Re: Degrees of comparation

In a message dated 9/4/01 7:25:33 PM, scaves@FRONTIERNET.NET writes:

<< Thank you!   I guess it's why we invent conlangs!

Someone wrote to me, I've forgotten who, and said she was

looking for a conlang that thought in tertiary instead of binary

form.  Teonaht is still pretty binary (good, bad; strong, weak)

and I was wondering how to address that.
 >>

    She should read up on Derrida.  ;)  In most of my languages, I have words
for "yes", "no" and "yes and no", the latter being used when you want to
answer both "yes" and "no" at the same time, with none taking precedence, as
opposed to saying the words for "yes", "and" and "no".  Anyway, usually with
things like "good" and "bad" (dealing only with extremes, now, not
intermediaries) I have a four-part distinction: "good", "bad", "good and
bad", "neither good nor bad".  There can be more, though.  Anyway, the
problem for us Westerners is that the whole of Western thought is based on
the binary distinction.  It's so ingrained in our very natures that it's hard
to get away from.  Derrida argues that the only way for us to handle things
that are, for instance, both one thing and it's opposite is to "resolve"
them, and an example he used is zombies, which are neither alive nor dead.
In movies with zombies there's usually some way to resolve them, such as
finding some spell which makes them go back to the grave, or some special
weapon that actually "kills" them.  Anyway, I always pay special attention to
this in my languages.

-David

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