🚀 go-pugleaf

----------------------------Original message----------------------------


> a certain ending for the noun, etc... There are 9 forms I think.
> Please linguists out there rectify this if I'm wrong.
thanks for tackling this question for me Mikel, however i feel your
answer is implicit. There are 13 declensions of nouns which then have
their animate and inanimate plus singular and plural variants and on
top of that 15 mugagabe variants with vowel and consonant endings of
animate and inanimate yeilding a combined total of 112 declensions.
There is no locative mugagabe form for animates so the real number is
110. As Mikel has not claimed that these forms have a richer semantic
content beyond attaching preposotions as suffices I assume that is the
end of the story.

A new point.
The lack of reflexive pronouns in euskara - what sociological
consequences does this produce - if any? I always struggle to
understand how I talk about myself in euskara and now often when I
am talking in english I try not to use the reflexive pronoun so as to not
to "self-centre" the conversation. Certainly some use of the reflexive
pronoun is meant to accentuate one's own status/position/authority
(e.g. I myself believe...) but I don't think this is universally true.
In one of Mikel's earlier missives he made the point that one just uses
the language the way everyone else uses, hence for example there is
no probelm in using genderless speech in euskara because that's the
way it is designed and all speakers understand that is the way it is. I
acknowledge this point and believe it is true. What I am trying to get at
is how these structures (or their absence) effect the way we view the
world, or in other words are their both personal psychological
differences in ourselves because we speak in a different cognitive
framework and are there larger societal differences as well.
Jon
Prof Jon Patrick
Dept. of Information Systems     BH 64 -6- 350 5552
Massey University                AH ?
Palmerston North                 Fax 64-6- 350 5611
New Zealand