[YG Conlang Archives] > [engelang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >

[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]

Re: [engelang] Re: Self-segmenting words & the treatment of names

On 5/15/06, John Cowan <cowan@hidden.email> wrote:

And Rosta scripsit:
> > As for the kinds of composition, "coordinate" means that the relation
> > is simmetrical (for instance, an AND or an OR relation, as in the
> > English words "greenhouse", "houseboat",..),
>
> Are there examples where the relation is OR?

English doesn't have this kind, but there's a Sanskrit compound
"victory-defeat" meaning "victory or defeat, as the case may be".


Perhaps the Spanish word "altibajo" ("high-low", an irregularity in
the terrain)
would also fit.

Another Spanish word "duermevela", "sleep-wake", describes a state that
is neither quite sleep nor quite wakefulness. That's neither AND nor OR.

Jorge