Re: LUNATIC again

John Fisher:
>That's also the reason for entries like this:
>
>#2552 melan (N)             *melon
> following Eng, used also for *water melon: imisye melan
> {Eng}
>
>Now I admit that this is a one-line gloss, and I should have put a
>string of Latin botanical names indicating precisely which species of
>fruits can be called "melan", but I didn't because I couldn't be
>bothered.  More to the point, "melan" is a loan from English, and EA has
>even borrowed the English phrase "water melon" and translated it to
>"imisye melan", rather than having a separate word for it, as languages
>sometimes do in countries where these fruits are common (eg, Spanish
>melo'n, sandia). Therefore the implication that the semantic field
>covered by "melan" is the same as the English "melon" is correct.
Fine. Sounds completely natural. I would not expect that loanwords would necessarily
need more than a few words gloss if the source language is clear and the
semantics remain unaltered.  Only if most words of the language are "loanwords"
would I start to wonder.  Your analysis response to "invented" was as long and
complex as your definition of "melan" is short.  the former is the sign of
extensive thought about semantics.

lojbab