Indefinite specific : indefinite nonspecific :: A CW pattern?
Today I’m using this website as my linguistic notebook…
(Image credit: UCLA Working Papers in Linguistics)
I’ve been pondering “a certain” symmetry that I think I perceive in Chinuk Wawa, which hasn’t been pointed out as far as I know.
This involves the words that have the literal meanings ‘one’ (ixt), ‘thing’ (ikta), ‘maybe’ (t’ɬunas), and ‘who’ (ɬaksta), in “certain” interesting combinations:
Determiner phrases —
- íxt X ‘a certain X’ : Ø X (I mean just X, preceded by nothing) ‘an(y) X’
:: - íkta X ‘a certain kind of X; what specific kind of X?’ : t’ɬúnas-íkta X ‘some kind or other of X’
:: - (northern dialect) ɬáksta (Y) ‘which person (Y)?’ : t’ɬúnas-ɬáksta (Y) ‘some person (Y) or other’
Also analogously, the pronouny uses of ‘what’ and ‘who’ —
- íkta ‘something (particular…I think) : t’ɬúnas-íkta ‘something or other’
:: - ɬáksta ‘someone particular; who in specific?’ : t’ɬúnas-ɬáksta ‘gosh knows who’
:: - ?others?
I’m wondering whether we can say that other content-question words (qʰáta ‘how’, qʰə́nchi ‘when’, qʰá ‘when’, etc.) are involved in similar patterns.
