Subject: Re: ma'a as possessive: mass or individual?

From: "Adam Raizen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2001 21:24:15 -0000

la .xorxes. cusku di'e

> >The question is, can this reduce to
> >
> > ro ma'a bilga lenu bevri le denci lumci tutci po ma'a
> >
[...]
> 
> I don't think Adam was talking about that sentence. He had a
> pro-sumti in the second position, and it does make a difference.

Pending resolution of the problem below, I think that "ro ma'a zo'u
.ei ma'a bevri le me ma'a moi" is okay. It would take a very strained
reading to interpret ma'a as changing referents mid-sentence like
that.

> But there is a prior question to answer: Is {ro ma'a} = {ro lu'a
ma'a}?

Looking it up, the book on page 139 indeed says that {mi'o, mi'a,
ma'a, do'o} are all masses, but that the other personal pro-sumti are
ambiguous between mass and individuals. I'd like to keep the parallel
with the other personal pro-sumti and have "mi'o" ambiguous between
"mi joi do" and "mi .e do". "ro mi'o" = "ro lu'o mi'o" isn't very
useful anyway.

mu'o mi'e .adam.