There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Too simple to be derived?
From: Leonardo Castro
1b. Re: Too simple to be derived?
From: Padraic Brown
1c. Re: Too simple to be derived?
From: Jim Henry
1d. Re: Too simple to be derived?
From: Zach Wellstood
1e. Re: Too simple to be derived?
From: Roger Mills
2a. No = zero ?
From: Leonardo Castro
2b. Re: No = zero ?
From: David Peterson
2c. Re: No = zero ?
From: Njenfalgar
2d. Re: No = zero ?
From: Mechthild Czapp
2e. Re: No = zero ?
From: Padraic Brown
2f. Re: No = zero ?
From: Leonardo Castro
2g. Re: No = zero ?
From: Elyse M Grasso
2h. Re: No = zero ?
From: Zach Wellstood
2i. Re: No = zero ?
From: Harald S.
2j. Re: No = zero ?
From: Roger Mills
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1a. Too simple to be derived?
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Fri May 17, 2013 12:51 pm ((PDT))
I have read some criticism about conlangs that derive common words
from words; "bad" as "ungood", for instance (what recalls Newspeak and
Esperanto). What do you think about it? Do your conlangs have any very
common words that are derived from others? Are there examples of such
things in natlangs, say, "night" as "between-days" or "mother" as
"female parent"?
Até mais!
Leonardo
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Too simple to be derived?
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Fri May 17, 2013 1:56 pm ((PDT))
--- On Fri, 5/17/13, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
> I have read some criticism about conlangs that derive common words
> from words; "bad" as "ungood", for instance (what recalls Newspeak and
> Esperanto). What do you think about it?
I think this, especially since you bring up two diametrically opposed kinds
of conlangs: Newspeak and Eserpanto. If the conlanger does the above out
of ignorance or out of naivety, then it is ill done, though certainly
forgiveable! It is a sign of immaturity in the art, and such a one can
be taught and can improve his works, like a kindergartener taking the
tempra begobbed paint brush in his fist and mashing it onto the newsprint
taped to the easel. If one of us does this out of a conscious choice --
perhaps having determined that the culture that speaks the language lacks
a bilateral perspective on all things -- then I have no issue at all with
it. And if the explanation were even reasonably solid, I don't think any
one else would either.
I am not entirely sure, but I believe E-o does this as a means of reducing
the number of discrete roots required for basic communication. E-o is,
after all, a planned language that is designed to facilitate communication
between people of disparate language background. If I only have to
memorize x number of adjectival roots and precisely one way of negating
them all, then that makes life easier for all than if I had to memorize
2x roots to take care of all the positive and negated adjectives. N's
design goal is entirely different. It's not intended to ease ommunication,
bridge gaps or create understanding between people of different language
backgrounds. It's intention is to guide the thought patterns of its
speakers, to reduce the number and fundamental kinds of thoughts that are
thinkable and to align all thought with the excessively socialized party
ideals portrayed in the story. It's a subtle approach to mind control: in
this case, the language planners couch all things in terms of "goodness",
as if "bad" or "evil" are gradations of "good".
> Do your conlangs have any very common words that are derived from
> others? Are there examples of such things in natlangs, say, "night"
> as "between-days"
This is actually a pretty good one!
> or "mother" as "female parent"?
I can't think of any off hand, but that doesn't mean I haven't done any
words like this.
Padraic
> Leonardo
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
1c. Re: Too simple to be derived?
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [email protected]
Date: Fri May 17, 2013 3:15 pm ((PDT))
On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 3:50 PM, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
> I have read some criticism about conlangs that derive common words
> from words; "bad" as "ungood", for instance (what recalls Newspeak and
> Esperanto). What do you think about it? Do your conlangs have any very
> common words that are derived from others? Are there examples of such
gjâ-zym-byn was designed to be lexically minimalist in most semantic
fields. It's less so now than it was at the beginning; the reason for
the lexical minimalism was to make it easier to gradually learn it
while using and developing it, and minimize the memory load of
up-front word-coining and vocabulary memorization. Once I'd learned
most of the initially-coined words I allowed myself to make up new
ones, and tried to learn vocabulary at roughly the same rate I coin
it. Over time I've replaced many common compounds with new root words
(or shorter compounds formed with new roots); for instance {ÄÄ-cô}
"big-opposite" was replaced by {ny} "small", and {áºy-rjâ}
"dream-quest" was replaced by {mwÄl} "sleep". On the other hand, many
fairly common words are still compounds, including all the words for
"good" and "bad" (there's no close equivalent of either word in gzb,
which chops up that semantic space finely into morally good,
aesthetically good, healthy, health-promoting, pleasurable, etc., and
similar "bad" terms like immoral, disgusting, unhealthy, painful,
etc.).
