Re: Láadan

In a message dated 11/30/2002 11:39:38 PM Eastern Standard Time,
yonjuuni@EARTHLINK.COM writes:


> > nuna contentment for bad reasons '
> >         No
>
> I don't understand that "for bad reasons" part.
>
I don't understand what you don't understand (sorry).  Surely one can feel
just about any emotion (joy, anger, grief, contentment . . .) for either a
good reason or for a bad reason.


> > ohehena respect despite negative circumstances
> >         No
>
> Does this mean X respects Y, despite X's negative circumstances?  Or
> despite Y's negative circumstances?
>
I think the intended meaning is "X respects Y in spite of circumstances that
would normally be expected to make it difficult for X to respect Y."  Whether
those circumstances more closely concern X or Y is probably not crucial.


>
> > thehena joy despite negative circumstances
> >         Yes
> >
> > thuna joy for good reasons
> >         - (Duh!)
>
> Is -ehe- an infix?
>
>
Elgin does not describe it as one.  "thehena" is
th + ehe + na
root + suffix + suffix
joy + despite negative circumstance + suffix that always terminates these
words.

I suppose you could reanalyze things & claim that the root "thna" is joy and
the "ehe" in "thehene" and the "u" in "thuna" are infixes.

(I don't understand the "duh" comment.)

Incidentally, the grammar gives "thuna" as "joy for bad reasons" -- good
reasons would be "thena."  Perhaps the web page had a typo.

In addition to thuna/thena/thehena, by the way, the other possibilities for
this "first declension" of emotional-related nouns are "thina" = "joy for no
reason" and "thona" = "joy for foolish reasons"

It helps to bear this system in  mind.  Elgin did not specifically decide "we
need a word for 'joy for good reasons.' "  Rather, she decided to have a
system of affixes applicable to any emotion-related word to specify the
reason for the emotion.  As a consequence, some particular combinations may
not seem useful.

There's also a "second declension" with a different set of suffixes specifyng
whether a reason can be given for the emotion, whether anyone is to blame,
and whether anything can be done about the matter.  To take the example from
the grammar, "Bina would be anger for which no reason can be offered and for
which no blame can be attributed, but which is not futile anger because
something can be done about the matter."  I don't expect to have much
occasion to use that one.

Doug

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