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Re: CHAT Latin sig? (was: Conlang Flags)

From:Muke Tever <hotblack@...>
Date:Tuesday, September 7, 2004, 16:28
On Sun, 5 Sep 2004 20:18:39 -0400, John Cowan <jcowan@...> wrote:
> Ray Brown scripsit: > >> Latin "altus" means both 'high' and 'deep' and there >> are metaphorical extensions of both. > > Or to look at it less anglocentrically, "altus" means that something > is large in its vertical extension: the difference between "high" > and "deep" is simply whether you are standing at the bottom or the > top of the object respectively.
I think it is rather that "high" and "deep" convey notions of objects and spaces respectively... a cliff can be high, a canyon is deep, a mountain high and the ocean deep, wherever your perspective is, but you wouldn't speak of *a deep cliff or ?a deep mountain (unless there is a deep space _within_ the mountain), and a canyon or ocean being high refers rather to its entire space being at a high level, than to its depth. I've had to explain the difference between big/small and short/tall, wide/narrow and long/short to ESL speakers before; how many conlangs encode fewer distinctions than English does? (I expect it'd be more likely that there'd be the same ones, or possibly more, at least among native English conlangers...) *Muke! -- website: http://frath.net/ LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/ deviantArt: http://kohath.deviantart.com/ FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki: http://wiki.frath.net/