Re: RELAY INSTRUCTIONS!!! was Re: new relay

From: <bjm10@...>
> What would break the rules?
>
> For example, consider a langauge that makes a lot of compound words and
> gives them different meanings according to gender.  First consider the
> compound word situation:
>
> "cupboard".  Today, my wife uses "cupboard" as a direct synonym for what
> I call a "cabinet".  She does not say it to mean "a board upon which cups
> are set", since she has used "cupboard" to refer to things that have
> neiter boards in their construction nor cups in their use.  So, would I
> be breaking the relay rules in my glossary to go:
>
> cupboard:  cabinet
>
> Or would I have to do this:
>
> cup:  small vessel for holding liquids
> board:  plank
>
> But give no meaning for "cupboard", even though it is distinct from the
> agglutinated meanings of "cup" and "board" in current usage?
I think if the meaning of the compound doesn't literally follow its
components, it should be glossed separately.  Things like this tend to lose
their sense of compoundbeingness anyway (if it wasn't *spelled* 'cupboard',
for example, I know *I'd* never have thought of it that way...)

> And what if the language is even stranger than English.  Suppose there is
> a language that says that /bav@n&nT/ is "fool" or "trickster" in one
> gender "foreigner" in another, and "someone who worships the Evil Gods
> that arrived here but a generation ago" in yet another?  Am I supposed to
> give all meanings without noting which belongs to which gender?  If I
> noted which meaning went with which gender, would that break the rules?
Er, probably don't carry it out any differently than a dictionary would.

If the words don't have related meanings and the gender is what
differentiates them (like, IIRC, French 'tour') then they'd get separate
dictionary entries.  If the words have related meaning, and the choice of
gender transparently modifies it ('el presidente, la presidente') then they
get the same entry.   If the words have related meaning, and the choice of
gender idiomatically modifies it, like your lang does, then you can do like
they do with prepositions and cases in langs like Greek ('kata', with acc.
[...], with dat. [...]).

    *Muke!
--
http://personal.southern.edu/~alrivera/