Re: Some or any

En réponse à Stephen DeGrace <stevedegrace@...>:

>
> I think in our group we have possibly better strength
> on the logical analysis of this matter than on
> knowedge of actual linguistic usage and precedent.
> Languages defintely have their own unique "logic"! As
> the latter as well as the former has some bearing on
> decisions we make, I was wondering what people might
> be able to tell me about how universal is making a
> lexical some/any distinction, and what are some ways
> people know about for languages to make these kinds of
> distinctions, especially if they differ from the
> practise in English...
>
Well, French does make the distinction, but quite differently from
English. "Something" is rendered with the adjective "quelque": "some" added to
the noun "chose": "thing": "quelque chose" (although the singular form of this
adjective appears only in some set expressions like "quelque chose":
something, "quelqu'un": someone, "quelque part": somewhere ("some part"),
etc...). "Quelque chose" can be used in questions (contrary to "something"),
and in negative sentences you have to use "rien": "nothing" even when you put
the explicit negation: "ne". "Anything", only when it's used in affirmative
sentences, is rendered in French by "n'importe quoi", which is the
interrogative pronoun "quoi": what, preceeded with a verbal expression
meaning "it doesn't matter". So "n'importe quoi" really means "it doesn't
matter what", but is used as a simple pronoun.

So even when the distinction is made, be careful that it can be made very
differently from English, both semantically and morphologically.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.