Re: Demuan

>>bing - oneself
>>subing - each other (ie standard plural prefix for pronouns)
>How do you say "themselves" ?

That would be 'bing'. I'm not sure how to explain this clearly, but 'bing'
always reflects back to the subject, which is considered as a single entity,
regardless of how many people may be in the subject. On the other hand,
'subing' intrinsically splits the subject into two parts which do the verb
to each other, and so because it is referring to two entities, it takes the
plural prefix. Like 'bing', the verb is happening to the subject, so
'subing' is thus related to 'bing'.

>>I also noticed a natural consequence for my <'s> marker...
>>
>>le - 's
>>ler - 's (plural owned object)
>I would like to know more about your owned object pronouns. you seem to
know
>languages of Japan quite well so i thought maybe it is modelled on Ainu
>possessives ?
How it works...

jon le kot yamex ax kiba - John's cat is here (lit: exist at here)
jon ler kot yamex ax kiba - John's cats are here.

linde kot yamex ax kiba - thy cat is here.
lender kot yamex ax kiba - thy cats are here.
slinde kot yamex ax kiba - your cat is here.
slender(^_^) kot yamex ax kiba - your cats are here.

li du ja kot le nyaa! - That's the cat's miaow! (^_^)

Umm, just noticed somethin else...

ler ler kot - those 's cats

Will this be confusing? Or are the contexts in which this might occur
inherently unlikely?

<contemplation>
I have a k/l/w/z sequence for this/that/yon/what. bing is teh person
variant, with an established meaning. Others include:

kiki - now (skiki - these days)
kix - this (noun, not adjective) (skix - these)
kite - this way ; thus (method)
kyet - this reason (zyet - why)
kiba - here (place) (skiba - hereabouts)

Anyone care to propose meanings for the 'b-' part of the sequence?
</contemplation>


I have never looked at Ainu languages. afaik, the concept is unique; I
certainly wasn't consciously copying a known language. My current fad is
Mayan glyphs <www.halfmoon.org>. Not sure if i can use them, but certes they
look cool.

About the origin of my le/ler distinction; I wanted to avoid having
inflections in nouns, and that meant marking the plural externally, or not
marking it at all. I chose articles as teh main place to mark plurals, but
that meant that possessed nouns couldn't have a marker unless I started
playing around with prepositions. le/ler is the result. <'s> is a special
case of prepositions, as it can occur in the middle of noun clauses, but all
other prepositions occur at teh start of noun clauses when they occur. I
have decided that other prepositions will not have this singular/plural
distinction, and instead they will be followed by an article.


>What is your url ?

kinde 'homepage' yamex ax:
www.acs.bolton.ac.uk/~fav1ugs/demua/font.htm

While you're there, check out my PC Japanisation faq. It gets rave reviews
from even the highest usenet demi-gods (^_^)
www.acs.bolton.ac.uk/~fav1ugs/jwinfaq.txt

That is just the font (myriad gifs). All the language notes are offline.
Copies sent to interested parties by Email. I posted a bunch of stuff here a
while ago as Demuan 101. One major change since then has been to swap the -x
suffix from imperative to the previously unmarked present tense. Another: I
decided to go down the Latin-esque route for 'to have'...

kot yamex ax king - I have a cat (cat exists at me)

---
Fabian
Rule One: Question the unquestionable,
ask the unaskable, eff the ineffable,
think the unthinkable, and screw the inscrutable.