From nicholas@uci.edu Wed Sep 05 12:55:39 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: nicholas@uci.edu X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2); 5 Sep 2001 19:55:38 -0000 Received: (qmail 48350 invoked from network); 5 Sep 2001 19:32:47 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by m8.onelist.org with QMQP; 5 Sep 2001 19:32:47 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO e4e.oac.uci.edu) (128.200.222.10) by mta2 with SMTP; 5 Sep 2001 19:32:41 -0000 Received: from localhost (nicholas@localhost) by e4e.oac.uci.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA22015; Wed, 5 Sep 2001 12:32:41 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: e4e.oac.uci.edu: nicholas owned process doing -bs Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 12:32:41 -0700 (PDT) X-Sender: To: Cc: Nick NICHOLAS Subject: ma'a as possessive: mass or individual? Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: Nick NICHOLAS X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 10466 This came up on http://nuzban.wiw.org/wiki/index.php?Each%20of%20us%20must%20bring%20their%20own%20toothbrush --- and bless whoever puts these conundrums up! How do you say "Each of us must bring their own toothbrush"? Well, fascistically, ro da po'u ma'a bilga lenu bevri le denci lumci tutci po da The question is, can this reduce to ro ma'a bilga lenu bevri le denci lumci tutci po ma'a I think no, and that this sentence means "We all must bring *our* toothbrush" --- i.e. the second ma'a in the sentence, like the first, refers to a plurality of people, and (I construe) a mass, who all own the thing in common. Adam thinks yes, and that the second ma'a behaves like da ("of each of us", rather than "of all of us".) Is there anything anywhere that says one of these two interpretations is incorrect? The Book gives me little light. -- == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == Nick Nicholas, Breathing {le'o ko na rivbi fi'inai palci je tolvri danlu} nicholas@uci.edu -- Miguel Cervantes tr. Jorge LLambias