Bryatesle: Personal Pronouns

The personal pronouns of Bryatesle form the following table:

Singular
	nom	acc	dat	abl
1st	nëm	(n)a	(n)ek	(n)ïty
2nd	tvem	tëku	tërsi	tërty
3rd masc	en	menak	mersi	merty
3rd fem	emi	enyk	enir	enam
3rd neut	es	es	syn	sity
plural
1st	vli	vilku	versi	versi
2nd	xnivim	xnu (xinku)	xnërsi (xersi)	xnërsi
3rd	tivi	teku	tevsi	tevsi

Historically, tevsi has been tërsi - thus coinciding with the 2nd person singular dative, but these have since dissimilated. The dissimilation in part pushed along the conflation in central dialects between masculine, feminine and neuter plurals, as 'tevsi' previously was the neuter form. 

This change has been spreading from the central dialects over the recent century, and has not hit all regions yet. In far western dialects, tërsi remains as the 3rd person plural dative form, but tërty has spread to be 2nd person singular dative as well. Most educated writers - even those who speak dialects that conflate them - distinguish them in writing. As for the gender distinction in the plural third person pronouns, it remains in northern and western dialects, but has been lost in the east, south and central areas. These forms vary strongly.

Pronouns also have secondary case markers, but these exist as phonologically independent words, albeit with very restrictive syntactic distribution. Definite forms exist as well, and the interpretation of these are not necessarily entirely transparent.

In 

Usage

Third person reference resolution

 

Over the span of modern colloquial Bryatesle, reference resolution differs regiolectally and chronolectally. Capital region Bryatesle from middle-modern to late-modern roughly follows these  principles: any contextually prominent singular noun phrase of the correct gender or number is a candidate for reference. The more recent, the more likely to be the correct referent, except that the previous clause has its own ranking system: there, subjects outrank other potential referents, and clause-initial non-subjects are second in rank. A definite noun raises the likelihood that a pronoun will be parsed as referring to it. Demonstratives do not have this effect - instead, demonstrative pronouns are likely to be used to refer to nouns which have been expressed with demonstrative determiners.

A significant amount of lexical information may affect interpretation of reference - e.g verbs that are associated with animal subjects (e.g. at. garʋer / tel. gerʋar - roar, at. tepʋer / tel. tapar, 'to gallop', at. nʋusir / tel. nʋesar 'to sniff' (of dogs)), will generally be interpreted to refer to a suitable candidate animal even if other pronoun parsing rules would prefer a different referent.

Third person pronouns cannot refer to a noun that is introduced in the same clause, in such a case the noun must instead be referred to by a demonstrative. The Vartaky school of philosophy's writing rules demands a curve be drawn in writing to connect such references in text for clarity, other varieties have gone in for pretty wordy disambiguating parentheticals. The Capital court language demands the use of a compound consisting of the demonstrative and a regular third person pronoun for such reference in writing, although it is usually only the demonstrative that is read out.

The plural is more complicated: the third person plural may even refer to multiple, separate noun phrases of singular or plural or mixed numbers that need not even be in syntactically similar positions or even in the same clause. However, in legal and philosophical texts, wherever it is unclear which nouns are referred to, they are often presented between two copies of the pronoun, all in the same case, e.g.

teku, parde-le dynke, teku.

them, poor(sg)-and rich(sg), them

 

There are certain indicators of higher likelihood of mixed-positional reference: verbs that indicate social interaction, competition, comparison, attempts at contrasting, communicating relations, either with the antecedent or with the pronoun, may indicate that the reference is to multiple antecedents - unless a plural antecedent that clearly fits the bill could be found. Nouns that denote persons or things that belong to some kind of culturally important set - the family, the village, the crew, the functionaries of certain events, are likely to be interpreted as being referred to by one pronoun.

As for the plural pronoun, the use of a definite marker after the pronoun tends to indicate as 'narrow' a possible interpretation of the reference: noun-phrases that at the very least were coordinated, preferably maybe even just one noun phrase.

