Re: Prepositions

On Mon, May 13, 2002 at 04:29:53PM -0500, Danny Wier wrote:
[snip]
> Also, there are actually three different third persons in Tech, in the same
> categories: "him/her/it over here with me", "him/her/it over there where you
> are", and "him/her/it over yonder". They are indicated by the three same
> vowels and are all based on the third person forms of the verb (the personal
> infixes are all consonant-based).
[snip]

Interesting. My conlang does not, in fact, distinguish from second and
third person directly; rather, the three sets of pronouns are based on
(conceptual) distance: 1st person (the here, the reference point),
"intimate" (the ones close to me, the ones on my side), and "distant" or
"impersonal" (the strangers, foes, and people out there who don't belong
to my circle). But they do not have the same vowel distinctions as in
Tech.

These particular choices of vowels, however, are far from arbitrary; the
Ebisedi classify their 9 vowels into 3 categories: the "convergents" (u,
w, y), the neutrals, "transmittants", or "mediums" (o, 3, i), and the
"divergents"  (0, a, e).

The meanings of 'a', 'u', 'i', as you can see, are derived from these
categories: 'a' meaning away from (hence, divergent), 'u' meaning towards
(hence, convergent), and 'i' meaning at (between divergence and
convergence is that place where the happenings are; hence, "medium").

This idea of divergence, convergence, and the in-between corresponds with
the color symbolism of the Ebisedi, and shows up in their language
everywhere. E.g. the noun numbers: plural - the divergent many, singular -
the single convergent one, and nullar - empty space. Or, to break it down
another way, nullar - the origin from which all things diverge;  singular
- one of the things on its way from origin to destination; plural -
infinity (hence, the many) as the point toward which the numbers converge.

I haven't yet created a number system for the language; but you can bet it
will be derived from this trichotomy idea :-)


T

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