Re: 'Nor' in the World's Languages

On Mon, 7 Aug 2006, "H. S. Teoh" wrote:
>
> On Sun, Aug 06, 2006 at 04:36:50PM +1000, Yahya Abdal-Aziz wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I'm forwarding a (rather long) reply I recently made to Maarten van
> > Wijk about a question he raised on the Linguist list.  My main
> > question to you all is:
> >
> > In your conlangs, what kinds of logical connectives have you
> implemented?
> > Examples would be:
> > 1. A and B - AND
>
> In Tatari Faran: A B ei.
> Example:
> 	kiran     sa    diru si'ei.
> 	young.man CVY.M girl CVY.F:and
> 	The young man and the girl.
[snip detailed response, with examples]
>
> > A secondary question is, if you wish to comment, how strictly do they
> > match the logician's view of those connectives?
>
> Not very. Inclusive-or is rather rare in natlangs (or at least, it's not
> usually distinguished from exclusive-or, which is often assumed), so TF
> doesn't have an explicit construction for it. Even more, _ibe_ has the
> feeling of "if not (this), then", so it could also mean "otherwise".
>
> The if-then construction with _era_ is also rather lax. It can mean
> either "A if and only if B", or "if A then B". Which one is meant
> depends on the context, and sometimes it's ambiguous.
>
> As for negation, TF doesn't understand the concept of double negation:
> i.e., negatives do not cancel. Negatives are strengthened the more of
> them you stack (e.g., in the example where a strong negation is conveyed
> by using both _be_ and _bei-_ in the same clause). Another example,
> which is somewhat like Russian:
>
> 	huu na    hamra be  bahai   ko    bei'aram.
> 	I   RCP.M see   not nothing ORG.N not:COMPL
> 	I don't see anything at all (lit., I don't see nothing not at all).
>
> Unlike Russian, though, stacking negatives is optional.

Hi Teoh,

Thanks for the detailed and informative reply.  The sound, and flow, of your
Tatari Faran seems very nice!  I will have a closer look at it.  Your
implementation of logical connectives also has quite a naturalistic feel.

Regards,
Yahya

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