Mandarin demonstratives (Re: Charyan novel! (was: Re: [CONLANG] I'm back!))

On Wed, Jan 09, 2002 at 09:59:08AM -0500, Adam Walker wrote:
[snip]
> In Chinese there's this weird (to my English L1 perspective) construction
> for giving locations.
>
> Q: wo3de ke4ben3 zai4 na3li?  Where is my text book? (my textbook at where?)
> A: zai4 wo3 zhe4li.  Here.  (At my here.)
> or A: zai4 ni3 na4li.  There.  (At your there.)
[snip]

Hmm, I'd think of it more like "over here where I am" and "over there
where you are". I'm not sure the pronouns here are possessive. (But then
again, that's just my "gut-feeling" understanding of the language.)


T

--
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one? -- Abraham Lincoln