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Re: [ceqli] Re: Q about ambiguities



on 2/15/04 9:03 PM, Rex May - Baloo at rmay@hidden.email wrote:

> on 2/15/04 7:27 PM, HandyDad at lsulky@hidden.email wrote:
> 
>> --- In ceqli@yahoogroups.com, Rex May - Baloo <rmay@m...> wrote:
>>> on 2/15/04 5:32 PM, oskar2379 at xeubie@h... wrote:
>>> 
>> 
>> Rats. I thought I would get the first answer in, not the third!
>> 
>> 
>>> To bon de xyen ca joy de dorm sta to dom.
>> 
>> Replace "ca" with "sa", here and below.
>> 
> Yes, thanks. Damn.  I keep spelling it like Poirot would.
> 
>>> 
>>> The good dog happily sleeps in the house.
>>> 
>>> 'Hu' acts as 'de', except it marks that what follows modifies what
>> goes
>>> before, the opposite f 'de.'
>>> 
>>> To xyen hu bon ca dorm hu joy  sta to dom.
>>> 
>>> Admittedly, I don't have a good way to separate the dorm and sta in
>> the
>>> first sentence and the joy and sta in the second... Krawn?
>> 
>> I consider prepositions as phrase markers implicitly. "sta" marks an
>> object phrase...sort of.
>> 
>>> Maybe it should
>>> be:
>>> 
>>> To bon de xyen ca joy de dorm hu sta to dom.
>>> 
>>> indicating that 'sta to dom' is a modifier of dorm.
>> 
>> Also a reasonable way to do it, and perhaps more logical because "sta
>> to dom" functions as an adverb of place, not really as an indirect
>> object of the verb "dorm". But either way, letting "sta" and the
>> other few prepositions be phrase separators is, I think, a good idea.
>> 
> Trouble is, it's been stated (and I like it that way) that sta and dan and
> bala, etc. are verb-prepositions, as in Chinese.  In Chinese, as I
> understand it, they're just two verbs and the sentence means sort of
> 
> The good dog happily sleeps and is in the house.
> 
> Now, we'll have situations that I don't know how the chinese handle, like
> 
> The dog goes into the house.
> 
> To xyen ja to dom.
> 
> Means the dog goes to the house.
> 
> So
> 
> To xyen ja dan to dom.
> 
> Would seem to serve for the dog goes into the house, but how do we keep ja
> and dan from combining if we want to?
> 
> We can always make the compound danja
> 
> To xyen danja to dom.
> 
> But there should be another choice.
> 

Basically, there's no problem with.

Go dorm sur to cwaq.  I sleep on the bed.  or
Go sur to cwag dorm   I'm on the bed, sleeping.

Except that we need a disambiguator.  Wait:

Go sur to cwaq de dorm.   or  Go dorm hu sur to cwaq.
 I on-the-beddingly sleep.  or

Go dorm de sur to cwaq. or Go sur to cwaq hu dorm.
  I sleepingly am on the bed.

Or is there an inconsistency here?  Can de be used to set off an adverb as
well as an adjective phrase?

So, then, we need a change-of-place way of distinguishing

I walk into the house
from
I walk in the  house.

-- 

Rex F. May (Baloo) 
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