Gretchen at 23:22, 17 September 2012

2012-09-17T23:22:57Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 23:22, 17 September 2012
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	Indefinite pronouns are words like ''someone'' and ''anything'' that people use to talk about people, things, places, and so on when they don't know or don't want to say the actual name. Most languages have some words to express these concepts, but they often don't translate perfectly from one language to another.		Indefinite pronouns are words like ''someone'' and ''anything'' that people use to talk about people, things, places, and so on when they don't know or don't want to say the actual name. Most languages have some words to express these concepts, but they often don't translate perfectly from one language to another.

	Mi'gmaq has several different groups of indefinite pronouns. They are all based off the [[question words]]: ''wen'' 'who', ''goqwei'' 'what', ''tami'' 'where', ''tal'' 'how', etc.		Mi'gmaq has several different groups of indefinite pronouns. They are all based off the [[Information Questions\|question words]]: ''wen'' 'who', ''goqwei'' 'what', ''tami'' 'where', ''tal'' 'how', etc.

	<gl>		<gl>

Gretchen: /* By themselves */

2012-09-10T18:15:43Z

By themselves

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:15, 10 September 2012
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	\gll telim'sg's wen?		\gll telim'sg's wen?
	told.you person\\		told.you person\\
	\trans did anyone/someone tell you? (expect response ''e'e'' 'yes' or ''moqwa'' 'no'.		\trans did anyone/someone tell you? (expect response e'e 'yes' or moqwa 'no')
	</gl>		</gl>

Gretchen: Created page with "Indefinite pronouns are words like ''someone'' and ''anything'' that people use to talk about people, things, places, and so on when they don't know or don't want to say the actu..."

2012-09-10T18:14:57Z

Created page with "Indefinite pronouns are words like ''someone'' and ''anything'' that people use to talk about people, things, places, and so on when they don't know or don't want to say the actu..."

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Indefinite pronouns are words like ''someone'' and ''anything'' that people use to talk about people, things, places, and so on when they don't know or don't want to say the actual name. Most languages have some words to express these concepts, but they often don't translate perfectly from one language to another.

Mi'gmaq has several different groups of indefinite pronouns. They are all based off the [[question words]]: ''wen'' 'who', ''goqwei'' 'what', ''tami'' 'where', ''tal'' 'how', etc.

<gl>
\gll wen telim'sg's?
person told.you\\
\trans who told you? (expect the name of a person as response)
</gl>

==By themselves==

Sometimes a question word can appear by itself as an indefinite pronoun, for example. You can tell the difference between ''wen'' meaning 'anyone/someone' and ''wen'' meaning 'who' because when it means 'who' it will be at the beginning of the sentence, as shown above, and when it means 'anybody/somebody' it will be somewhere later in the sentence, as shown below.

<gl>
\gll telim'sg's wen?
told.you person\\
\trans did anyone/someone tell you? (expect response ''e'e'' 'yes' or ''moqwa'' 'no'.
</gl>

The same pattern works for the other question words and indefinite pronouns.

<gl>
\gll
\\
\trans do you see something/anything?
</gl>

<gl>
\gll
\\
\trans what do you see?
</gl>

<gl>
\gll
\\
\trans are you going somewhere/anywhere?
</gl>

<gl>
\gll
\\
\trans where are you going?
</gl>

The indefinite pronouns that look just like question words can also be used in sentences that aren't questions at all. For example, sentences about conditions (often translated with 'if' in English):

<gl>
\gll nemij wen, tlimitis
if.you.see person, you.will.tell.me\\
\trans if you see anyone/someone, you will tell me
</gl>

You can also see this type of indefinite pronoun with ''mu'' 'not', where it is always translated as ''any(one, body, thing, etc)'' in English.

<gl>
\gll mu teluwewap nemiaqap wen
not I.said.neg I.saw.neg person\\
\trans I didn't say I saw anyone
</gl>

Sometimes when ''mu'' is right before ''wen'' or ''goqwei'', it sounds a little different and is written ''mo'', but the meaning is the same whether they are together (first example below) or separated by the verb (second example below).

