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

On Sat, 15 Dec 2001 10:46:44 +0100, Kala Tunu <kalatunu@...> wrote:
>>Muke Tever wrote:
>>
>>The ?o- in {?o-ysli-kwV-kV} "?o-red-be-this" is a morpheme
>>that has to attach to
>>most adjectives, as most adjectives are on a scale and
>>require comparison.  So
>>{?o-} is a positive marker; {?oysli-} means something like
>>"some red".
>>
>>    ?o-xlo?-    POS-clean
>>    ?o-ysli-    POS-red
>>
>>However some adjectives *don't* take comparison markers, and
>>don't take ?o-
>>either:
>>
>>    Oxaly-      dead
>>    mina-       two
>>
>>You can say this is because it doesn't mean anything to say
>>things are more or
>>less dead than each other, or more or less two--although the
>>class of
>>non-comparable adjectives doesn't necessarily correspond to
>>the semantics:
>>
>>    twena-      forked
>>      (not *?o-twena-)
>>
>i like this tagging of polarity, degree and comparison on
>adjectives (i just couldn't manage it right in my lang)
>but if i take your example of /?o-xlo?/ and /oxaly/:
>is "dirty" /lo-xlo?/? if so, do you tag the scale on "dirty"
>too: /?o-lo-xlo?/?
No, it's just /loxlO?/. (I typoed -xlo?- instead of -xlO?-.)

I don't think that these comparative markers can be compounded--there may
be some that do [I haven't made up what they are and what they all mean
yet], but /?o-/ and /lo-/ together doesn't work.

(Now that I think of it, "clean" in the abstract isn't exactly a semantic
domain I'd expect a Trentish adjective to have.  I think a more accurate
translation would be "washed".

>is "alive" /lo-Oxaly/?
As I think of it, no, it shouldn't be--not in the sense we think
of "alive".  It would simply mean "not dead".  The same, really,
for /loxlO?/--it should simply be "not clean", although somehow "not clean"
implies dirtiness more clearly than "not dead" implies "alive".  [In
Trentish anyway.]

That is, it's easier to just out and say:

       tKikhipa loxlO:kwV    "mice are not washed"

       tKikhi.pa    lo .xlO? .kwV
       mouse .TOPIC NEG.clean.be

than to say:

       tKikhipa loOxalykwV  "mice are not dead"

       tKikhi.pa    lo .Oxaly.kwV
       mouse .TOPIC NEG.dead .be

...although you might use {lo-Oxaly} in a response to a question like "are
those mice dead?" ("metKikhipa loOxalykwVmekV" - these mice are not dead).

You might also say "metKikhipa OxalykwVgokV" - these mice are not dead,
with {kwV} "be/do" negated instead of {Oxaly} "dead".  But that might be
more likely to happen with a more semantically active
adjective:  "pometKikhixlO:kwVgokV" - these mice are unwashed.

     po .me.tKikhi.xlO?  .kwV.go .kV
     PAS.PA.mouse .washed.be .not.3p-this

*shrug*  -- I'm not entirely sure about that though.

"This will require further study."

>could you detail the difference between "go" and "lo"?
-go- attaches to verbs.
-lo- attaches to adjectives.

In English you might say:

        I write     ~  I don't write
        I am washed ~  I am unwashed
                      (not "I am dirtied"--
                       only "I haven't been cleaned.")
In Trentish:

        ñySyk         ~  ñySyggo (i.e., ñy-Syk-go)
        ?oxlO:ñykwV   ~  loxlO:ñykwV

>"to not X" vs. "non  X": are adjectives stative verbs? are
>they nouns?
An "adjective" is something that must attach to a referent in the sentence
(whether it be noun or verb)--you can't say:

       * upa Oxalym kwVkV  "this person is dead"

        u     .pa  Oxaly.'Om  kwV.kV
        person.TOP dead .COMM be .3p-this

(where -u- is a noun and -kwV- a verb)
You'd have to say:

       Oxalyupa kwVkV      "this is a dead person"
     or
       upa OxalykwVkV      "this person is dead"

>btw, how would you make a reverse noun? for
>instance: "life" vs. "death" or "cleanliness" vs."dirtiness"
>(or maybe "no-dirt" vs. "dirt"?)
I think a trent would say finding the opposite of a noun would be
meaningless.
At least, given those examples...

Maybe with "resistance" / "non-resistance"... But I think in such a case it
would be the underlying verb or adjective (here 'resist' or 'resistant'--
probably 'resist' in English) that takes the negative, not the noun.

In other words, if you had to reverse a _noun_, you couldn't do it
morphologically; only lexically.

     *Muke!