Re: The...the...

On Tue, 25 Apr 2006 10:07:32 -0400, Sally Caves <scaves@...>
wrote:

>> Boy....people on this group continue to come up with
>> interesting things to translate.
>>
>> I never considered this construction before.
>>
>> But what does "the more, the merrier" mean?
>> It means: if there is more, then there is more merriment.
>> So it is just a causal relation disguised.
>> Thus Ankanian would have "Taxia voru peflaxia."
>> (lit. Should there be more, then there would be more merriment.**)
>> Or one could also say "Peflexia däxwair." (lit. there
>> is as much merriment as there is quantity.) This last
>> one corresponds more to the cuanto...tanto construction.
>
>Indeed!  But more what?  Think what it means in English: "the more the
>merrier" is an idiom meaning "the more people who join us, the merrier the
>party will be."  Nine times out of ten it includes the hidden concept of
>people at a gathering or expedition, not drink, not nachos, not bows and
>arrows, people.  Compare it with "the sooner the better."  This refers to a
>document or a task, and is used when people are trying to organize things
or
>get things done.  "The bigger the better."  The bigger what?  Baseball?
>Hollyhock?   Breasts?  These expressions are all context specific.  Think
of
>the context before you think of the structure, and maybe "the -er the -er"
>would be different in your conlang for different purposes.  What can't you
>do with this construct in English?
>
>The higher the lower.   Makes no sense--in English.
>The taller the happier.  Never used, I think, much, in English.
>
>This kind of thing lends itself to aphorism rather than to across the board
>causality that can be used in all cases.  How would it be so used in your
>conlang's dialect?
I think this is a good point. However,
I wasn't really addressing the idiomatic usage. I was trying to supply
the missing structural elements. Afterall, the the...the construction
is merely the juxtaposition of two adjectives. So even before one sees
the idiom, there is an implicit non-idiomatic grammar involved.

In fact, the two examples you give actually reinforce this point.

In the case of "The higher the lower", a person internally sees this
as "If there is more heigth, then there is more lowness" which by
the causal connection clearly makes no sense. If there was no
causality involved, how would one know that it was nonsensical?

So, I think Ankanian would deal grammatically with these examples
the same way, ultimately yielding the same contradictory or non-useful
result:

Toulaxia voru neulaxia.
Toilaxia voru pefaxia.

On top of this, there could be idiom, based on the conculture or the
context, but as my conculture is not very well developed. I don't
know yet what it would be.

Harold

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