Obviative pronouns in TPNN
In my constructed language Trai'Pahg'Nan'Nog, they have one pronoun, djai ( ʒeɪ ) and its posessive form djair ( ʒeəʳ ). But pronouns can get confusing even for humans, so I came up with an idea that is apparently called obviative pronouns. It's a series of suffixes to denote different people in the convo.
-ardj ( ɑ:rʒ ) = a second person in the convo
-airsh ( eəʳʃ ) = a third person
-arḥ ( ɑ:rḥ ) = a fourth person
-yurth ( yɜ:ʳð ) = a fith person
Beyond that, you'd be getting into "silly" territory.
Whichever suffix you use is assigned to a certain person, and should remain assigned to that person if reasonable. This assignation applies to the posessive form as well.
Anyway, let's see how that looks.
Without obviative pronouns:
I saw djai take djair arm and guide djai to djair pencil.
Confusing, eh? Lots of meanings. Let's see them with obviative pronouns:
I saw djai take djair-ardj arm and guide djai-ardj to djair-ardj pencil.
(I saw [person 1] take [person 2's] arm and guide [person 2] to [person 2's] pencil.)
Or maybe the situation is even more complex:
I saw djai take djair-ardj arm and guide djai-ardj to djair-airsh pencil.
(I saw [person 1] take [person 2's] arm and guide [person 2] to [person 3's] pencil.)
Or another sentence: I saw djai and djai and djai talking with djai and djai, about sada ("their" always plural in TPNN) earlier conversation about djair pencil.
With o-pronouns:
I saw djai and djai-ardj and djai-airsh talking with djai-arḥ and djai-yurth, about sada ("their" always plural in TPNN) earlier conversation about djair-arḥ pencil.
(I saw [person 1] and [person 2] and [person 3] talking with [person 4] and [person 5] about their earlier conversation about [person 4's] pencil.)
And so on and so forth.
This was cross-posted from http://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1249987.html
You can comment either here or there.
-ardj ( ɑ:rʒ ) = a second person in the convo
-airsh ( eəʳʃ ) = a third person
-arḥ ( ɑ:rḥ ) = a fourth person
-yurth ( yɜ:ʳð ) = a fith person
Beyond that, you'd be getting into "silly" territory.
Whichever suffix you use is assigned to a certain person, and should remain assigned to that person if reasonable. This assignation applies to the posessive form as well.
Anyway, let's see how that looks.
Without obviative pronouns:
I saw djai take djair arm and guide djai to djair pencil.
Confusing, eh? Lots of meanings. Let's see them with obviative pronouns:
I saw djai take djair-ardj arm and guide djai-ardj to djair-ardj pencil.
(I saw [person 1] take [person 2's] arm and guide [person 2] to [person 2's] pencil.)
Or maybe the situation is even more complex:
I saw djai take djair-ardj arm and guide djai-ardj to djair-airsh pencil.
(I saw [person 1] take [person 2's] arm and guide [person 2] to [person 3's] pencil.)
Or another sentence: I saw djai and djai and djai talking with djai and djai, about sada ("their" always plural in TPNN) earlier conversation about djair pencil.
With o-pronouns:
I saw djai and djai-ardj and djai-airsh talking with djai-arḥ and djai-yurth, about sada ("their" always plural in TPNN) earlier conversation about djair-arḥ pencil.
(I saw [person 1] and [person 2] and [person 3] talking with [person 4] and [person 5] about their earlier conversation about [person 4's] pencil.)
And so on and so forth.
This was cross-posted from http://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1249987.html
You can comment either here or there.