Subject: Re: [lojban] RE:literalism

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 08:03:11 -0400

At 03:45 PM 10/21/2000 +0000, you wrote:
>la lojbab cusku di'e
> >Nope. I used English "mal-" prefix as the English input, as in malformed
> >and malaprop. It is an prefix indicating negative rather than
> >opposite.
>
>But why such an odd choice for English? None of the English mal-
>words would go into Lojban as {mabla}, would they?

At the time, it was the best English representation we could think of for 
the concept I had for "mabla" (which was almost certainly much less clear 
than it is now, other than being the polar opposite of what became zabna), 
which probably did include some of the uses of prefix "mal-". I probably 
also used the word "derogative", and maybe "bad" as well, but I was really 
limited in what I could use from the source languages, since none really 
has something exactly like mabla.

> What was the Loglan equivalent?

There wasn't one, that I can recall. This was my invention, trying to 
cover the realm between connotation and denotation that made many TLI lujvo 
awful. It may have come from the Roget's analysis, looking at the various 
synonyms, and recognizing that the difference in many cases was a favorable 
or derogative term for the same concept.

> >Actually, I think someone
> >pointed it out to me, that some languages use "mal" for opposite and others
> >use it for bad.
>
>Other than Esperanto, is there any language that uses it for
>opposite? I always thought it came from a few French words
>like "maladroit" which is opposite of "adroit", but the
>meaning of the suffix is not opposite.

In English, I think that it has the meaning "opposite, and derogative". I 
can think of no complimentary or positive words using the prefix, and the 
unprefixed word usually exists and means the opposite (not necessarily 
exactly a polar opposite though e.g. content/malcontent, formed/malformed 
and adroit/maladroit).

> >I like word patterns based on prefixes and
> >suffixes when that is the way they work in natlangs. Derogatives and most
> >other alterations to a basic meaning are usually expressed with a prefix on
> >the root, comparatives with a suffix.
>
>"Usually" as in "in English", right? Because in Spanish it
>is precisely the other way around, derogatives are formed
>with suffixes and comparatives with a preposed particle.

Well, I only know English, plus my weak Russian. My Spanish impresses my 
daughter who is taking her first class (and me as well because I remember 
so many scattered and useless words like the numbers and months of the year 
so perfectly, and yet cannot say a single Spanish sentence other than a few 
memorized idioms - but hey, it has been 35 years since my last Spanish class).

>And in any case, English does not really have any prefix
>for derogatives that I know of. It usually has a separate
>word. For example, for Spanish "casa", "casucha", English
>has "house", "hovel". There's no "mal-house" or anything
>of that sort.

A decided lack in English, which in some people's current idiom is remedied 
by the obscene prefix "fuckin'" and similar-minded variants.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org