Conjunctions

[Francisc Czobor]

Thank you very much, Henry, for your comprehensive answer.
  Thus it is possible (at least at GR) to use the English word "or".
  You see, in some contexts, it is sometimes very important to discriminate between the meanings "and" and "or" (they are different also as logical operators). It isn't the same thing to say "you and me" or "you or me", but, from what I knew about CW until now, both would translate "mayka pi nayka". 
  I didn't knew that _pi_ can be used also to introduce the term with which the comparison is made, like in your example:
  ukuk man yaka manak'i hayash pi mayka = "that man is bigger than you"
  Until now, I knew that that term can be introduced by the prepositions khapa (kupa, kopa) or pus:
  ukuk man yaka ilEp hayash khapa mayka
  or
  ukuk man yaka manak'i hayash pus mayka.
Regarding the adverbial use of k'aXchi with the sense "to try (without succeeding)", it looks rather like those special adverbs called "context markers" by Jim Holton and which are normally found at the beginning of a phrase.
   
  Hayu masi,
  Francisc
   
  
hzenk at pdx.edu wrote:
  > According to the dictionaries, the universal CW conjunction _pi_ means
> primarily "and", but also "or, then, besides, but".
> But I don't feel comfortable using the same word for "and" and also for
> "but" and "or".
> This would work for a trade language, but an everyday language like the GR
> creole should discriminate between these meanings.

This is a little hard for me to answer, because all the Grand Ronde elders I
heard had also spoken English their entire (or virtually entire) lives, and
didn't think anything of borrowing something from English when it suited them: 
hence, we have both _bEt_ and _or_ in our dictionary. _pi_ appears in contexts
translatable both by English 'and' and 'but'; it is also used in comparisons: 
ukuk man yaka manak'i hayash pi mayka 'that man is bigger than you'.

>Duane
> Pasco uses the word _keschi_ (which, according to the dictionaries, means
> "notwithstanding, although")

This is from the Chinookan particle k'aXchi 'to try (without succeeding)'. In
Chinuk Wawa it is an adverb: e.g. k'aXchi nayka munk-kakwa 'I tried (but
failed) to do it'.

> Only
> in Phillips' "Chinook Book" I have seen the interogative particle _na(h)_
> used with the sense "or" in interogative context: "Klaxtah man, Chim, nah
> Bill?" = "Which man, Jim or (perhaps) Bill?" (Literally, "Which man, Jim? No?
> Bill?")

The Phillips example I don't think quite flies as Grand Ronde CW, but perhaps it
exemplifies an extension from the meaning '-?-' to 'or?'. Something similar
could be done with pus 'if, would, should'. E.g., maybe, "Laksta uk man?, pus
Chim ukuk? pus Bill ukuk?" 'who is that man? could it be Jim? be Bill?' 
Henry


		
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