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[lojban] Re: The global problem of mirror paired predicates



Sorry, there was a mistake.
Correct text:

good = plus-ROOT1
bad = minus-ROOT1

right = plus-ROOT2
left = minus-ROOT2

On Friday, August 10, 2012 2:08:17 PM UTC+4, Gleki Arxokuna wrote:
There are several pairs of predicates that can be expressed in a different way.
1. left - right
2. south - north
3. east - west
4. female - male
5. white - black
6. expensive - cheap
7. healthy - ill
8. good - bad

Some conlangs like Esperanto have only one root for each pair and use prefixes (e.g. "anti-") to express the second member of the set.
So 
left = anti-right
ill =  anti-healthy

or
patro - father
patrino - mother (suffix -in- for females)

Ithkuil employs a different approach. It uses two affixes, something like "plus" and "minus" to determine where on the scale we are present.
so e.g. we have a root for "good/bad" (let it be ROOT1) and for  "left-right" (let it be ROOT2) and mark them with prefixes.

good = plus-ROOT1
bad = minus-ROOT2
right = plus-ROOT1
left = minus-ROOT2

If such policy applied in Lojbanistan left-handed people would definitely leave the community as "minus" prefix is associated both with "bad" and "left hand".
Somehow we must choose what is positive and what is negative.
Therefore I state that
AFFIX POLICY FOR SCALE PREDICATE IN ESPERANTO AND ITHKUIL IS NOT CULTURALLY NEUTRAL.
The only way to be culturally neutral is the policy of many natural languages, i.e. having two separate words for each member of the pair.
In Lojban we have {zunle - pritu}, {bemro - snanu} etc.
Note that even in Esperanto separate root appeared for cheap instead of just "anti-expensive" which proves that such policy is naturalistic.

(This message appeared after discussing "clockwise" and "counterclockwise" concepts in a separate topic that in my opinion also deserve separate words).

Other solutions are culturally non-neutral.
Almost every person belongs  to some social minority: left-handed minority, sexual minorities, ethnic minorities. But together they constitute MAJORITY of the population.

In other words only the current policy of Lojban is best.
Yes, two separate words instead of one+affix is the cost of such neutrality.
(If you wanna be non-neutral please use {tolpritu} instead of {zunle}, it's absolutely not a problem).




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