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


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

Re: [jboske] mei, latest cause celebre



Jordan, on whether a collective is truly {piroloi} or not, I'm deferring to Jorge and And, since they had raised the counterarguments. But one of your quiz responses (which I will go through) has me in anguish:

Your responses to 'separately' and 'together' are:

 B: John and James separately
 le re nanmu ja'a bevri
 lei re nanmu ja'a bevri
 le remei be lo'i nanmu ja'a bevri
 ge la djan. gi la djeimyz. bevri
 la djan. joi la djeumyz. ja'a bevri
 la djan jo'u la djeimyz. ja'a bevri

 C: John and James together
 le re nanmu na bevri
 lei re nanmu ja'a bevri
 le remei be lo'i nanmu ja'a bevri
 naku ge la djan. gi la djeimyz bevri
 la djan. joi la djeumyz. ja'a bevri
 la djan jo'u la djeimyz. ja'a bevri

... To me this makes no sense --- C/jo'u in particular. If John and James lift the piano separately, why do you want to say that {la djan. jo'u la djeimyz. jo'u bevri}? I thought the whole point of jo'u was emphasising the involvement of both in the same predication --- including same time and place and event.

As it stands, your only distinction between the two scenarios is negative. So if I want to say the first, I say {lei re nanmu .e nai le re nanmu} vs. {lei re nanmu .e le re nanmu}? Yuck.

I also take it that in both cases, you would say {piro lei re nanmu}? If so, {piroloi} still isn't making the differentiation I want.

***

Bob, I think I got a gotcha with your duet. The duet has a commonality of purpose. Any two random people don't.

You would claim that the mass of Paul and John wrote the Beatles songs, whether it was true that Paul actually did one on his own or not.

Now let's form a mass of Paul, John, and Henry Kissinger. That mass wrote the Beatles songs, true. But there's an excellent reason why Hank doesn't fit into this picture.

Never mind your piano carrying supervisor, at least she's somehow involved with the piano carrying. Hank isn't. How do we exclude him from {lei finti be le selsanga}? (Remember what Jordan just said: if any pamei is involved, then any remei is involved.) And pragmatics isn't enough of an answer.

And that's why I think songwriting isn't done by a mass.

--
**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****
* Dr Nick Nicholas,  French & Italian Studies       nickn@hidden.email *
  University of Melbourne, Australia             http://www.opoudjis.net
*    "Eschewing obfuscatory verbosity of locutional rendering, the       *
  circumscriptional appelations are excised." --- W. Mann & S. Thompson,
* _Rhetorical Structure Theory: A Theory of Text Organisation_, 1987.    *
**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****