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Re: [ceqli] A few lexicographical and semantic comments



On 7/8/05, Rex May - Baloo <rmay@hidden.email> wrote:
> on 7/8/05 4:39 AM, Jim Henry at jimhenry1973@hidden.email wrote:
> 
> > On 7/7/05, Rex May - Baloo <rmay@hidden.email> wrote:
> >> on 7/7/05 4:30 PM, Jim Henry at jimhenry1973@hidden.email wrote:
> >>
> >>> On 7/7/05, Rex May - Baloo <rmay@hidden.email> wrote:

> >> Go zu spun kom.   I use spoon eat.   I eat using a spoon.

> > I suppose this order,
> >
> > go kom zu spun.
> >
> > ...would be just as grammatical in ceqli?  (And would
> > mean the same thing, not something odd like "I
> > eat the use-of-a-spoon"; I expect you would need some
> > special nominalizer to express something like that.
> > No sense in this case, but you might want it for

> Yes.  As I conceive it, it means the same thing, with perhaps a shift in
> emphasis.
> 
> Go kom zu spun.   I use a spoon to eat.
> Go zu spun.  I eat with a spoon.

Is that a typo for

go zu spun kom.

Or what?

> > go dum <nominalizer> zu spun.
> >
> > because thinking about the use of spoons makes
> > more sense than thinking using a spoon (though not
> > by much).
> 
> go dum zu spun
> would mean "I use a spoon to think."  

Yes, that's what I thought; thus the suggestion
about a nominalizer particle.

> As for nominalizers, at this point I see the particle 'ke' as serving for
> that.  It isolates the verb phrase so that the preceding verb can act on it.
> 
> go dum ke zu spon.
> 
> In answer to "zi zu kua kom jol?" "What will you eat the soup with?" would
> mean "With a spoon, I think."

OK, good.


> Go kom ci baluqi.  I eat this grapefruit.
> Go kom ci baluqi ci.  I eat this grapefruit here.
> Go ci kom ci baluqi.   Here, I eat this grapefruit.
> 
> Expanding all three so as to eliminate all ambiguity:
> 
> Go kom ci sa baluqi.
> Go kom ci sa baluqi sta ci.
> Go sta ci kom ci sa baluqi.

What alternate ambiguous meanings would the above versions
without "sa" and :"sta" have?

>All this input is really clarifying my thinking.  go fala zi!

bu falaval.

[Does that make sense?  If not, what is the customary response
in ceqli?]

> Visit my website at:
> http://homepage.mac.com/rmay/

I just looked at your personal site for the first time.  I'm puzzled about

1. why there's no link to the ceqli site (or the afewgoodkids.com site), and

2. why you're storing the ceqli stuff at geocities.com when
you have space at homepage.mac.com.  It's not a lack of disk space,
is it?  The ceqli pages - at least if you leave out the pictures, which are
kind of nice but not essential - are probably smaller than the 
sum of the cartoon image files at the other site.
The geocities.com ad popups and ad side panel are annoying
enough that I think it would make sense to move the ceqli pages
to your other site, if possible.


....More miscellaneous comments on the glossary:

>baumgu forest n. 

What would signify "orchard"?

>truxo truth 

There is no entry for the root "tru".

>terpom potato 

A calque of "pomme de terre" is poetic, but does it really
fit in a "logical" IAL?


>fei can, is able 

>beberfei portable v. 
>beslomfei breakable v. 

It looks like "fei" has the double sense of English "able",
which IMO is a bad thing for a logical IAL.
Esperanto distinguishes these senses as 
"povi" and "ebla".

>kraym crime 

Would "kanunbiaka" do just as well?  Maybe that's too verbose, but
if you had a monosyllable for "law" and a suffix signifying "act 
of violating X" then you could derive words for "crime",
"sin", "ungrammatical utterance", and so forth prety tersely.


-- 
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/review/log.htm