Re: Terkunan: help with decision

Hi!

Henrik Theiling writes:
> Thanks for the quick answers.  I hadn't thought of _raku'_, and it
> feels right, yes, and more consistent.  So _raku'_ it shall be!
>...
Update after yesterday's work: the language now has:

   katun, katu'       each one
   rakun, raku'       someone
   nisun, nisu'       no-one

(_rakun_ has a plural form _rakus_ since yesterday.)

Now, I noticed _katun_ is a pronoun only, and that I also have _katu_
for the corresponding determiner, while _rakun_ and _nisun_ can both
be used as pronoun and determiner.  I checked Spanish determiners
vs. indefinite pronouns again, and, naturally, there is no trivial
correspondence between the corresponding pairs of words in these
categories.  E.g.:

   pronoun(s)                          determiner(s)
   alguno,-a,-os,-as; algo; alguien    algún,-a,-os,-as
   niguno,-a; nada; nadie              ningún,-a
   etc.

For comparing _katun_, Catalan has:

   cada; cadascú,cadascuna             cada un,-a; cadascun,-a

Generally, there are more special pronouns ('algo', 'alguien') than
determiners, and the masculine singular is often different.  But
still, there is a close correspondence.

Terkunan has less special pronouns: the Spanish pronouns _algo_,
_alguien_, _alguno,-a_ are all _rakun, raku'_ in Terkunan.

And the only irregularity of correspondence of determiner and pronoun
is in _katu_.  I, therefore, decided to drop _katu_ and use _katun_ as
well for the determiner -- it's close enough anyway (but different
stress).  So instead of:

              pan pi katu di      'bread for each day'
it is now:    pan pi katun di

What's left is that I still have different forms for determiners and
pronouns in own case: the definite articles vs. personal pronouns:
_li, lis_ vs. _le, les_.  I already wanted to merge those two several
times, but there are some problems: 'his dog' is _le kan_ and 'the
dog' is _li kan_.  If the two where the same, I'd have to disallow
prefixing the pronoun for possessive meaning and use _li kan_ vs.
_kan di li_ (like Portuguese).  That would be in line with _kan di
raku'_ and all other possessive constructions.

What do you think of all that?

**Henrik

PS: I misspelled _nisun_ yesterday, sorry.

PPS: I also gave bad rules for dropping final -n yesterday: it only
     drops before nasals (but I might change it today to be kept only
     before vowels and stops).