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Re: Two different opposites

From:Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...>
Date:Tuesday, January 13, 2004, 2:43
--- Trebor Jung <treborjung@...> wrote:
> Ah yes, this is something I've been wondering about! > > Latenkwa (Rick Morneau's MT IL) has two prefixes for > 'absence' and 'opposite'. > My loglang Kel uses no for absence and na for > opposites. Look at this excerpt > from the grammar of my loglang: > > "... Binary opposites are those opposites where > anything that is 'not X' > is 'the opposite of X'; binary opposites are formed > with the modifier > na 'opposite of'. The modifier no means 'not X but > not necessarily Y': no > maye 'not good' does not necessarily mean 'bad'." > > Thus: maye 'good' -> na maye 'bad'. > > But how do you express things like the following...? > stove -> non-stove (= absence of stove) > refrigerator (= opposite-stove) -> non-refrigerator > (= absence opposite-stove) >
Except that in this case (the infant conlang Lepayu) the prefixes are meant only to apply to verbs, not to nouns. The absence of stove is "stove not-exist in this place"
> Should I say no na - combining "absence of" and > "opposite of" - to say 'non- > refrigerator'? > > --Trebor > > LOL, Andreas. Good one :)