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Re: Tagalog 'modifying' construction

From:Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...>
Date:Sunday, May 15, 2005, 18:58
I did something like that for a conlang once when I was learning some
set theory... I dumped it in the end though because the language got
annoying pretty quickly. However, ang doesn't specify the entire set,
does it? It instead indicates that one member of the set is being
referred to. I'm not sure how in Tagalog you refer to the entire set of
things... how do you translate "all"? In my conlang there were various
articles for different things like "member of", "subset of", "entire set
of", and so on, which corresponded rougly to "a/the", "some", "all".

> 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 is the 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 the set resulting from the > application of the intersection operator. > > Just a thought :) > > Ray > =============================================== > http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown > ray.brown@freeuk.com > =============================================== > "A mind which thinks at its own expense will always > interfere with language." J.G. Hamann, 1760 > >

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Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>