Re: "Barely but booleanly"

I use positive "any" for this, eg. "I know anything about string
theory" -- meaning that I know a tiny little bit about string theory,
but not much. The only problem I can see with this strategy is that "I
know anything about string theory" could also be parsed as "I know
absolutely everything about string theory", parallel with eg. "I can
do anything!". But I've never had anyone interpret it the wrong way,
so I think it's a good strategy. (Sadly, I've only ever heard one
other person use positive any, and she didn't have it as a regular
feature.)

On Wed, Jun 4, 2008 at 9:14 PM, Eric Christopherson <rakko@...> wrote:
> On Jun 4, 2008, at 6:27 PM, Sai Emrys wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 2:40 PM, <MorphemeAddict@...> wrote:
>>
>>> How about something like "I do X, but just barely"?
>>>
>>
>> That's pretty similar.
>>
>> But the question wasn't whether this sentiment can be expressed with a
>> circumlocution - it certainly can.
>>
>> The question was, does anyone have that adverb, i.e. one with essentially
>> null semantic content?
>>
>> - Sai
>
> I think the adverb you are asking about is basically the polar opposite of
> "not"; correct me if I'm wrong. I remember deciding to include a word with
> that function in my first conlang, Zaraitian, after I noticed that English
> didn't have a good word for it.
>
> After Wayne's World came out and popularized the use of "not!" at the end of
> sentences (or grafted on as a separate sentence), my cousin once said "too!"
> in response to "not!", parallel to "is not!" : "is too!". To me, the word
> "so" feels more appropriate, even though I generally prefer "is too" to "is
> so".
>
> As for my current conlang, Dhakran, I plan to include that word but don't
> know what form it will take. Actually, there will be a related set of words
> "so" : "not" : "whether; if; question marker for yes/no questions", plus
> some words which take on the truth value of another proposition which has
> been mentioned.
>