Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2000 15:59:27 -0000
To: lojban@egroups.com
Subject: Re: Beyond Whorf: "things," "qualities," and the origin  of   nouns and adjectives
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In-Reply-To: <398C2610.DA0FEF62@math.bas.bg>
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--- In lojban@egroups.com, Ivan A Derzhanski <iad@M...> wrote:
> "Alfred W. Tueting (T=FCting)" wrote:

> I know _mei3li4_ `beautiful; beauty', but I don't recognise _ninba_
> (nor does my dictionary).
>=20
> > /ninba meili/ (is not: le=E1ny sz=E9p,
> > but somewhat: [...] l=E1nyi sz=E9ps=E9g)

> > /ninba cu meili/ (=3D le=E1ny sz=E9p or le=E1nyok sz=E9pek)
>    **************
> Okay, I give up.  What language's that in?

Oh, please forgive!!! Of course it *has* to be /nixli cu melbi/ -
trying to remember gismu, I very often get the Chinese words (/
meili/ instead of /melbi/ - and even weird pseudo-gismu like /ninba/
that really looks well Lojbanic, to me also somewhat giving=20
a good impression of "girlishness" ;))

> How often is a language likely to need to express that?  Much less
> often than `beautiful girl', don't you think?  And in either case,
> why?  What can make girlhood nounier than beauty?  Is it the fact
> that girls as a category share more relevant features than things
> of beauty in general?

You might most probably be right: the "inner"(?) semantics of "girl"
causes one to have the impression of "female-young-
beautiful-..." (all in all, a pretty pleasant bundle - with
"beautiful" being a bundle itself for "fair-blue-eyed-smiling-slender-
..."). If I remember right, I've also read the Hungarian term
"sz=E9pl=E1ny" (which could be /melxli/).

BTW, with "l=E1nyi" I wanted to express "something generally
referring to girlhood" (I don't think this being a word in real use).=20
Your "l=E1nyias" looks much better, but I'm not sure if it's the
term for the - narrower - meaning of "girlish", what in this special=20
sense usually is given as "l=E1nyos".

co'o mi'e .aulun.