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

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/