Pro-drop permits for even stricter reference resolution in the plural: if no pronoun is used, a verb with plural subject must have as the referent a single plural NP (or coordinated noun phrases), preferrably if possible in the previous clause, or a recent plural subject of some verb. Third person singular pro-drop reference is similarly restricted, but does naturally not resolve the 'multiple simultaneous references' issue

 

Second and First Person Number

The number of the second person pronouns may not exactly respond to the number of the addressee or speaker, and may also deviate from the number marked on the verb. The verbal number always correlates to the 'actual' number in these cases. The most common situations where such divergence is marked are these:

• A person seen as a representative of a group.
  
• One person in a group is seen as of primary social importance even outside that group. Thus, e.g. a king and his entourage can be spoken of in the singular.
• In reported speech, plural is often preferred over singular for subjects.

First number can also deviate from the number of the referred people:

• One person having particular ownership of the action. This only really can be 'transparent' with subjects, and so isn't really a thing with objects. With non-subjects, this deviation arguably does not exist.

Bryatesle: Traces of the Vanished Copula

Although Bryatesle's copula is mostly absent, having been replaced by other intransitive verbs that take complements, it has left some traces in rather specific syntactical contexts. Meanwhile, several dialectal copulas exist, with rather stunningly different origins. This essay covers a fair share of copula-adjacent shenanigans.

The proto-Bryatesle-Dairwueh copula

In an early stage of proto-BD, one can posit that the copula had the following forms:

sg pl

1 ji(tju)n jitjam

2 ji(tju)r jihine (jitjune also for pl)

3.I jider jides (jitju also attested for both singular and plural)

3.II ji(tju)m ji(t)ver

3.fem jiden / jiden (or jitjen)

The copula did not have a perfective/imperfective distinction, but did have a past tense form, and an exceptional feminine form:

 sg pl

1 tin tim

2 tir tine

3.I ta tas

3.II tem (t)ver 

3.fem tiden

The feminine form seems mainly to have been used as a third person feminine marker, but sometimes, it has been used in other persons as well.

A different non-verbal copula was used for punctual past, viz. invariable "kund", a word whose cognate "gan" serves as a contrastive conjunction ('but') in Dairwueh, and the cognate "kul" serves as an abessive marker in tarist.

2. Retentions of the copula forms

In comparisons

In comparisons, the standard of the comparison often is followed by a simplified copula. The person marking has been reduced to jir (sg) vs. jes (pl). This still follows the number of the standard of comparison, regardless of the case it is in.

Resumptive functions

The third person forms are sometimes used as resumptive subject pronouns in subclauses.

Some subclauses

These forms can all book-end (i.e. introduce or end) certain types of subclauses, e.g. relative subclauses, that-clauses (complements of 'say' and such, especially when the speech is not a direct quote).

Some adverbs

Some adverbs have -(j)im- or -ta- as a derivative affix. Examples:

jimuake 'it is enough'

jivruake 'they are enough'

jimarta 'fortunately'

jindegug 'already' (sometimes ingidug)

jimkanu, jinkanu 'still' 

takyrs 'certainly' ('was yes')

Strong affirmation

The third person forms sg jider, pl jides (f jiden) are often used as a positive enforcing verb, coordinated with the main verb. However, the feminine form is restricted to formal speech and a few dialects, being replaced by the masculine in most dialects and registers.

Negating existence or presence

The negative particle, when negating existence or presence of a subject or object, can take a prefix jim-/jid-.

Presence or location

Some locative expressions take these as suffixes to denote being at a location. This can be used to closer tie a locative to the subject, in case the relation between location, subject and other argument is unclear. So, e.g. 'kauda' means 'at home', but 'jirkauda'(sg)/'jinkauda'(pl) specifically means '(the subject is) at the subject's home'. As opposed to 'we visited him at home'. If the subject is first person, you sometimes get 'jinkauda', and this is also a common answer as to the question where someone was, if they were at home.

Verb suffixes

Some verbs clearly derive from the copula affixing onto a stem. This can be found at both edges of the stem:

kerjider - has a certain duration

 jidranu - persists, endures

Such verbs often have slightly irregular inflection.

