Determiner

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Revision as of 00:07, 5 February 2022 by Uakci (talk | contribs) (darkened colours, added {brackets and numbers} for extra clarity)

A determiner is a particle that consumes a predicate phrase and produces a noun phrase.

For example: sa “some” is a determiner, bỉo “…is a cup” is a predicate phrase, and sa bỉo is a noun phrase meaning “some cup(s)”.

Semantically, these particles tend to correspond to logical quantifiers over a now-bound variable, plus an occurence of that variable. For example, the sa determiner corresponds to the quantifier. The tagged predicate phrase doubles both as a domain and a name for the variable.

In short, sa bỉo does three things:

  1. introduces an existentially bound variable bío to the clause;
  2. specifies that it refers to a cup (or some cups: see plural logic);
  3. acts in its place in the sentence as an instance of this variable.

Hẻaq jí sa bỉo.

I'm holding some cup(s).

Determiner particles

Word Meaning
sa some X
tuq every X
tushı each X
tuq all X
sıa no X
ke the X
hoı the aforementioned X
baq X in general, X-kind
which X?
ja λX

Additionally, rising tone can be analyzed as a tonal pseudo-determiner that refers to bound variables, or falls back to "implicitly-bound" ke X if there is no earlier binding.

Every, each, all

tu bỉo quantifies over the range of "cups-es". The possible values of bío include not only individual cups, but also groups of cups. A group of cups is also a bỉo, after all.

This can lead to surprising behavior (TODO example), and you want to say tushı instead.

tushı bỉo quantifies over "cups-es that are one", i.e. each individual cup. It's like tu bỉo ru shỉ.

tuq bỉo doesn't make a "for-all" statement. Instead it refers to the single entity "all cups (together)".