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Re: 'Nor' in the World's Languages

From:Antonielly Garcia Rodrigues <antonielly@...>
Date:Sunday, August 6, 2006, 12:59
In Portuguese:

inclusive or = ou
This or that.
Isto ou aquilo.
In practice, in most scenarios "ou (or)" end up meaning "exclusive
or", like in English, because scenarios where you can choose/have two
things or either one appear less often than scenarios where you can
have one thing but not the other. I believe this means that, for human
beings, "exclusive or" is a more basic operation than "inclusive or",
differently from logic. Because of this people tend to say "this or
that or both" when they mean "this inclusive-or that" and want to
ensure that an unambiguous interpretation is performed.

exclusive or (either... or) = ou... ou
Either this or that.
Ou isto ou aquilo.
Like in English, in some scenarios, "ou... ou (either... or)" is
slightly different from the logical meaning of "exclusive or" because
you can also choose/have "neither this nor that", but this is implicit
in such cases. For example, when choosing a gift and you are
constrained to choose only one of them ("either this gift of that
gift"), you may also opt for not having any gift.
Of course, in other scenarios "ou... ou (either... or)" can mean only
"exclusive or". For instance, "either he has a dog or he does not have
a dog", but those scenarios are rare in practice.
In everyday use, as "ou (or)" often means "xor", people use "ou... ou
(either... or)" only when they want to ensure that an unambiguous
interpretation is performed.

neither... nor = nem... [e] nem (if a noun follows) / não... [e] nem
(if a verb follows).
Neither this nor that.
Nem isto [e] nem aquilo.
She neither likes this nor likes that.
Ela não gosta disto [e] nem gosta daquilo.

and = e
As in English, commas replace "and" in a long chain.
I want the first, the second, the fourth and the tenth.
Eu quero o primeiro, o segundo, o quarto e o décimo.

either = qualquer um
Either of them is good for me. It does not matter.
Qualquer um deles está bom para mim. Isto não importa.

not only... but also = não só... mas também
Not only she won the championship, but also achieved the world record.
Não só ela ganhou o campeonato, mas também atingiu o recorde mundial.

one who = quem
Equivalent to "if" for all the elements of a set, and the set is
usually implicit in the context - "for all elements of a certain set,
if...".
For any individual that is a human, if (s)he wants to marry, then
(s)he wants a house.
One who wants to marry also wants a house.
Quem quer casar também quer uma casa.

at least (followed by a number, usually "one") = ao menos
At least one person here is older than me.
Ao menos uma pessoa aqui é mais velha do que eu.

The construction equivalent to "neither... nor" in Malay, which you
sent to the list and corresponds to "not... also not" and "not... also
not again/likewise/furthermore" is very interesting. Thank you for
sharing.
There is probably a myriad of cases which I did not cover, because
real world scenarios can be quite complex. Anyway, I hope my
simplified demonstration of how some constructions work in Portuguese
and in English will foster your thinking process.

Antonielly Garcia Rodrigues