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An "original" observation

From:Herman Miller <hmiller@...>
Date:Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 2:26
I noticed a quirk of the English word "original" that relates to the two
classes of "adjectives" in Tirelat. "Original" has (at least) two
different meanings in English: one answering the question "what kind
of?" (i.e., novel, imaginative), and the other one answering the
question "which one?" (i.e. the one that came first).

Grammatically, these are two different parts of speech in Tirelat: the
"what kind of?" word is a stative verb (which can be used adjectivally),
but the "which one?" is a true adjective. There also may be a bit of a
distinction in English, contrasting "an original ..." (novel) with "the
original ..." (the first version), although you can easily come up with
counterexamples like "an original Renoir" (as opposed to a copy) or "the
original artistic style of _Okami_" (innovative).

Replies

Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...>
Carsten Becker <carbeck@...>