Copula-like words

These are the copulas or copula-like words we find traces of, each having at some time, in some dialect or in some cognate language taken on a copula-like function:

• sikn > siku, an essive postposition, from an adjective meaning 'similar', even previously from a word meaning 'face' (sargalk cognate: šek'an > ch'ešn, 'chin', Dairwueh cognates sinzet - 'facial expression', but also sinze - 'in front of'); in Tarist, the cognate (sik(n)) is the stem for the copula. The 'heyday' of this copula from a Bryatesle vantage point was proto-Bryatotarist. Western Tarist uses it both as a copula and an essive marker.
  
• kund, a contrastive conjunction (like English but), which eventually came to be an emphatic copula in some southern dialects. The cognate gən in Dairwueh signifies 'and then', in Tarist, kund signifies 'without'. In northwestern Bryatesle, kund is sometimes used as a past tense copula, and was more widely used as such in early Bryatesle.
  
• yan, (P-BD zgam) an originally essive preposition. By Proto-Bryatesle, this had mainly become an affirmative particle, but also a resumptive ~pronoun. The cognate in Dairwueh, zam, expresses 'emphatic self' as well as exclusive specification, and is also the origin of the -ŋa-series of passive present markers. In some insular dialects, this is still used before nominal complements of any verb that is used as a copula. In older texts, and southeastern dialects, this sometimes is used as a standalone present tense copula.
  
• The "continuous value copula" of proto-Bryatesle-Dairwueh:
  ıtıwn | ıtırw | ıtıw
  ıtıkw | ıtıwv | ıtıwvə
  which however early on lost its first and second person forms for a uniform ıtıu > jıtju, from which new forms emerged (the present tense table given above). In Dairwueh, the cognate hidze is used for expressing quantities and durations, and in the causative is the stem for the verb 'to count'. The Tarist cognate itsju expresses 'exceed' in comparisons. No known Sargalk cognate.
  
• The Proto-Bryatesle-Dairwueh binary state copula,
  k'ıx | kı'rp | k'ıxw
  k'ıko | k'ıwo | k'ıwə
  which similarly lost all forms but kıxw > kıvu by Proto-Bryatesle.
  In Sargalk, a cognate tš'i- is used both for polar questions and emphatic confirmation. In Bryatesle, it has come to stand in either-or-questions kıvu A kıvu B?
  
• The existential particle nıd, whose Tarist cognate nidi- signifies "be alive". In Sargalk, the adverb nurne, signifying 'even now, still, continuing' might originate with the same stem, as might the verb nuvu- 'to remain, to be alive, (to wait)'. Dairwueh nirzes - nourishment, and neze - 'for the duration of' might also be cognate. This particle also is part of several Bryatesle nouns and verbs, such as nidmar - nourishment, nidtul - to survive, nidnyr - birth. Beyond its role as an (emphatic) existential particle in Bryatesle, in some southern dialects it can be used as a locative copula. At the border towards Tarist, its use as a general copula is attested.
  
• The demonstrative ~verb 'siš' ('is this one, this one is, here is ..., ... is here') - the dairwueh cognate 'hise' is a reference disambiguator: when a pronoun refers to a following noun, the following noun usually has 'hise' introducing the NP.
  
• A fairly formal synonym for 'become' seems to be derived from 'was not, is' - datajir (no was is)

 

Conreligions Checklist: Magic, Politics, Science

     Magic

• Religion and magic often skate very close to each other, however ...
• ... so did science and magic back in really old times.
• ... the differentiation between religion and magic is not necessarily all that clear.
• both are (or at least 'can be') supernatural practices, in some sense.
• not all cultures necessarily differentiate them!
• however, a distinction between sanctioned and non-sanctioned magical activities is rather likely to exist. 
• ... the differentiation between magic and science/engineering is not necessarily all that clear.
• Depending on how science develops, it too will be about
• causing effects
  
• explaining cause and effect
• developing a terminology that permits discussing things
• Practitioners of engineering may not necessarily understand the underlying science, and in the modern world, we do see a fair share of people whose understanding of science is basically just a substitute for religion. (I am not saying science is a substitute for religion, but if you reason about science in certain ways, your understanding of it is probably not much better than religion. Consider, e.g. someone who thinks that evolution has an explicit purpose, or that e.g. quantum mechanics proves that your attitude to outcomes of random events can influence them, etc.) 
• Practitioners of engineering thus may end up using formulas for calculating whether a bridge will hold a certain mass as a sort of magic incantation that tells something essential about the bridge.
  
