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Subject: RE: [lojban] hardly
Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 03:54:00 -0000
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From: "And Rosta" <a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com>
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aulun:
> I'd like to express "hardly/scarcely in Lojban.
> Thought of something around PAPA:
> the opposite of {piso'a} - in English given as "almost the whole of" 
> - is {piso'u} - "a tiny part of"
> 
> I'd like better expressing: "almost/next to nothing of" 
> 
> Any help?

{pi so'a no} seems a perfect translation of "hardly any of", but
won't deal with things like "She had scarcely finished dinner".
That would be "She had almost not finished dinner", but I can't
remember whether we have found a way to do that "almost". I
dimly recall me or Jorge suggesting ja'a/na + ru'e/sai, in
which case "hardly" would be "ja'a ru'e". (In its elegance, it
has the ring of Jorge's suggestions, so the credit is probably
his.) Then "Hardly any of the people were women" could be said as

   pi so'a no le prenu cu ninmu

or

   pi su'o le prenu (cu?) ja'a ru'e ninmu

which is analogous to the pair

   no le prenu cu ninmu
   su'o le prenu (cu) na ninmu

--And.