Re: EAK - two problems

Philip Newton wrote:
> On 5/20/07, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
>
>> INTERROGATIVES & INDEFINITES
>> In the ancient language the same words are used for both, differences
[snip]
>> Will this work?
>
>
> I can imagine so, especially if interrogatives always go in first
> position (i.e. no "in-place interrogative" is allowed, even for
> stylistic effect, as in English "You told him _what_??!").
Yes, but I see problems occurring, however, when the indefinite is the
subject. How do distinguish (other than by stress & or intonation)
between "What's happening" and "Something's happening"?
(Assuming that both "What" and "something" is _ti_)

> How old are the ka- words? MG uses those for indefinites (káti
> "something", kápòs "somehow", kápote "sometime", kápou "somewhere"),
> but I don't know whether they were a relatively recent invention or
> whether they've been around long enough for you to plausibly
> incorporate them into EAK.
No, they haven't. The ka- is AFAIK derived from _kan_, a contraction of
_kai ean_ (even if). The contraction is ancient enough, but it's use in
forming indefinites cannot be earlier than the Middle Ages - I haven't
been able so far to track down a more precise date.

> I thought you didn't want enclitics, though? In which case, I suppose
> you could simply say that interrogatives-as-indefinites never throw
> the accent back onto the preceding word but are simply always stressed
> on the second syllable.
I think enclitics probably should be dropped from a Greek with no
inflexions. I think Peano's idea was to derive a purely isolating
language from Latin in his "Latino sine flexione," even tho in practice
this was not entirely achieved and LsF does, in fact, have a few
inflexions (so its name is really a misnomer!).

The obvious thing IMO to keep a fixed accent. With the two-syllable
words we can distinguish, for example"
tína? "who?" ~ tiná "someone"
póte? "when" ~ poté "sometime" (or 'somewhen", as we say in native
Sussex  :)

This is not possible with monosyllabic words, however. While it will
probably be relatively easy to distinguish between _pòs_ meaning "How?"
and _pòs_ meaning "somehow", I can see problems with the two meanings of
  _ti_ (What?/ something). It would be nice to have something like the
MG ka- - But what?

>> [POSSESSION]
>> In 'Latino sine flexione' Peano was able to make use of the Latin
>> preposition _de_ in imitation of the Romancelangs and Vulgar Latin; even
>> in the written Classical language we find instances of 'de + abl.' used
>> instead of the genitive in certain situations. There is AFAIK nothing
>> comparable in Greek, where the genitive persists to the present day.
>
> I don't know of anything, either.
>
> I went with _apó_ for GSF, which looks distinctly odd to me when I
> read sentences I've written myself (due to the strong survival of
> genitive in the MG I know),
I had thought of using _apó_ also, but it's odd and there's no Greek
precedent for it.

> and I have to translate it mentally into a
> construction with Romance _de_ to ensure that it's reasonable. But
> then, I imagine that VL use of _a_ and _de_ for ablative and genitive,
> respectively, would seem similarly strange to someone who had studied
> only CL.
No - VL _a(d)_ did not replace the ablative, it replaced the _dative_,
and ad+acc. for indirect object is not entirely unknown in classical Latin.

Even in classical Latin the ablative had to be preceded by a preposition
if the word referred to a person (except in the 'ablative absolute
construction'); it was only a short step to extend this to all nouns.
The ablative merged with the accusative at an early date as popular
inscriptions & graffiti show. The Romance use of _de_ and _a(d)_ is not
so strange as there were sort of ancient precedents - but AFAIK there
simply is no precedent in the Greek of any period for _apo_ (or any
other preposition) to denote possession.

> Would _apó_ be a resonable candidate for AEK, too?
Probably as reasonable for EAK as for GSF   ;)

I do not like it.

>
>> I had thought of simply using expressions such as _to emé patro_ = 'my
>> father' (lit. the I/me father). This is close enough to ancient _ho emós
>> patêr_ where _emós_ is the possessive adjective meaning "my". But we get
>> problems if the possessor is a noun, e.g. _to to emé patró mètró_ is an
>> awkward way of expressing "my father's mother - especially awkward IMO
>> is the repetition of _to_.
>
> Ah, yes. In AG, you'd have the second article in the genitive case,
You would indeed - and then its OK.

> but if you lost that, that construction looks weird and I don't know
> whether it'd work well.
It _sounds_ weird as well. I don't think it would work.

>> ..................... so:
>> emé then to patró _or_ to patró to emé then = my father
>> emé then to patró then to mètró _or_ to mètró to patró to emé then then
>> = my father's mother
>>
>> Darn it!! we've now got a repeated _then_!!!!!
>>
>> Help!
>
>
> I'd recommend using a preposed particle of some kind.
Yes, I think a preposed particle would be better, and also allow us to
keep the attributive word order of ancient Greek. But what particle??

> E.g. using _apó_, you'd have _to apó me patró_, _to patró to apó me_
> "my father"; _to apó to patró to mètró_, _to mètró to apó to patró
> "the father's mother";
No, you've got too many TOs in the first version - "the father's mother"
would be:
to apó to patró mètró _or_ to mètró to apó to patró

_to apó apó me to patró to mètró_, _to mètró to
> apó to patró to apó me_ "my father's mother".
No - we shouldn't have the repeated _apo_ in the first example. We need
"the (of the( of me )father) mother" -
(a) to apó to apó emé patró mètró _or_
(b) to mètró to apó to apó emé patró _or_
(c) to mètró to apó to patró to apó emé

The piling up of _emé patró mètró_ in (a) is clumsy IMO, but as the
alternative show, it can be avoided.

But I still don't like _apó_   ;)

PS - I'm not sold on the Roman script for Greek either, but until we can
all cope with Unicode I suppose I'll have to put up with it - sigh.

>
> The last breaks down a little when you nest "to [pseudo-genitive]
> noun" more than once, but still works if you use the postposed form, I
> think. And besides, it would break down even in AG form, I think --
> _ho tès tou tòn politôn dèmarhou mètros patêr_ for "the citizens'
> mayor's mother's father" is rather unwieldy IMO,
Yes, too much nesting.

> especially compared
> to _ho patêr ho tès mètros tès tou dèmarhou tou tòn politôn_ "The
> father of the mother of the mayor of the citizens".
The second is certainly easier for the listener  ;)

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB]

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