Re: cmavo hit-list

[ucleaar <ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk>]

Jorge to Chris:
> That's what {di'u} does, it refers to whole utterances, which could consist
> of more than one bridi. But I don't think it can refer to part of a bridi.
> For example, if someone says {mi jinvi le du'u ba carvi}, then is
> {mi tugni la'e di'u} a good response? Am I agreeing that it will rain,
> or that the first speaker thinks so?

(a) you could use an anaphor to an earlier bridi rather than to an
earlier utterance;
(b) is a minimal utterance really a sentence? If it were up to me, I'd
say the minimal utterance is a single word.

> Is nu'e only good for future events, or can it be used for things like
> "I swear I didn't do it"? Does it only mean "I promise", or a more
> general "you have my word of honour that what I say is the truth".

I think that as Chris suggested it is performative: "I hereby commit
myself to some course of action", so by our usual worldview it is, like
imperatives, only good for future events. It is like a 1st person
imperative.

> > The dau/fei/gai I like because we've got so many things, like months and
> > hours, that come in twelves.
>
> Many? The only other one I can think of is eggs. And for hours, it is
> doubtful that they are useful, if you want to use a base twelve system
> you can't use gai, which is pano in base twelve.

Twelve is pano only if you count with 0 as a digit. You can instead
use a 1-12 numbering system, like section numbering in books: 1.1.1 -
the first subsection of the first section of the first chapter.

We seem to have an inclination towards this sort of counting. For
example, even though 'technically' this decade began on 1/1/91,
we number years decade.year, e.g. 19.8.0, 19.8.1, 19.8.2, ... 19.8.9.
The new millenium will be celebrated, I predict, at the change
from 19.9.9 to 20.0.0, rather than at the end of the 2000th year.

Evidently the 'technical' system of year numbering is counterintuitive,
so we have reanalysed it to make more sense.

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And