Re: Fourth Person

Sally Caves wrote:

> On Sun, 4 Oct 1998, Tom Wier wrote:
>
> > Anyways, this is really great for my conlang!
> >
> >           Com.   Frac.   Sing.     Pauc.     Plur.   Indef-fin.
> > 1st  :   meos   meosti  meosia meospai meosi  meosnon
> > 2ns :   teos     teosti    teosia  teospai   teosi    teosnon
> > 3rd :   seos    seosti    seosia seospai   seosi   seosnon
> > *4th :  heos   heosti    heosia heospai  heosi   heosnon
> > *5th:   beos   beosti    beosia    beospai  beosi  beosnon
>
> Tom could you tell me what these mean?  I've not encountered these
> terms in "number":  com. frac.  pauc.  How are you using these?
Well, Degaspregos right now has several suffixes to specify what
kind of number the object is.  Number marking, unlike English and
many other IE languages, is entirely optional.  The first column listed
is the "common" or number indeterminate forms:  they are simply
the case of when the option to use number is not being used.

The second through sixth columns specify what type of number:
(2) fractional;
(3) singular, which at this point may indicate uniqueness or
simple singularity, but I may differentiate these two sometime
soon;
(4) paucal, which indicates a "few" things, arbitrarily set to between
2 and 9 inclusive;
(5) plural, ten and up;
(6) lastly, the "indefinite-finite" form, which handles numbers which
are indeterminate, but known to have some specific number less
than infinity.  So, it "specifies" that the number is not really known, but
often implies that it is so big that it cannot be easily counted (which is
indeed how I used it in my poem I wrote with it:

_Weros Weioso_ ll 5-6:

Tosikwe kweosi gwerom, ai, weiomkwe, eti
   sweosoi sagoremnon Swosna wrakwat,

These who value the natural spiritual aspect, yea, and life, above /
   their countless searches for the Self,

Note that in addition to those pronouns above, there can be, as I said
many many more derived by tacking on gender forms, but also inclusivity
forms.

(I just shocked myself with the number of possible pronoun forms
that might possibly be generated using the entire paradigm of persons,
numbers, genders, and cases: 7020!  But of course, they are all
derivable from one another, and many of them would be rarely used.
None of those are just memorized, because it's regular)




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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

"Ille se profecisse sciat cui Cicero valde placebit."
   - poster found on professor's door.
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