Remi Villatel wrote:
> Sai Emrys wrote:
>
> > The problem: there are too many words that reference what are actually
> > (multi-dimensional?) (infinite?) spectra as if they were two (or more,
> > but finite) points.
>
> > E.g.: Good/bad. Old/young. Rich/poor. Etc.
>
> > More, I would like to have some sort of grammatical and elegant way of
> > having a *continuous* spectrum. I don't object to having reference
> > points along the way (e.g. for color or temperature), just to having
> > voids inbetween.
>
> > Any suggestions?
>
> Well, Shaquelingua has definitively evolved since last year so I'll try to
> explain the shaquean concept of linearity in a different way.
>
> Shaquelingua has a long scale of prefixes with 9 levels from one end to
> the
> other end and a short scale with 3 levels when it comes to express
> opposites
> but with much less detail. They are called "linear variators".
>
(snip much)
> The objective opposites like small/tall, cold/ward, short/long, etc are
> always ordered the same way. "dõ" means extremely few of the units in
> which
> these objectives values are measured and "kli" means extremly a lot. So
> "da"
> is the negative side and "ku" is the positive one. The median point "rã"
> either means "in between", or "unspecified", or else "whatever" or "more
> or
> less".
What strikes me as interesting is that for many of these polar concepts,
there is no good word (at least in Engl.) for the mid-point.
>
> Some examples of measurable concepts:
>
> /dapjöki/ <--| /pjöki/ |--> /kupjöki/
> cold <--| temperature |--> warm
>
> /dõpjõki/ <--| /rãpjõki/ |--> /klipjõki/
> freezing cold <--| tepid |--> burning hot
For instance, rather than tepid (which is slightly pejorative in Engl.),
perhaps better would be "just right for the object involved" ???
> /dabisiu/ <--| /bisiu/ |--> /kubisiu/
> ordinary <--| ??? |--> strange/extraordinary
Here I'd probably say "boringly
commonplace/banal....ordinary/expected....extraordinary"
> /dadãkadã/ <--| < /dãkadã/ |--> /kudãkadã/
> pride <--| ??? |--> modesty
This might be different in a conculture :-) For Western culture, I suppose
the mid-point is something like the Golden Mean of the Greeks.
All in all, an interesting approach.