[YG Conlang Archives] > [jboske group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]

Re: [jboske] Re: Unique == Misterhood? (was: lo'e gadri: can we




la djan cusku di'e

Invent Yourself scripsit:
> Other than reflecting the peculiarities of English, what are the
> qualities exhibited by an individual glass of water which are not enjoyed
> by "some" water? Or vice versa?

The quality of countability.  You can count the glassfuls of water on
a table, but you can't count the water in the fishtank.

But you can count the water in the fishtank: it is one quantity.
You can also refer collectively to the several glassfuls of water
on a table, in which case you use {lei}. Compare:

  lei pano djacu cu manfo le ka ce'u cpana le jubme
  The ten waters are uniformly distributed on the table.

(None of the ten waters is uniformly distributed by itself,
of course).

  le pa djacu cu manfo le ka ce'u nenri le finpytanxe
  The one water is uniformly distributed inside the fishtank.

We could use {lei pa tanxe} here as well, but we know that
the Individual/Collective distinction vanishes when {le'i broda}
has a single member.

mu'o mi'e xorxes




_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail