news:Xns93C6440D628EASCROSS3ncrrcom@24.25.9.43...
> "Piorokrat" <piorokrat@autograf.pl> wrote in
> news:bg1eah$g9o$1@news.onet.pl:
>
>
> > Okay. It's an idea, not having possessive adjectives. Certainly easier
> > than my Synthetica which has about 4 classes depending on whether the
> > 'my' is for true legal possession, for control without possession, for
> > locational attribution without control or possession or just for 'in
> > the style of'.
> >
> > By this token 'my car' is type 1. if you own it, type 2. if you're
> > leasing it, type 3 if you're the passenger only, (I'm waiting for my
> > taxi to arrive) and type 4 if you say 'my dream car would be a Jensen
> > Interceptor'.
>
> I suppose when a child in the family says, "This is my house," he/she
> would use type 3. If she's paying her parents board, type 2.
>
> What about parts of your body? Many natlangs (Vietnamese, IIRC) and some
> conlangs (my own Danallian, for instance) distinguish between
> "possession" of body parts and things that can be owned.
>
> Do I buy or lease my right arm? Neither. So in what sense do I "own" it?
You do own it in a legal sense. You can insure it, you can claim
compensation if someone damages it, and there is no other owner, short of
deity. 'My arm' would therefore be 'mawjxyy brakx' in Synthetica.
>
> Transplanted organs would be type 1, I suppose, since you "bought" them.
>
If they were paid for by the state, like protheses, and had to be returned
on death, then you could argue for a type 2. 'mawmyy brakh'
> This reminds me of a related expression, "my wife's murderer." We know it
> means "the murderer of my wife," but if both possessives were truly
> possesive, it would mean "my wife's hired assassin."
That would be a type 3. An attributive. The 'her assassin' would be not
sxawjxyy or sxawmyy but 'sxawryy txjanik'
>
> Steve Cross
leaving type 4, 'my wife's curry' as in the kind she makes.
If you say "This is like my wife's curry" then it means you've been served
up something resembling the uxorial cuisine. But if you say "This is, like,
my wife's curry" it could mean that you were annoyed at someone else eating
what was suppoised to be for her. This ambiguity is avoided, mercifully, in
Synthetica, where sxawlaa karri != sxawjxaa karri.
Best,
Uncle Davey
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