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Re: Mark's proposed "ja'ai" already exists
- Subject: Re: Mark's proposed "ja'ai" already exists
- From: John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>
- Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 00:03:42 -0400 (EDT)
Blunderingly I wrote:
> >There is already a positive analogue to "nai", and that is "jo'a".
> >It can be attached to attitudes to make them explicitly positive,
> >or used as a general metalinguistic affirmer: this is so, despite
> >appearances otherwise.
> >
> >Grammatically "jo'a" belongs to UI rather than NAI, but that simply
> >means it cannot be used in place of the non-attitudinal uses of "nai",
> >such as with connectives, tenses, etc. (In practice if you want
> >to say ".ejo'a" it is grammatical 99% of the time.)
Mark Shoulson hrmphed:
> Hrmph. I'm not sure I'm satisfied. If ja'o means the same as my proposed
> ja'ai, then na'i must be the same as nai.
Oops. jo'a is the counterpart of na'i indeed. There is no counterpart
of nai; jo'a = na'inai.
--
John Cowan cowan@ccil.org
I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin