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On Dec 8, 2005, at 7:10 AM, Jim Henry wrote:
On 12/2/05, Rex May <rmay@hidden.email> wrote:I want to maximize Ceqli's ability to make antonyms by reversal. For example, I'm dropping "pomo" (to help) and borrowing "zuai" (to hinder) from Mandarin, making possible thereversal "ziau" for help.Now I'm wondering about "ten". The opposite of have is lack, or the preposition 'without.' So I'm thinking of reserving 'ten' for 'to hold' and searching for a reversable morpheme that can serve those two meanings. I could use "sin" for to lack, without, and reverse it to "sni"for "to have," but it seems unaesthetic.Maybe these problems are evidence you should reconsider the wholen notion of reversing the faloba phonemes for oppositeness. It's nifty, but it seems it would make coining new words and maintaining the dictionary harder than it needs to be because of constantly taking care about possible reversals. Or keep the reversal-pairs for a few of the most frequent words, but use an oppositeness affix for most others, and make it clear that reversal-oppositeness is not a productive process
I quite agree. I'm just in the process of looking at the vocabulary as it is, and seeing if some more reversals are indeed possible and desirable. I think I'm going too far with fooling with 'ten,' actually, it's just too handy a word.
Rex May rmay@hidden.email See some of my cartoons at: http://homepage.mac.com/rmay/ NOW UPDATED REGULARLY!