Subject: Re: [lojban] Englishistic

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2000 18:38:31 PDT

la ivAn cusku di'e

>The set of terms of the `still/already' family is generally similar
>in the main European lgs, but the details differ. Were we speaking
>German or French, we would be concerned about the rendering of the
>difference between _noch_ and _noch immer_ (_encore_ and _toujours_,
>_még_ and __még mindig_ in Hungarian, etc.), among other things.

Maybe. But I don't think I'm really fixating on the subtleties
of English (or Spanish). I'm not concerned about what subtle
differences there might be between "no longer" and "no more" or
"not any more". I'm taking them all as the same, also "still not"
and "not yet". I think there is more than one language's
idisosyncrasies going on with this. In fact what most interests
me is the negation relations between those four.

>But in Arabic `still'
>is expressed preiphrastically: <lA yazAlu nA'imaN> `he is still
>sleeping', lit. `he doesn't cease sleeping'; cf. Spanish _sigue
>durmiendo_ `he continues sleeping' in the same sense.

Also an even closer match: "no para de dormir".

>And Hindi doesn't have words for `still' or `already' at all; either
>one can sort of be expressed by <abhI> `even now',

Very nice! That makes a lot of sense, because "even now"
can contrast "now" with "even though it shouldn't have started
yet" (already) or with "even though it should be finished
by now" (still).

co'o mi'e xorxes

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