Re: A'stou part III: the Personal System and the Verb (LONG)

At 17:34 01/06/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>
>> - "exclusive nos": this person refers to the group where the speaker
>> belongs to, and from which the listener is excluded. Yet, when the speaker
>> speaks in the name of this group, he must use the "ego" person.
>
>Can you give a specimen of when this *is* the right thing to use?
>Also I don't understand how it can be glossed "them", which always
>excludes both the speaker and the listener in English.
>
It's difficult to give a specimen of how they are used because I have only
a handful of words in A'stou (I used to have more, but I don't know where's
my list... :( ). As for the glosses, they are only approximate, as well as
the names I gave. If for instance I gloss the "exclusive nos" as "them",
it's because it can be used with kind of exclusion of the speaker. I know
that's difficult to understand, but let me try to give you examples:

We are discussing together about France, my native country, and the French
people. We are present and the level of discussion is normal, so I refer to
myself with "ego" and to you with "non-ego", and you do conversely. But if
you were with a friend and I was talking to both of you, I would still
refer to you both with "non-ego", not with "vos" (because "vos" cannot be
used for the listener, even if it's a group), and if you were giving an
opinion that both of you share, you would use "ego", not the "exclusive
nos". In fact, the two "nos" and the "vos" are not exactly 1st and 2nd
person, but a kind of 3rd person including the speaker and/or the listener,
but _not taken as speakers or listeners_.

I don't know if I explain myself well. Let's continue the example. Now I am
talking about a feature of the French people (let's say : they eat lots of
bread). I would then use the "exclusive nos" (because you're not French)
whether I consider myself also a big eater of bread or not. Whether or not
I consider that this feature includes me, I will still use the "exclusive
nos" because it's a feature of the group I belong to. On the other hand, if
I happen the be the president of France at that time, and I decide suddenly
to make an official speech to you in the name of French people, I will
suddenly use "ego", even if I do that while I personnally disagree to what
I'm saying.

I know that's quite confused and strange, but the difference between our
persons and the personal system of A'stou appears very clearly in political
debates. Unfortunately, I cannot give you an example of that.

>> - "vos": this person refers to a group to which the listener belongs, but
>> to which the speaker wants to be excluded from. It never refers to a group
>> of listeners (the "non-ego" is used instead) but to the general group they
>> belong to.
>
>The gloss "them" seems impossible for this one too.
>
To understand the "vos", you must take it as a "them" "tainted" with "you"
(something that is impossible in English, I know). In fact, except "ego"
and "non-ego", all the other persons can be considered third person, with
the difference that they don't always exclude the speaker and the listener.
To give you a last example, if I say to you something like "human beings
have to learn to live together", the verb will agree in this sentence in
the "inclusive nos" person, because you and me are both human (at least I
think so :)) ). So even if I referred to the group "human beings" as a 3rd
person, both the speaker and the listener are part of it so in A'stou it
must be the "inclusive nos" person.

Well, I hope I was clear enough this time. A'stou persons are really a mess
to explain. Yet when I devised them it seemed so natural...

                                                Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"Reality is just another point of view."

homepage : http://rainbow.conlang.org
(ou : http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepages/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html)