Seuna demonstratives
Here and there
da | place |
di | here, this place |
de | there, that place |
Cross-language trends
Many languages have the form of their demonstrative pronoun (DP) and adnominal pronoun (AP) the same, and different from there demonstrative of place (DoP).*
DP | AP | DoP | |||||||||
English - | this | = | this | ǂ | here | ---- | that | = | that | ǂ | there |
Finnish - | tämä | = | tämä | ǂ | tässä | ---- | tuo | = | tuo | ǂ | tuossa |
Side note - actually the derivation of the Finnish word "tässä" is pretty obvious. The phrase "in this place" would be rendered in Finnish "this(in) place(in)" ... where (in) represents the inessive case suffix. The second part of this phrase was found unnecessary so we get simply "this(in)" meaning "here". "this(in)" is actually "tämässä" but a bit of word-erosion gets us to "tässä".
Another side note - if we go far enough back we can see that "here" is also derived from "this". In Proto-Germanic "here" was "khir", which is *khi- (from PIE *ki- "this") + adverbial suffix -r.
Seuna, has a differs from English and Finnish as is shown below.
DP | AP | DoP | |||
Seuna - | todi | ǂ | di | = | di |
- I can not find a fancy term that would include the words "here" and "there" so I have made one up myself ... DoP.
A demonstatives ??
to dwolo | that house (spoken of before) |
With the above constructions the plural is only marked on the noun.
Demonstatives pronouns
to di | this |
to de | that |
The demonstrative pronouns have a plural form.
ton di | these |
ton de | those |
The non-demonstatives non-human pronoun
to | it, that (spoken of before) |
ton | they, those (spoken of before) |
Other stuff
sana = someone sato = something
SA KI NA & KU other demonstratives ??
This set of particles form a logical group.
SA KI NA KU are used for both nouns and verbs. They precede both. For nouns SA KI NA KU have the meaning "some", "no", "that" and "all". For verbs SA KI NA KU have the meaning "sometimes", "never", " --- " and "always". If used singly (for example with a single word reply) they must be immediately followed by the word "do"
As - MAN IS THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS - when these particles are used alone, they have the meanings ;-
SANA = somebody. some SATO = something KI = nobody KIA = nothing NA = he, she, it NIA = sequence of events just mentioned, NUA = sequence of events about to be mentioned KU = everybody KUA = everything
HU = who HUA = what
Note ;- SA = Does not indicate plurality, only indefiniteness. For plurality you must use the word ALKI.
TI HU & SA
set of particles form a group of word that are connected by usage. That is, many languages use the same word for two functions. It seems reasonable to assume that the word used for the interrogative function seeped into the indefinite function in some languages and into the indefinite function in other languages. We have a seperate word for the three functions.
relative particles interrogatives indefinites relative particles interrogatives indefinites relative particles interrogatives indefinites
TI HU SA
When the interrogative conflates with the indefinite, they have to be kept seperate somehow. We must be able to express WHO DID IT and SOMEBODY DID IT. (If the W question is always fronted and "Somebody did it" => "This was done by somebody")
Index
- Introduction to Seuna
- Seuna : Chapter 1
- Seuna word shape
- The script of Seuna
- Seuna sentence structure
- Seuna pronouns
- Seuna nouns
- Seuna verbs (1)
- Seuna adjectives
- Seuna demonstratives
- Seuna verbs (2)
- Asking a question in Seuna
- Seuna relative clauses
- Seuna verbs (3)
- Methods for deriving words in Seuna
- List of all Seuna derivational affixes
- Numbers in Seuna
- Naming people in Seuna
- The Seuna calendar
- Seuna units