Re: narethanaal (or 'the ramblings of a deranged linguistics student')

Hi!

Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...> writes:
> On Sun, 9 Dec 2001 15:12:52 -0800, nicole dobrowolski
> <fuzzybluemonkeys@...> wrote:
>
...
> >everything- kube, nothing- nehkube
>
> It's lexicalized, I guess?
>
> I mean, 'not everything' is not immediately equivalent to 'nothing'...
I had this problem in Tyl-Sjok, too.  It now has to negative markers.
One for the negative, one for the opposite.  The negative is used by
default, the opposite only when the situation allows it, or to make
jokes.

   te   - negation
   se   - opposition

   _Te  lit_
    NEG large
    not large

   _Se  lit_
    OPP large
    small (rather `unlarge', there is a lexicalised word for `small', too)

You can play with this, e.g. `John is not eating.' with the opposite
marker. :-) (Maybe I'll put a new idiom into the lexicon...)

So in the above, _neh_ corresponds to _se_, not to _te_.

**Henrik

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