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On 7/7/05, Rex May - Baloo <rmay@hidden.email> wrote: > on 7/7/05 3:32 AM, Jim Henry at jimhenry1973@hidden.email wrote: > >> sewa rent v. > > > > Is this "to rent something from someone" or "to rent something to someone"? > > > Good question. I'm curious as to what the usage is in other languages. > In English it's ambiguous. It should not be ambiguous in an IAL, particlarly a loglang. >Maybe it should be a compound. "zusel" - to > sell the use of something. Go zusel camgu ko zi. Then make a compound > with "buy". Go zukini camgu. I like these compounds. Anything to reduce the number of roots to memorize, as long as frequent compounds aren't made too long -- and I don't think these are too long for their probable frequency. You could also do the same with "give" -> "lend": don - to give bedon - receive a gift zudon - to lend (give the use of) bezudon - to borrow (receive the use of) > And in constructions like this, is using ko for to reasonable? I'm thinking > of resurrecting "de" for a specific meaning of "from," tho I'm admittedly > ver vague about what I want to do in that regard. I prefer to have more specific prepositions rather than vague ones, generally. In my own conlang gjax-zym-byn I have separate postpositions for motion toward, giving-or-selling-to, becoming-related-to, etc. - so many and specific that they sometimes carry the whole burden of the sentence with no verb being required. But I'm not sure such fine granularity makes sense in an IAL; at least not as a requirement. Maybe you could have a triplet of highly generic prepositions - to, into/at, in/from, out of - and a larger set of more specific ones. Beginners could stick to the core set until they get comfortable with the more specific prepositions. And maybe some of the specific prepositions are compounds of some noun or verb root plus one of the core vague prepositions. (All this is stuff from gjax-zym-byn.) > >> bai according to v. > > > > How does that work as a verb? Example sentence? > > It sounds like a preposition, like Esperanto "laux", > > French "selon". > > > I believe you're right. I more or less call things verbs when they can be > regarded as verbs in the Chinese sense. But is there a verbal meaning for > "bai"? Maybe "to dau bai to fiume" - the path goes along the river. Could that be considered shorthand for to dau sta bai to fiume That is, is there a general rule that "sta" can be omitted if the presence of a spatial postposition makes the sense clear? Oh -- I just noticed that "sta" is glossed as "at" as well as "to be located". So is the general rule that all such words can be used as prepositions or spatial-location verbs as the speaker pleases? These issues should be treated in the grammar, not just in the glossary. > > The definitions sound like adjectives - maybe they > > should be glossed as "be portable", "be potable". > > Or not. > > I didn't do that, because of the alphabetization problem. Maybe I just need > an explanation at the beginning that Ceqli adjectives are all verbs in > nature. Or gloss them "portable (be)", etc. OK, that makes sense. -- Jim Henry http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/review/log.htm