Anthologica Universe Atlas / Forums / Department of Creativity / Some, most, and all of the partitives / Some, most, and all of the partitives
This started out as a yes-I-must-talk-about-this-now thread, but it occurs to me I have no idea what I'm doing, so instead of just soliciting feedback I'd like to invite others to share their partitive systems also.
There are three categories of partitives in Lilitika:
(a) constructions where a set, general term exists; these are usually vague cases such as "some of the people" or "half of the night"
(b) constructions where a reference must be made to a specific quantity or fraction, e.g. "three of the walnuts" or "ten percent of the battery"
(c) constructions where a reference must be made to a subset which is distinguished by some attribute, e.g. "the wisest of the philosophers" or "the oldest (parts) of the tree"
(Jargon reminder: Lilitika has two major phases, "Archaic" and "Classical". "Ketalán" is a late dialect of the Classical form.)
The first type is relatively boring: the dictionary simply contains a list of determiners (which, like many determiners in Lilitika, look like adjectives) that can be dropped in. For example: pensí means "partial." So, to say "some of us," all one need write is:
pensípartial sai1-PL.F.Ø
However, there is an exception: in Classical Lilitika, when it becomes commonplace to omit the subject pronoun (in favour of a more inflected verb), this retains an adjective form, not an adverb form as with many other words, e.g.
pensípartial égereiago-1.PL.PST
Some of us went.
This gets weird when using Ketalán's nominal-mimicking postfix adjectives:
égessingo-1.PL.PST pensapartial-F.Ø
Some of us went.
(which resembles a singular noun in the nominative case.)
The second type is a little more erratic. Like many IE languages, Classical Lilitika falls back on a genitive in this case, but using the -úu numeral/counting noun suffix always spelled out in full:
si1.SG.GENkarsaifriend-F.PL.Ø lénúantwo-NUM-F.PL.GEN
Two of my friends.
However, Archaic Lilitika does something slightly scarier: it requires some kind of determiner (the, my, these, some, etc.) and places the count before that:
lénítwo-ADJ saní1-F.SG.GEN karsaifriend-F.PL.NOM
Two of my friends.
These never changed from the archaic pattern of using word order:
zithuripurple-having si1.SG.GEN khríméahair-F.SG.Ø
My purple hair.
Partitives in Lilitika
There are three categories of partitives in Lilitika:
(a) constructions where a set, general term exists; these are usually vague cases such as "some of the people" or "half of the night"
(b) constructions where a reference must be made to a specific quantity or fraction, e.g. "three of the walnuts" or "ten percent of the battery"
(c) constructions where a reference must be made to a subset which is distinguished by some attribute, e.g. "the wisest of the philosophers" or "the oldest (parts) of the tree"
(Jargon reminder: Lilitika has two major phases, "Archaic" and "Classical". "Ketalán" is a late dialect of the Classical form.)
Simple partitives
The first type is relatively boring: the dictionary simply contains a list of determiners (which, like many determiners in Lilitika, look like adjectives) that can be dropped in. For example: pensí means "partial." So, to say "some of us," all one need write is:
pensípartial sai1-PL.F.Ø
However, there is an exception: in Classical Lilitika, when it becomes commonplace to omit the subject pronoun (in favour of a more inflected verb), this retains an adjective form, not an adverb form as with many other words, e.g.
pensípartial égereiago-1.PL.PST
Some of us went.
This gets weird when using Ketalán's nominal-mimicking postfix adjectives:
égessingo-1.PL.PST pensapartial-F.Ø
Some of us went.
(which resembles a singular noun in the nominative case.)
Exact quantitative partitives
The second type is a little more erratic. Like many IE languages, Classical Lilitika falls back on a genitive in this case, but using the -úu numeral/counting noun suffix always spelled out in full:
si1.SG.GENkarsaifriend-F.PL.Ø lénúantwo-NUM-F.PL.GEN
Two of my friends.
However, Archaic Lilitika does something slightly scarier: it requires some kind of determiner (the, my, these, some, etc.) and places the count before that:
lénítwo-ADJ saní1-F.SG.GEN karsaifriend-F.PL.NOM
Two of my friends.
Qualitative partitives
These never changed from the archaic pattern of using word order:
zithuripurple-having si1.SG.GEN khríméahair-F.SG.Ø
My purple hair.