Re: Genitive Relationships again

On Mon, Mar 15, 1999 at 10:32:11AM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> Sally Caves scripsit:
>
> > What if it was taken to the nth degree, and EVERY
> > noun that described something capable of being possessed
> > had a different word for it:  My book, but your scroll, his
> > tome.
>
....
>
> The Taelon language (from _Earth: The Final Conflict_ on
> U.S. TV) uses the same sentences for radically opposed
> notions: notoriously, "We come in peace" and "We come in
> anger" sound the same.
>
I don't know anything about Earth, but maybe this was inspired by
something like Latin "altus" or similar words that --- in other
languages --- may be translated in two radically different forms. I
very much doubt that Taelonites (or whatever their name) feel any kind
of incompatibility between the two notions; they probably only say
that the amount of peacefulness/anger that they have in mind in their
approaching the others (whoever they be) is far removed from some
ordinary, indifferent state. Put differently: they have a _very_
well-defined idea of the peacefulness in which they approach others.

Albert.

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