-give that(neut,acc) of-you 'I gave him yours' (lit., that [thing] of you) Similarly: ya.timbat aman.ti, i ya.n mami eme he-knows father(acc)-your, and that(masc,acc) of-me also 'He knows your father, and [he knows] mine too.' (I think this is possible, though it seems awkward:) yatimbat amanti, i ya mami eme he-knows yr,father(acc) and that(masc.nom.) of-me too. 'he knows your father, and mine [knows your father] does too.' contrast (not at all awkward): ama.ti (yale) kañulin, i ya mami eme father(nom)-your (is) carpenter, and that(nom, masc) of-me also 'your father is a carpenter, and so is mine' It works the same way with adjectives: ma.lisam yu çisu I-like that(neut,acc) red 'I like the red one' QUESTION: Are these examples of _anaphora_, or do I have my technical terms mixed up?

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Muke Tever <alrivera@...>