I can't think of any examples of that sort of thing in natlangs. Some
languages with a gender system can perhaps be analyzed as deriving
brother, sister and some other kinship terms from e.g. sibling+male or
sibling+female, but I'm not sure this analysis would really hold up
(do such languages allow you to use a bare uninflected root for
"sibling"? not the ones I'm familiar with), and anyway they don't seem
to do that with "father" and "mother".
But for an auxlang, engelang, or non-naturalistic artlang, such
compounds for basic concepts may well be fitting to the design goals
of the language. They're not inherently bad unless you're aiming for
naturalism. And even then, what seems to be an unnatural compound for
a "basic" term may be, in fact, a subtle hint that for your particular
artlang's speakers, that term is *not* really basic or common as it is
for most human cultures.
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
1d. Re: Too simple to be derived?
Posted by: "Zach Wellstood" [email protected]
Date: Fri May 17, 2013 4:18 pm ((PDT))
liyaá' ÅÃ'!
=======
If the conlanger does the above out
of ignorance or out of naivety, then it is ill done, though certainly
forgiveable! It is a sign of immaturity in the art, and such a one can
be taught and can improve his works, like a kindergartener taking the
tempra begobbed paint brush in his fist and mashing it onto the newsprint
taped to the easel.
=======
I am not entirely sure if I think it's "ill done," or even needs
correction, since the same ignorance and naivete is, to some degree, a
creative impetus that's free of the "natlang constraints," and could yield
some fairly creative lexical items/structures later on down the line.
"ungood" for "bad" isn't necessarily the móst creative thing they could
come up with, but I do have an appreciation for slowly branching out of
one's box to think up interesting new ways of parsing up the universe. Nor
do I think conscious choice *needs* justification in a conculture or the
like, so long as its creator is content with the expressive nature of the
language.
Åaá siri has some of these more simple compounds and extremely general
roots (no conculture, purely personal artlang). Often, its system of
animacy can be used to narrow the meaning of a root, usually changing it
across all four animacies. This is particularly so for kinship terms and
the like.
(I think) the first root I created in Åaá siri was <yi>-, a noun root which
originally meant "man." I felt that this was too specific and narrowed it
to "male thing." This appears in compounds such as <tÅaayi>- ("an absence
of something, nothing of something") and <yisasa>- ("male parent," which,
depending on animacy, can mean "father," "parent animal that's male," and
so on). There is also <'arusasa>- which is the female counterpart to
<yisasa>-, also which I happened to coin first and then back-formed into
<'aru>+<sasa>.
Other kinship terms are <tÅayi>- and <tÅa'aru>-, which correspond to the
generation before one's immediate parents (ie grandparents), but again may
be used differently depending on animacy. The <tÅa> part is a verb root
meaning "to be aged/old."
I have a bizarre infatuation with extremely "simple" compounds or compounds
for common words broken down into their core sememes. In Åaá siri I have
acquired a penchant for encoding meaning based only on a noun's animacy as
well.
For instance, the major organs in our bodies correspond to major areas of
the body where they are found, using the same root, with a different
animacy.
<yii'isilii>- is the root (which can be broken down into -<yii'i> ["to be
inside of / between"] + <silii>- [used for things with life, no directly
corresponding root, however])
then you have --
<yii'isiliiÅa> (root + ANIMATE suffix), which means "chest/torso, the area
from the shoulders down to the bottom of the ribcage, roughly"
and
<yii'isiliisaá> (root + ABSTRACT suffix), which means "heart"
This goes for other major organs, like the brain, as well. Not every organ
is considered major.
So I suppose this is a bit of a divergence from the original question, but
I wanted to share a way in which more "basic" concepts are expressed with
far more underlying complexity in Åaá siri than in English.
Zach
http://lhaasiri.tumblr.com
On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 6:15 PM, Jim Henry <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 3:50 PM, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> > I have read some criticism about conlangs that derive common words
> > from words; "bad" as "ungood", for instance (what recalls Newspeak and
> > Esperanto). What do you think about it? Do your conlangs have any very
> > common words that are derived from others? Are there examples of such
>
> gjâ-zym-byn was designed to be lexically minimalist in most semantic
> fields. It's less so now than it was at the beginning; the reason for
> the lexical minimalism was to make it easier to gradually learn it
> while using and developing it, and minimize the memory load of
> up-front word-coining and vocabulary memorization. Once I'd learned
> most of the initially-coined words I allowed myself to make up new
> ones, and tried to learn vocabulary at roughly the same rate I coin
> it. Over time I've replaced many common compounds with new root words
> (or shorter compounds formed with new roots); for instance {ÄÄ-cô}
> "big-opposite" was replaced by {ny} "small", and {áºy-rjâ}
> "dream-quest" was replaced by {mwÄl} "sleep". On the other hand, many
> fairly common words are still compounds, including all the words for
> "good" and "bad" (there's no close equivalent of either word in gzb,
> which chops up that semantic space finely into morally good,
> aesthetically good, healthy, health-promoting, pleasurable, etc., and
> similar "bad" terms like immoral, disgusting, unhealthy, painful,
> etc.).
