Subject: Re: `even' (Re: [lojban] Re: Tashunkekokipapi)

From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 21:53:27 +0300

"Alfred W. Tueting (Tüting)" wrote:
> --- In [email-masked], "Jorge Llambias" <jjllambias@h...> wrote:
> > In all cases, "even" means that John was the least likely
> > to be expected to come, but he did anyway. The accompanying
> > emotion (surprise, happiness, pity) is independent of "even".
> 
> Although I like /ji'acai/, I still feel that surprise somehow
> is part of "even". Maybe there's no real need to express this
> in a Lojban word (as it isn't verbally expressed in any language
> I'm familiar with - but it's in my mind anyway! [...])

Well, `even' does imply that whatever it accompanies is the most
unlikely end of some scale (among a number of things associated
with one, one's horse is the least likely to frighten people),
and being extremal is uncommon, of course, hence potentially
surprising to someone -- but not necessarily to the speaker.

Jorge's {ji'acai} `very also (?)' is strange, but looks as though
it may work. I'm inclined to like it because it resembles Russian
_dazhe_ `even', which is not synchronically analysable, but consists
of _da_ `and, also' + the emphatic particle _zhe_.

--Ivan