Re: Damin

Quoting caeruleancentaur <caeruleancentaur@...>:

> --- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Andreas Johansson <andjo@F...> wrote:
> Quoting caeruleancentaur <caeruleancentaur@Y...>:
>
> >> http://www.rickharrison.com/language/damin.html
> >>
> >> "...thuu is used for large sea-dwelling mammals such as dugongs and
> >> turtles,..."
> >>
> >> I'd like to pick a nit.  Surely the author knows that turtles are
> >>not mammals.  I can only see this as another example of believing ?
> >>that the words "animal" and "mammal" are synonymous.
>
> >Possibly, it's meant to parse as " .. for {large sea-dwelling
> >mammals such as dugongs} and [for] {turtles} ...".
>
>                                                  Andreas
>
> IMHO I doubt it.  Why not, then, write just that?
Um? Because that's what they wrote; the issue is what parsing they intended.

> I don't know what
> happens in other English-speaking countries, but I have heard
> countless times in the USA an exchange such as the following:
>
> A: "The turtle is an animal."
> B: "I thought turtles were reptiles."
That's not a usage I've run across, but then I don't live in the states.

I was just pointing out it wasn't necessarily an error per se; I can easily
imagine myself writing it with the intended parsing I gave. Now, hopefully
one'd discover the ambiguity on checking, but some things always slip thru.

                                              Andreas