Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language
| From: | Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, September 22, 2004, 7:37 |
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On Sep 22, 2004, at 9:27 AM, Ray Brown wrote:
On Tuesday, September 21, 2004, at 08:18 , Philippe Caquant wrote:
> [snip]
>> We also find in some computer languages the concept of
>> "null", for ex, "true / false" is no more simply
>> binary, it becomes "trinary" (or ternary ?):
> Both words exist in English but IME 'ternary' is the more common (<--
> Latin _ternarius_ [adj.] "consisting of three" <-- _terni_
> [distributive
> plural adj.] "three each")
ObConlang...
In David Brin's _Uplift_ books, the 'uplifted' sapient (neo-)Dolphins
speak a whistled language called "Trinary", possibly because it has
only three basic phonemes or something like that.
-Stephen (Steg)
"rest / rest and listen / rest and listen and learn, creideiki /
for the startide rises in the currents of the dark /
and we have waited long for what must be..."
~ _startide rising_ by david brin