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on 3/29/02 11:53 AM, Mike Wright at darwin@hidden.email wrote: > Rex May - Baloo wrote: >> >> Mike convince me that 'ga' shouldn't be used for 'very,' so I've taken 'tre' >> for that. Now. For the word 'many, much', I've been using 'gasi.' 'Si' >> means number, amount. So we have >> gasi pani a lot of water >> pisi pan a little bread >> gosi pe many people >> pisi hon a few books >> Any contradiction there? > > Not as long as "gosi pe" is a typo for "gasi pe". Yes. I need to change the typeface or something. Look almost exactly alike to me. > > However, not having morphemes for "many/much" and "few/little" means > that we can't create neat Mandarin-style compounds for "majority" > (<duo1shu4> = many-number) and "minority" (<shao3shu4> = few-number). > (I'm not fond of "gasisi" and "pisisi".) There will undoubtedly be > many other compounds that we'd like to form with those two words > (think of all the English words with "multi-" and "poly-"), and I > really feel that they "deserve" to be morphemes. Very true. > > How about "pali" or "poli", from "poly-"? Or, "dwo" from Mandarin? For > the other, "kam" from Hindustani /k@m/ "little"/"less" might work. > > As far as that goes, English "meni" and "fyu" would both work. I like fyu. "meni" won't fit morphology. I'd like poli, but kind of want it to be a single syllable. And I think I want to prohibit 'wo' combination. I think. Hindi 'dal' in one meaning, is 'large number.' Go with that? Go ten dal(si) kan. I have many dogs. Go ten dal(si) pani. I have much water. (no need for much/many distinction, right?) -- >PLEASE NOTE MY NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS: rmay@hidden.email > Rex F. May (Baloo) > Daily cartoon at: http://www.cnsnews.com/cartoon/baloo.asp > Buy my book at: http://www.kiva.net/~jonabook/gdummy.htm > Language site at: http://www.geocities.com/ceqli/Uploadexp.htm >Discuss my auxiliary language at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/txeqli/