Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Englishistic

From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2000 18:03:08 +0300

Robin Turner wrote:
> "Alfred W. Tueting (Tüting)" wrote:
> > As far I can see, "yet/still/already etc." are quite the same
> > in most European languages: also "no longer" (=not more) seems
> > equivalent - "nicht mehr", "non ... plus", "non ... piu`",
> > "nu mai": Yet Hungarian is different: már (=already),
> > [...] and *már nem=no longer*(!)

So what's different about that? It's the same as Spanish (_ya no_),
not to mention the Slavic languages.

> Turkish (also Altaic) is also different.

Why `also Altaic'? Hungarian is Uralic, not Altaic.

> "Still" (as in continuing) is "hala" (should be a circumflex
> on the first "a" , IIRC);

Should be a circumflex on both _a_. This suffices to label the word
as a non-Turkish one; in fact it is Arabic, borrowed via Persian, and
meant `now, presently' before developing the meaning of `still'.

> (e.g. "daha gelmedi" - "he/she/it hasn't come yet",
> in contrast to "hala gelmedi" - "he/she/it _still_ hasn't come").

I'd be curious to hear you discuss the difference between these two.
Jorge and I are native speakers of languages in which `still not' is
the only way of saying `not yet', and here you talk of a contrast.

> There is no exact equivalent of "already";

Right. And as van der Auwera points out (in the article I cited),
this is the usual way: very many languages have expressions for
`still', `not yet' and `no longer', but not for `already' --
so the apparent symmetry of the quadrangle is deceptive.

> If anyone would like to discuss Lojban in Turkish, I'll be happy to,
> though I suspect Ivan is the only other Turkish speaker on this list.

Not much of one, I'm afraid ... it's all I can do to keep my nostrils
above water when plunged into Turkish conversation. Discussing Lojban
(or another similarly profound topic) in Turkish is out of my reach.

--Ivan