Subject: Re: [lojban] common words

From: Ivan A Derzhanski <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 03 Dec 2000 11:56:11 +0200

Pierre Abbat wrote:
> On Wed, 31 Dec 1969, Jorge Llambias wrote:
> >I have also used {tolcanci} a few times.
> >
> >I agree it is somewhat weird, but that's what we got to
> >work with.
> 
> That reminds me of the French for shallow: peu profond.

That is as it should be. When there is a scale bounded by zero
at one end and unbounded at the other, natlangs often form the
negative term (low degree) by negating the positive one (high
degree), and use the positive one as default. The opposite is
either not attested at all or extremely rare. Derivations such
as `undislike' for `like' and `undisagree' for `agree' in Klingon
are one of Okrand's ways of making it unlike the natural Terran
languages, remember.

> The place structure of "mifra" is: x1 is ciphertext, x2
> is plaintext, x3 is the type of cipher. What is the place
> structure of "tolmifra"?

It should be the same. What it can mean is a different story.
{to'e} means scalar opposite, which is not the same thing as
reversal of the effect of an action, right? So {tolmifra}
doesn't automatically mean `decode'; there has to be a scale
that has {mifra} at one end. Who will volunteer to define it?

--Ivan