Something neat about my conlang, Hĭp’alŭk’, is how it handles demonstratives (e.g., “this” & “that”). Demonstratives have both a three-way distinction between persons (speaker, addressee, and both) and a three-way distinction between distances (near, slightly far, and far).
This results in 9 different demonstratives (that I haven’t nailed down words for yet):
meoproximal DEM.PROX.1 — “this near me”
tuoproximal DEM.PROX.2 — “that near you”
omniproximal DEM.PROX.1+2 — “that near us both”
meomesial DEM.MES.1 — “that slightly far from me”
tuomesial DEM.MES.1 — “that slightly far from you”
omnimesial DEM.MES.1+2 — “that slightly far from us both”
meodistal DEM.DIST.1 — “that far from me”
tuodistal DEM.DIST.2 — “that far from you”
omnidistal DEM.DIST.1+2 — “that far from us both”
Hmm, I imagine you wouldn’t need to. For your example, just using the tuoproximal demonstrative (i.e., that near-you book) would imply that the book is far away from the speaker — otherwise, they would’ve used the omniproximal. I could see two being used for emphasis though.
Something neat about my conlang, Hĭp’alŭk’, is how it handles demonstratives (e.g., “this” & “that”). Demonstratives have both a three-way distinction between persons (speaker, addressee, and both) and a three-way distinction between distances (near, slightly far, and far).
This results in 9 different demonstratives (that I haven’t nailed down words for yet):
meoproximal
DEM.PROX.1— “this near me”tuoproximal
DEM.PROX.2— “that near you”omniproximal
DEM.PROX.1+2— “that near us both”meomesial
DEM.MES.1— “that slightly far from me”tuomesial
DEM.MES.1— “that slightly far from you”omnimesial
DEM.MES.1+2— “that slightly far from us both”meodistal
DEM.DIST.1— “that far from me”tuodistal
DEM.DIST.2— “that far from you”omnidistal
DEM.DIST.1+2— “that far from us both”Interesting. Could you combine them? As in, could you use this system to really simply say like “this far-me near-you book”?
Hmm, I imagine you wouldn’t need to. For your example, just using the tuoproximal demonstrative (i.e., that near-you book) would imply that the book is far away from the speaker — otherwise, they would’ve used the omniproximal. I could see two being used for emphasis though.