Re: Random questions about "not" and "and"

On 2008-12-03 Gary Shannon wrote:
> "The ball is-not blue OR green." =>
> "The ball is-not blue AND is-not green." OR
> "The ball is not-blue AND is not-green."
>
> Which way do your conlangs handle this?
>
Kijeb and Sohlob have an uncompounded verb
(Kijeb _ufa_, Sohlob _of_ in citation form)
meaning "not-be" which would be used in these
cases.  Compare _una > on_ "to be" which is
morphologically quite unrelated.

(Yes "to be" is _on_ and "to not be" is _of_
in Sohlob!  So poke on me for poking fun on
Finnish, English and your eighties music
player! :-)

In Euia Tuas most adjectives are verbs so
an over-literal translation into somewhat
dated English would be "The ball blues not"
or to to convey the meaning in more modern
idiom "The ball does not be-blue", except that
Euia does not have any do-construction, nor
is there anything corresponding to "be".

Rhodrese could use either construction
_La bale n'et mig blieve_ "The ball not-is-not blue",
and _La bale et no-blieve_ "the ball is non-blue"
with slightly different meanings as indicated by
my different English translations.  Moreover a
construction like _no-blieve_ has a slightly
'modern' feel to it just like its English
counterpart.

(In case anyone wonders Rhodrese borrowed "blue"
from the East Germanic Burgundian language, where
it was /'blE:w(a)/ rather than from West Germanic
Frankish where it was /'blO:w(O:)/. The latter
would have become _blau(e)_ in Rhodrese.  I guess
the former could have become _bleu(e)_, but you
have to admit _blief/blieve_ is more fun! ;-)

So in short: the equivalent of _not_ is usually a
verbal modification, except that the adjective may
itself creep into the verbal territory.

/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  "C'est en vain que nos Josués littéraires crient
  à la langue de s'arrêter; les langues ni le soleil
  ne s'arrêtent plus. Le jour où elles se *fixent*,
  c'est qu'elles meurent."           (Victor Hugo)