>
> I can't think of any examples of that sort of thing in natlangs. Some
> languages with a gender system can perhaps be analyzed as deriving
> brother, sister and some other kinship terms from e.g. sibling+male or
> sibling+female, but I'm not sure this analysis would really hold up
> (do such languages allow you to use a bare uninflected root for
> "sibling"? not the ones I'm familiar with), and anyway they don't seem
> to do that with "father" and "mother".
>
> But for an auxlang, engelang, or non-naturalistic artlang, such
> compounds for basic concepts may well be fitting to the design goals
> of the language. They're not inherently bad unless you're aiming for
> naturalism. And even then, what seems to be an unnatural compound for
> a "basic" term may be, in fact, a subtle hint that for your particular
> artlang's speakers, that term is *not* really basic or common as it is
> for most human cultures.
>
> --
> Jim Henry
> http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
> http://www.jimhenrymedicaltrust.org
>
--
raa'lalí 'aa! - [sirisaá! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conlang>]
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
1e. Re: Too simple to be derived?
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Fri May 17, 2013 6:39 pm ((PDT))
Kash can do this with its prefix tar- ~ tra-, basically = Engl. "un-", but
sometimes the meaning of the negated form isn't exact.
minda 'happy' , traminda 'unhappy' and quite a few others,
but muko 'bad' (not in the moral sense) , tramuko 'not bad = just OK, so-so'
and leñ is 'good' (in the moral sense) but redup. _traleleñ_ is 'evil'
--- On Fri, 5/17/13, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
From: Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>
Subject: Too simple to be derived?
To: [email protected]
Date: Friday, May 17, 2013, 3:50 PM
I have read some criticism about conlangs that derive common words
from words; "bad" as "ungood", for instance (what recalls Newspeak and
Esperanto). What do you think about it? Do your conlangs have any very
common words that are derived from others? Are there examples of such
things in natlangs, say, "night" as "between-days" or "mother" as
"female parent"?
Até mais!
Leonardo
Messages in this topic (5)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. No = zero ?
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Fri May 17, 2013 1:05 pm ((PDT))
While developing a new conlang, I came to the question of whether or
not the words "no" and "zero" can be the same word (when "zero" is not
refering to the number per se) or if there are subtle logical
distinctions between these concepts.
Do you feel that the sentences in the following pairs have different senses ? :
"No car was sold."
"Zero car was sol."
"Nothing happens." (~ "No thing happens.")
"Zero thing happens."
"No one knows that day and hour."
"Zero one (person) knows that day and hour."
---
If there's absolutely no difference, shouldn't "zero" be called "no"
in some languages? And is there need to have both the adverb and the
number?
Naturally, zero is important in the positional notation of numbers,
but maybe it only means "nothing in this position" so that it's again
equivalent to "no".
Até mais!
Leonardo
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
2b. Re: No = zero ?
Posted by: "David Peterson" [email protected]
Date: Fri May 17, 2013 1:11 pm ((PDT))
One of the words for "no" in ASL comes from zero. It's not used as a modifier
like that, though (at least not to my knowledge). Evolutionarily speaking,
though, it's zero that would come from "no", not the other way around.
David Peterson
LCS President
[email protected]
www.conlang.org
On May 17, 2013, at 1:05 PM, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
> While developing a new conlang, I came to the question of whether or
> not the words "no" and "zero" can be the same word (when "zero" is not
> refering to the number per se) or if there are subtle logical
> distinctions between these concepts.
>
> Do you feel that the sentences in the following pairs have different senses ?
> :
>
> "No car was sold."
> "Zero car was sol."
>
> "Nothing happens." (~ "No thing happens.")
> "Zero thing happens."
>
> "No one knows that day and hour."
> "Zero one (person) knows that day and hour."
>
> ---
>
> If there's absolutely no difference, shouldn't "zero" be called "no"
> in some languages? And is there need to have both the adverb and the
> number?
