Speak Eldraeic Like a Semi-Literate Barbarian (4a): Arguments

Man, this is awkward.

I haven't posted for quite some time, for which I apologize appropriately prodigiously. My muse has been feeling quite burned out recently, for a variety of reasons probably unrelated to writing. Hopefully the involuntary extended break helped.

And now, when I've prepared the next article in the language series for y'all, I've had to slice it up because I'm not entirely sure of the ontological correctness of the bulk descriptions the way I arranged them.

Alas. And sorry.

Time to get back to the language series.

(Since it has been some considerable time since the earlier part of the series, it may be worth a quick review of the previous part on predications to recall what we're about to talk about.)

This time we're discussing rélar, the arguments of esprel (predications).

There are five types of arguments in Eldraeic:

1. Mini-arguments in the form of mirílar, known as érélar, and which perform similar functions to English pronouns. We've covered some of these (the personals, demonstratives, and variables) here, and will cover more anon.
2. Mathematical objects (including, at their simplest, pure numbers).
3. Quotations.
4. Descriptions (i.e., identifications of a thing via its qualities, which is to say, predications about it which would be true in themselves).
5. Names (verbal pointers to a thing).

We shall, for this post's purposes, content ourselves with the most common types of rélar, descriptions¹ and names, and return to talk about mathematics and quotations later.

Individual Descriptions

So let us discuss descriptions. In particular let us first examine the multiple different descriptions that can be produced from the same anesprel.

Of the individual descriptions, the most obvious and the most commonly used is the particular description, prefixed with the particular descriptive operator el:

el athán
that-specific-thing-which-I-describe-by-the-particulars-of-a machine
The machine.

This locates the thing about which you are talking about by ascribing certain particulars to it. Note that el athán is not necessarily a machine; it just seems to be one. This leads us on to the second type: the essential descriptions, which speak to the objective reality of a thing. The rélar prefix for this is eles.

eles athán
that-specific-thing-which-is-in-essence-a machine
The machine.

What's the practical difference?

Well, the latter is an assertion that something definitely is, while the former merely asserts that something seems to be. (And if you are translating wordwise from Eldraeic, you will use the word seem a lot, because epistemic humility implies that you shouldn't make definite claims unless you are, in fact, definite.)

To give a worked example: should you see someone out and about who is dressed in a somewhat gender-neutral manner and you aren't certain of their sex, you may refer to them as, say:

el nérí
The [seeming] man.

But you should probably not refer to them as:

eles nérí
The [definite] man.

And if your friend knows better and corrects you, he may say:

el nérí nissívár
The [seeming] man is a woman.

But saying:

eles nérí nissívár
The man is a woman.

Is self-contradictory nonsense.

Singular and Plural

Meanwhile, both particular and essential descriptions also invite specificity as to number², which is done by inserting a syllabic numeral or quantifier between the rélar prefix and the anesprel, thus:

el ne nissí
The (one) woman.

or

el me tradisil argylíör³
that-which-seems-to-be nine difficult-type-of merit-seeings
The Nine Rigorous Examinations.

or

el kané alaer
that-which-seems-to-be a-small-quantity-of ocean
A little bit of the sea.

Digression

There are other qualifiers which can be added in between rélar prefix and anesprel, including such things as tense modifiers to let one describe something in the past, or in a particular location, and so forth. However, these are best described in the sections relating to tenses, et. al.

Individual Names

Names are formed in the same way as descriptions, save that they use the naming operator ádar, followed by anything that can be used as a vocative (meaning, in this case, actual names, or anesprel with a vocative prefix, similar to the English "O", as many grammar books would put it.

Thus we have such constructs as:

ádar Alistair hyúmanár
the-thing-called Alistair humans
Alistair is a human.

There is no distinction between particular and essential description in naming, obviously. One thing to look out for, however, is that the name operator designates the thing named, not the name itself. If you want to refer to the latter, you must instead use one of the types of rélar we haven't yet got to: the quotation operators. For example:

líü Alistair válarasár an-val
the-word Alistair is-the-name-of me
I am called Alistair.

You can pluralize, etc., individual names in the same way as you can individual descriptions.

Next Time

Bulk descriptions and names, in which we talk about masses, sets, and multiples and the annoyingly subtle distinctions between masses, sets, and multiples.

1. Also by far the most complex.
2. By default, although singularity is often assumed, such a description is ambiguous as to number unless one is deliberately specified.
3. As illustrated here, any anesprel can be used as the basis of a description, although some may require modification for clarity.