From LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:52:32 2010 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Mon, 5 Apr 1993 17:41:04 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 4866; Mon, 05 Apr 93 17:41:41 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 7200; Mon, 05 Apr 93 17:40:13 EST Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1993 09:34:18 GMT+1200 Reply-To: Chris Handley Sender: Lojban list From: Chris Handley Organization: University of Otago Subject: Re: TECH: only, {me} place structure X-To: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@pucc.princeton.edu To: Erik Rauch Status: OR X-From-Space-Date: Tue Apr 6 09:34:18 1993 X-From-Space-Address: @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Message-ID: lojbab writes: > > Hmm, we also in English use "just" and "only" synonymously to express the >xxxx cancel that. I was thinking of a phrase like "only yesterday" or >"just yesterday" which seems to be close to the above4 definition of "just" >though maybe others will see a different meaning. It isn;t the main >meaning of "just" that I was referring to, as embodied in phrases like >"just now" and "just then". > Just to complicate matters, in South African English (aka Sarf Effrican Inglish) "just now" means within the _next_ 5 minutes (about), whereas in British English (and I think USAn) it means within the _previous_ 5 minutes. There are many very slippery concepts associated with all of these words, mostly associated with (an at least implicit) comparison. I suspect that id you started a list of the various contexts in which you found one or more of them, you would have a list of at least several tens by the end of the week, and I suspect that the semantic space would overlap a fair amount. I am sure there are differences between "just yesterday", and "only yesterday", but it would take a better linguist than I to tease them out, even from the text. when we add timing and intonation, the range of meanings becomes enormous. I suspect thate you will need a range of words to capture the entire semantic space covered (fairly loosely) by those three. Good Luck. I will stick to the easy tasks, such as getting my PhD or determining whether or not Epiminides was a liar. ====================================================================== Chris Handley chandley@otago.ac.nz Dept of Computer Science Ph (+64) 3-479-8499 University of Otago Fax (+64) 3-479-8577 Dunedin, NZ ______________________________________________________________________ The light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off to conserve power.