>
> Naturally, zero is important in the positional notation of numbers,
> but maybe it only means "nothing in this position" so that it's again
> equivalent to "no".
>
> Até mais!
>
> Leonardo
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: No = zero ?
Posted by: "Njenfalgar" [email protected]
Date: Fri May 17, 2013 1:18 pm ((PDT))
2013/5/17 Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>
> While developing a new conlang, I came to the question of whether or
> not the words "no" and "zero" can be the same word (when "zero" is not
> refering to the number per se) or if there are subtle logical
> distinctions between these concepts.
>
> Do you feel that the sentences in the following pairs have different
> senses ? :
>
> "No car was sold."
> "Zero car was sol."
>
> "Nothing happens." (~ "No thing happens.")
> "Zero thing happens."
>
> "No one knows that day and hour."
> "Zero one (person) knows that day and hour."
>
> ---
>
> If there's absolutely no difference, shouldn't "zero" be called "no"
> in some languages? And is there need to have both the adverb and the
> number?
>
> Naturally, zero is important in the positional notation of numbers,
> but maybe it only means "nothing in this position" so that it's again
> equivalent to "no".
>
> Até mais!
>
> Leonardo
>
I think that's just one more case of different languages carving up
semantic space in different ways.
In Dutch, for example, there is no one word for "no". Instead there is
"geen" (There are no cars. = Er zijn geen auto's.), "geen enkele" (No car
was sold. = Geen enkele auto raakte verkocht.) and prefix "n-" (no-one =
niemand). Zero is a separate word in Dutch (nul).
Vietnamese does it differently, using simple negation with "không" or
"chẳng" in the first expample (Äây không có xe ôtô. Chẳng có xe ôtô.),
"không má»t ... nào" (not one ... any) in the second example (Không má»t xe
nào Äã Äược bán.) and a variety of strategies, including "không", in the
third case (không ai, ai ... Äâu, chẳng ... ai, etc.). Zero can be "không"
as well, when used as a number on its own (usually as a compound "sá»
không", lit. number zero). In numbers it will be "lẻ" or "linh" (101 = má»t
trÄm lẻ má»t).
Greets,
David
--
Yésináne gika asahukúka ha'u Kusikéla-Kísu yesahuwese witi nale lálu wíke
uhu tu tinitíhi lise tesahuwese. Lise yésináne, lina, ikéwiyéwa etinizáwa
búwubúwu niyi tutelíhi uhu yegeka.
http://njenfalgar.conlang.org/
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
2d. Re: No = zero ?
Posted by: "Mechthild Czapp" [email protected]
Date: Fri May 17, 2013 1:19 pm ((PDT))
I would like to give a few examples where 0 and no are distinct:
The area code for Cologne is 0 2 2 1.
*The area code for Cologne is no 2 2 1.
Der Film endet um 0 Uhr.
The film ends at zero o'clock. (not really commonly said, in English, but in
German, Null Uhr (literally: zero hour) does not sound as wonky).
*The film ends at no o'clock.
Does this make sense?
Va'il veka.
Am 17.05.2013 um 21:05 schrieb Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>:
> While developing a new conlang, I came to the question of whether or
> not the words "no" and "zero" can be the same word (when "zero" is not
> refering to the number per se) or if there are subtle logical
> distinctions between these concepts.
>
> Do you feel that the sentences in the following pairs have different senses ?
> :
>
> "No car was sold."
> "Zero car was sol."
>
> "Nothing happens." (~ "No thing happens.")
> "Zero thing happens."
>
> "No one knows that day and hour."
> "Zero one (person) knows that day and hour."
>
> ---
>
> If there's absolutely no difference, shouldn't "zero" be called "no"
> in some languages? And is there need to have both the adverb and the
> number?
>
> Naturally, zero is important in the positional notation of numbers,
> but maybe it only means "nothing in this position" so that it's again
> equivalent to "no".
>
> Até mais!
>
> Leonardo
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
2e. Re: No = zero ?
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Fri May 17, 2013 1:26 pm ((PDT))
--- On Fri, 5/17/13, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
> While developing a new conlang, I
> came to the question of whether or
> not the words "no" and "zero" can be the same word (when
> "zero" is not
> refering to the number per se) or if there are subtle
> logical
> distinctions between these concepts.
>
> Do you feel that the sentences in the following pairs have
> different senses ? :
>
> "No car was sold."
> "Zero car was sol."
>
> "Nothing happens." (~ "No thing happens.")
> "Zero thing happens."
English seems to like plurals here:
"No cars were sold."
"Zero cars were sold."
