Re: Tagalog 'modifying' construction
| From: | Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, May 16, 2005, 17:39 |
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On Sunday, May 15, 2005, at 07:54 , Chris Bates wrote:
[snip]
> ................ However, ang doesn't specify the entire set,
> does it? It instead indicates that one member of the set is being
> referred to.
You are right. I expressed the question very poorly.
Mea culpa!
I should have rephrased it thus:
It occurred to me that another interpretation is possible. That _na_ is
not just a 'linker', but is more specifically the 'intersection operator'.
That is it is not a question of either
- (a) a small specimen of the class of animals or
- (b) an animal-like specimen of the class of small things.
Rather it is (c) a member of set formed from the intersection of {the set
of small
things}{the set of animals}.
That would surely explain quite simply why we may have _hayop na maliít_
or _maliít na hayop_ without any difference of meaning. The specifier
_ang_ specifies a member of the set resulting from the application of the
intersection operator.
Still just a thought :)
Ray
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