• ... both religious rituals and magic contain an idea of causation that differs from a naturalistic idea of causation; however, medieval magic did assume quite a different idea of causation in the first place.
• If you don't understand where language came from, language might be seen as an essential, objective part of nature (rather than as a human phenomenon); if language is understood as such a part of nature (or rather physics), ... then linguistic acts might well be "naturalistically" thought to affect nature. Reality 'hears' what you're saying, and reacts to it. However, maybe your language is considered degenerate for whatever reason, and therefore less efficient.
• We find some modern people too have strange notions of causation, see e.g. Masaru Emoto
  
• This actually leads to an interesting notion of what the term "magic" might mean in modern times: "magic" is a term used for any system that assumes an outdated or otherwise rejected notion of causality!
   
• European and Middle Eastern Magic had several different forms, not necessarily recognized as branches of a single 'magic':
  
• The conjuration of spirits
• More generally, things that have effects on spirits in various ways - mazes by that made their obsessive minds get stuck, etc.
  
• Altering the properties of a thing more directly by carrying out certain actions (amulets and talismans)
• Utilizing the properties of a thing by carrying out certain actions
• "As abo
• In most of human history, religion and the state have been two legs of the same creature - the narratives and rituals of religion have justified and regulated the state, and the state has sponsored and sanctioned religion. A few religions, however, have become 'superstate' religions, i.e. their reach crosses state borders and can impose political clout onto several of them - this is maybe especially clear in pre-colonial India, post-Roman Europe and the modern world.
• ve, so below" - by doing something here, the order in the heavens is affected; the order here, is further affected in accordance with how it's affected above.
• Some of these did have somewhat reasonable assumptions:
• We can see that tides are affected by the sun and the moon; thus, the sun and the moon clearly have some kind of invisibly transmitted effect. From this, a mistaken understanding of what that effect is may easily lead into a variety of notions of magic. However! This misunderstood notion probably is not all that far from the roots of our understanding of invisible forces either. NB: I wrote roots, not implying that our understanding and theirs is similar, but that there is a historical continuity from one to the other.
  
• Is prayer magic?
• Depends on what prayer is supposed to achieve.
• Consider the Jewish notion that prayer should be an activity where you consider your own conduct and judge yourself and commit yourself to improving.
• OTOH, Jewish prayer also contains appeals to G-d to improve situations in the real world.
• The atheist view on what religious people do prayer for is is often rather lopsided towards 'people asking for stuff'. Prayer tends to have many functions:
• praise
• restatement and affirmation of doctrine
• personal commitment to improvement
• something somewhat like 'meditation'
• communal bonding
• this may include teaching and reinforcing beliefs among the community's members (e.g. a leader of the congregation prays aloud, and everyone else hears this and possibly repeats it)
• of course, this may also contain an aspect of curtailing freedom of thought - "you've confirmed, vocally, that you believe this every day your entire life, so why won't you believe it now?")
  
