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Mike
Wright:->
> In fact, <mei2> is the negator of <you3> "to have". In Mandarin, > rather than say "We have no bananas.", we say "We not have bananas." > ("Wo3men mei2(you) xiang1jiao1.") So, the equivalent would be "Goda > buten banana." Ray:-> Besides mei2" being used with you2 to mean "not have" or
"without having", nevertheless my dictionaries list the meanings of mei2 as
"none (of)"and "no more (of)", and my Chinese-Esperanto dictionary lists "ne;
sen; nuligi". Without doubt this is the character used in expressing the
nothing, nobody, nowhere series. Therefore the prefix should be
either "kayn" (none of) or "sin" (without) , but it should not be either "bu"
(no, not) or "zoy" (zero).
The advantage of using "sin" (without) is it would not be
necessary for another word just to express "none of/absence of" -
"sin" could have that as part of its meaning; the advantage of having "kayn" for
"none of/ absence of" is that "kayn" would be especially available to translate
the nothing, nobody, nowhere series, and "sin" would only be used for the
preposition "without"
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