Re: Conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs, subordinators

On 3/16/06, taliesin the storyteller <taliesin-conlang@...> wrote:

> A handy tool for conlanging would be the minimum set of necessary
> junctions, or junction-meanings, this would probably be quickly achieved
> if we collaborated on a list. So, in this mail I'll look at one
> subset of them, junctions marking condition.
I think I recall reading that all 16 truth-table logic functions
can be derived with just AND and NOT.  To get the semantics
of "but", "although" and so forth, we could add an +UNEXPECTEDLY
morpheme (adverb, affix, inflection or what have you) to either the first
or second clause.

I can't recall offhand how all of them are derived, but XOR ("unless") is
(I think):

NOT ( NOT A AND NOT B ) AND NOT ( A AND B )
i.e., it is not true that both are false and it is not true that
both are true, i.e. one is true and the other is false.

> Conditional markers:
>    if, unless, only if, whether or not, even if, in case (that)
if A then B: TTFT (IMP)
A unless B: FTTF (XOR)
A only if B: TFFT (EQV)
A whether or not B: TTFF
A even if B: TTFF plus surprise marker on B
A in case that B: TFFT (EQV) plus subjunctive or causative B?

> "Even if" seems similar to but/however in that it says that something is
> unexpected, surprising, so I'd do as with the "but", use a
> mirative-marker and a regular "if".
Yes.

> Ergo, we can manage with only "if, iff, whether", maybe even only "if".
You may be right, if you build on a basic AND and NOT.  We could also
do with only AND and NOT and +MIRATIVE, but that would be
much more verbose in some cases.

A really minimal conlang would have AND and NOT, probably,
and maybe a surprise/unexpectedness/mirative particle (that
also works as a verb "to be surprised" and a noun "surprise" and so forth).

I'm not sure how we could do with only "if" though.

==

A although B: A(unexpectedly) AND B
A, however B: A AND B(unexpectedly)
not A but B (kein ... sondern):  NOT A AND B
etc.

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry

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