• ineffable things (silent prayer, prayer as music without lyrics (hassidic niggun)) - this does probably work as some kind of emotional vent

Science

• Scientific terminology is by itself not necessarily "true": if a religion by tradition uses a word to denote a class of things, and science uses the same word to denote a slightly different class, this is not necessarily a disagreement. It is merely the use of separate definitions. This is a normal phenomenon, and even scientists use words differently - ask a cosmologist and a metallurgist whether sulphur is a metal. Words are arbitrary labels that we apply to things, and sometimes, two groups have different use cases for these words.
• However, both sides of this coin may disagree with the idea that words are arbitrary, and see any failure to adhere to specific definitions as 'wrong'.
• Thus, imho, whenever an atheist use arguments like 'bats aren't birds yet the Bible thinks they are', I'd really like to tell him in private that his argument is making us atheists look dumb, and that he should know better - a language may well have a word 'bird' that basically includes all warm-blooded winged animals. We don't actually know the exact meaning of 'bird' in KJV-era English!
• However, the same type of arguments coming from a religious person is just as dumb. If a muslim argues that science is wrong since it doesn't agree that the liver is a kind of blood, ... well, 
  
• Thus, the terms by themselves don't hold truth value, they're merely a label. Yes, scientific terms often try to catch some kind of relatedness between concepts, ... but this is again dictated by use-case.
• Thus, disagreements as to whether something is a fruit or a berry, a fish or a mammal, etc, ... might occur, but this would be the result of either a religious group or a counter-religious group trying to impose one use terminologal use case onto the entire language, sometimes even onto every language.
  
• Some religions have narratives, rules or other conceptions of reality that go against objective reality. Science attempts to figure out something that is close to reality. If scientific findings and religious dogma contradict, this may lead to the kind of conflict we see in some circles w.r.t creationism, but it may also
• Cause reinterpretation in all kinds of mystical / metaphorical ways.
• Cause rejection of a narrative.
• Cause the believers to think they don't "understand" the narrative deeply enough.
• Cause believers to hold out hope that scientific findings currently are a fluke, and soon enough the True Truth will emerge.
• If the religion isn't all that interested in maintaining belief, but rather maintaining praxis, this might not be an issue at all ... unless scientific findings show that the praxis leads to the opposite results of what's expected (e.g. a healing ritual that is strongly carcinogenic).
• Sometimes, people are able to keep conflicting ideas in their heads, and if they do not perceive the conflict between the ideas to be important, this might not even lead to particularly strong cognitive dissonance. I know I have some conflicting beliefs w.r.t. some obscure maths, but it's not anything that gives me any stress.
• Consider examples like 'reconstructionist Judaism', which holds that Judaism is an iron age civilization that has survived into the present by morphing from a territorial civilization to an ethnic minority group kind of civilization. For such an idea about 'religion', the truth value of the religious scripture is really not all that important: to them, the Jewish Bible is a family hierloom which tells them how some particularly influential members of the civilization viewed itself and its challenges 2200+ years ago, and this volume has had a considerable impact on the culture, which is another reason to keep it around and sometimes even read it. For such a religion, the science/religion conflict seems totally irrelevant. For conservative Christianity, Islam and some branches of Orthodox Judaism, however, the conflict can be all the more threatening, as cherished truths are questioned and possibly even shown to be entirely untenable (or only tenable by extremely far-fetched solutions).
  

Politics

• A common notion today is "keep religion out of politics". Over most of human history, this would be almost laughable.
  
• Clearly, if divine beings exist and interact with mankind, pleasing them may be of some political relevance.
• As previously mentioned, in earlier times, causation was less clearly understood, and if your best understanding of causation says 'we need to sacrifice sheep to ensure rain', your culture will sacrifice sheep.
• Organized religion almost certainly emerged not as a result of politics, but as politics.
  
• Democracy in some sense does imply imposing by some kind of regulated manner, the ethics of some voters onto other voters. If some voters' ethics are based on religion, it's not weird if this does impose some religious values on the non-religious as well.
  
• In most of human history, religion and the state have been two legs of the same creature - the narratives and rituals of religion have justified and regulated the state, and the state has sponsored and sanctioned religion. A few religions, however, have become 'superstate' religions, i.e. their reach crosses state borders and can impose political clout onto several of them - this is maybe especially clear in pre-colonial India, post-Roman Europe and the modern world.
• Pre-state or sub-state religions naturally also exist, but also require some amount of social cooperation. And in these, there also tends to be justification of the social order - chieftains, shamans, gender roles, etc. And this, of course, is politics.