Re: Negatives (Trentish, with adjective notes too) (was: Re: narethanaal)

Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...> atoli tili:

>kulo "protect" > kukulo "threaten"
Or 'leave unprotected', 'endanger'?
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it's "to perform the action reverse to protecting" so i
guess "to endanger" is a cool translation.
"to threaten" orally is "bai_tote" and "to endanger" is
"tai_kusa" "to apply_danger". "tai_kukusa" would be "to
suppress danger", "to undanger" :-).

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>mese "female" > memese "male"
I think, this can be explained only culturally.
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yes: "boys don't cry", "i'm not a sissy", etc. :-)

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I'd suppose, rather, 'sick' = 'un-healthy' (viewed as normal
vs. abnormal
conditions). This has precedents in the natlangs, too:
Russian _nezdorov_
= (is) ill (temporarily, not seriously) < _zdorov_ '(is)
well'.
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right. but i can't think of a positive way to say
"healthy/well" in spoken french. the word "sain" is never
used in spoken french and "pas malade" is never used in
written french (the usual mutual exclusivity). in spoken
french you'd say reversely to russian: "pamalad" "not-ill"
where "ill" is the defect that is absent. however you'd use
"pas bien + independent pronoun" to express insanity: "me
tepabye~ twa!" = "are you crazy?" (note that dropping the
final pronoun changes the meaning of the phrase). anyway,
Tunu people rather have words for "accidents" (mistake,
bump, disease, etc.) and name "uneventness" from them.

it took me years before i introduced this reverse/opposite
pattern in Tunu because i found it too "radical". before
that i had separate tags for polarity, opposite, reverse,
pairing, etc. for instance i would make each of the
following pairs with different tags:
(1) to_have_length vs. to_be_long_or_short (quality vs.
quantity)
(2) long vs. short
(3) feminine vs. masculine // happy vs. sad // joy vs.
sorrow
(4) enter vs. exit
(5) parent vs. child
but after a while i decided to drop (1) and (5) and to use
one same tag to express (2), (3) and (4).

that's why i was very interested in knowing whether and how
conlangers would introduce this kind of pattern in their
respective conlangs. you always learn form others'
experience.

Mathias
www.geocities.com/kalatunu/index.htm