<gl>
\gll mo wen pegisinug'p
not person arrived.neg\\
\trans no one arrived
</gl>

<gl>
\gll mu pegisinug'p wen
not arrived.neg person\\
\trans no one arrived
</gl>

When the sentence is in the future, ''mu'' changes to ''ma'' (see also [[Future]]). This happens exactly the same way when there is a ''wen''.

<gl>
\gll ma wen 'pgsinug
not.fut person will.arrive.neg\\
\trans no one will arrive
</gl>

==Nata-==

The second group of indefinite pronouns is formed by adding ''nat-'' or ''nata-'' in front of any word from the first group. These are generally written as all one word.

<gl>
\gll nata-wen pegising'p
indef-person arrived\\
\trans someone arrived
</gl>

<gl>
\gll nata-wen nutaqap
indef-person I.heard\\
\trans I heard someone
</gl>

<gl>
\gll amujpa nata-wen piluwei pipanimatis
have.to indef-person else you.will.ask\\
\trans you'll have to ask someone else
</gl>

These ''nata-'' words include ''natawen'', ''natgoqwei'', ''natami'', ''natal'', and so on. These words are often translated into English as 'someone/somebody', 'something', 'somewhere', 'somehow', respectively. However, you can't use a ''nata-'' word in all the places where you can use a ''some-'' word. Notice that in the examples with ''natawen'' above, it wouldn't make sense to translate these sentences using 'anyone' (*anyone arrived, *I heard anyone, *you'll have to ask anyone else). They only sound okay with 'someone' (or 'somebody'). However, in the examples with ''wen'' above, both 'anyone' and 'someone' sounded fine as translations, and meant the same thing (did anyone/someone tell you?, if you see anyone/someone, tell me). The only time when we can't translate ''wen'' with both 'someone' and 'anyone' is when it is with ''mu'' 'not', but this is pretty easy to recognize.

So to sum up, we use just ''wen/goqwei''/etc. when you can translate the sentence with 'anyone/anything'/etc '''and''' 'someone/something'/etc, and get the same meaning, or when there's a ''mu'' so our translation would be 'not...anyone/no one'. We use ''nata-'' with ''wen/goqwei''/etc. when the only reasonable translation is with 'some-'.

==Tampas==

There is one last main group of indefinite pronouns, and these are used when the only reasonable translation is with 'any' but there isn't a negative ''mu''. They are made up of the word ''tampas'' plus the same ''wen/goqwei/tami/tal''/etc as the other groups. Unlike ''nata-'', ''tampas'' is conventionally written as a separate word, so we have ''tampas wen'', ''tampas goqwei'', ''tampas tami'', and so on.

<gl>
\gll Ma'li me misgilg aq tampas wen
Mary more big than indef person\\
\trans Mary is bigger than anybody (else)
</gl>

<gl>
\gll gis tlimatis tampas wen
able.to you.tell indef person\\
\trans you may tell anyone
</gl>

<gl>
\gll gelug'p tampas wen
I.talked.to indef person\\
\trans I talked to anyone, any old person
</gl>

==Ta'n==

There are also some cases with ''ta'n'' plus ''wen/goqwei''etc, which seem to be able to be translated with both 'some-' and 'any-', but is not completely identical to these words without ''ta'n''. I'm not quite sure how exactly this group works yet, but here is an example.

<gl>
\gll mu teltet'mu eig ta'n-wen getoq
not I.think.neg there.is indef-person knows.it\\
\trans I don't think that there is someone who knows it, I don't think that anyone knows it
</gl>

Indefinite Pronouns - Revision history

Gretchen at 23:22, 17 September 2012

Gretchen: /* By themselves */

Gretchen: Created page with "Indefinite pronouns are words like ''someone'' and ''anything'' that people use to talk about people, things, places, and so on when they don't know or don't want to say the actu..."