Re: Laranao modals, aspects, etc.

Matt Pearson skrev:

> Daniel Andreasson skrev:
> > The Laranao quantifiers:
> > onga  * all, collective ('all')
> > ongai * all, distributive ('every,each')
> > ele   * any / hypothetical sg. ('any one',
> >         'he who...' 'any one who...')
> > elao  * any / hypothetical pl. ('any',
> >         'those who...')
> > eto   * some sg. ('someone,something')
> > etao  * some pl.
> > ero   * many
> > Did I miss any important quantifiers? Does this
> > look like a reasonable system?
> Many languages have a paucal quantifier, meaning
> something like "some", "a few", "a little bit", "not
> many", "several".  Is this covered by "etao"?
Well, 'etao' is intended to mean just what you wrote,
but not 'several'.

> There are actually two kinds of "some" in English,
> and it's not clear which kind corresponds to
> "eto"/"etao":
>
>    There are some people in the garden.
>       (= an indefinite/non-specific number)
>
>    Some people like salsa music.
>       (= more than none, but less than all)
I'm not really sure what the difference would be.
But 'eto' is supposed to mean 'something indefinable
and it's just one'. Like: "There is someone/thing
in the garden" and 'etao' the above explanation
but in the plural, like: "There are some people/things in
the garden", but you don't have to actually say the
quantified noun like you have to in English, so you'd
have something like 'There are etao in the garden'.
Also, 'etao' is 'more than one but less than all'.
So I guess 'etao' corresponds to both of your examples.

> Many languages also have proportional quantifiers
> like "most", "enough", "not enough", and "more",
> but these notions are also expressible in other
> ways.  It's also possible to have a negative
> quantifier "no/nothing", but other languages
> indicate this concept by negating an indefinite
> construction (e.g. Malagasy expresses "No
> children came to the party" as "There aren't
> children who came to the party").
Yes, that's true. The one's I have listed above are
just the basic ones. I'll surely make up more specific
ones further on. But as far as the 'no/nothing' is
concerned, I just forgot about it.

> Some languages have a dual collective quantifier
> "both", while other languages use "every/all" +
> "two" for this.
'every + two'. That's cool. I'll go for that.

(short parenthetic info: In Swedish the words
for 'both' - 'båda' 'bägge' - are the only *true*
synonyms, i.e. they're interchangeable in every
situation.)

> > The Laranao aspects:
> > io   * negative     'not'
> > toa  * inceptive    'begin'
> > he@  * cessative    'stop'
> > area * ?name        'to be able to make in time'
> > if@  * habitual     'use to' 'to do regularly'
> > 0    * perfective   'complete action'
> > mi   * imperfective 'incomplete action'
> > Is there a name for the 'make in time' aspect?
> > It's used like: 'Will you be able to bake all
> > those cookies in time for christmas?' =
> > 'Will you _area_ bake all those cookies before christmas?'
> Sounds like a conflation of aspect and modality
> to me:  Completive aspect + abilitative modality.
> How about "abilitative-completive"?
That's excellent! I'll go for that. It sounds like
a real linguistic term. :)

> >Can I have 'negative' as an aspect?
> Calling negation an aspect implies that it forms
> part of a paradigm with the other aspect particles,
> and is thus mutually exclusive with them.  Is this
> the case?  Can "io" not co-occur with, say, "mi"
> or "if@"?  I suspect that it can, in which case
> you should treat it as a separate category.
Yes, you're right. Didn't think about that.
'Negative' should go with the modals of course.

Thanks for your suggestions,

Daniel