"Nothing happened." (Though to keep with the plurals: "No events
happened.")
"Zero events happened."
I guess our nominative sifral is identical to the nominative plural: -s.
For me, the distinction isn't one of amount, because the "amount" in
question for both is "0"; but of our perspective on the situation. Both involve
the number "0", but "no cars" means I'm looking at the matter in
general, non-specific terms. Cars is a class, rather than a set of
individuals; "zero cars" means I'm looking at a specific quantity,
and the thing quantified happens to be cars. So, unspecified mass v.
specific quantity.
> "No one knows that day and hour."
> "Zero one (person) knows that day and hour."
Again, "No people know..." / "Zero people know..."
> If there's absolutely no difference, shouldn't "zero" be called "no"
> in some languages? And is there need to have both the adverb and the
> number?
There is indeed a subtle difference. This of course doesn't mean there
can be no languages in which "zero" and "none" are the same word!
> Naturally, zero is important in the positional notation of
> numbers,
> but maybe it only means "nothing in this position" so that
> it's again equivalent to "no".
Padraic
> Leonardo
Padraic
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
2f. Re: No = zero ?
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" [email protected]
Date: Fri May 17, 2013 1:30 pm ((PDT))
2013/5/17 Mechthild Czapp <[email protected]>:
> I would like to give a few examples where 0 and no are distinct:
>
> The area code for Cologne is 0 2 2 1.
> *The area code for Cologne is no 2 2 1.
Yes, this is a case of what I referred to as "referring to the number
per se", that is, to the digit (maybe to the "signifier" instead of
the "signified").
>
> Der Film endet um 0 Uhr.
> The film ends at zero o'clock. (not really commonly said, in English, but in
> German, Null Uhr (literally: zero hour) does not sound as wonky).
> *The film ends at no o'clock.
Good point!
Thinking of the Aztec ordinal zero ("zeroth") used to time counting, I
think that "zero o'clock" could be interpret as "no hour passed since
the start of the day".
>
> Does this make sense?
>
> Va'il veka.
>
> Am 17.05.2013 um 21:05 schrieb Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>:
>
>> While developing a new conlang, I came to the question of whether or
>> not the words "no" and "zero" can be the same word (when "zero" is not
>> refering to the number per se) or if there are subtle logical
>> distinctions between these concepts.
>>
>> Do you feel that the sentences in the following pairs have different senses
>> ? :
>>
>> "No car was sold."
>> "Zero car was sol."
>>
>> "Nothing happens." (~ "No thing happens.")
>> "Zero thing happens."
>>
>> "No one knows that day and hour."
>> "Zero one (person) knows that day and hour."
>>
>> ---
>>
>> If there's absolutely no difference, shouldn't "zero" be called "no"
>> in some languages? And is there need to have both the adverb and the
>> number?
>>
>> Naturally, zero is important in the positional notation of numbers,
>> but maybe it only means "nothing in this position" so that it's again
>> equivalent to "no".
>>
>> Até mais!
>>
>> Leonardo
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
2g. Re: No = zero ?
Posted by: "Elyse M Grasso" [email protected]
Date: Fri May 17, 2013 1:47 pm ((PDT))
On 05/17/2013 02:26 PM, Padraic Brown wrote:
> --- On Fri, 5/17/13, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> While developing a new conlang, I
>> came to the question of whether or
>> not the words "no" and "zero" can be the same word (when
>> "zero" is not
>> refering to the number per se) or if there are subtle
>> logical
>> distinctions between these concepts.
>>
>> Do you feel that the sentences in the following pairs have
>> different senses ? :
>>
>> "No car was sold."
>> "Zero car was sol."
>>
>> "Nothing happens." (~ "No thing happens.")
>> "Zero thing happens."
> English seems to like plurals here:
>
> "No cars were sold."
> "Zero cars were sold."
>
> "Nothing happened." (Though to keep with the plurals: "No events
> happened.")
> "Zero events happened."
>
> I guess our nominative sifral is identical to the nominative plural: -s.
>
> For me, the distinction isn't one of amount, because the "amount" in
> question for both is "0"; but of our perspective on the situation. Both
> involve the number "0", but "no cars" means I'm looking at the matter in
> general, non-specific terms. Cars is a class, rather than a set of
> individuals; "zero cars" means I'm looking at a specific quantity,
> and the thing quantified happens to be cars. So, unspecified mass v.
> specific quantity.
>
>> "No one knows that day and hour."
>> "Zero one (person) knows that day and hour."
> Again, "No people know..." / "Zero people know..."
>
>> If there's absolutely no difference, shouldn't "zero" be called "no"
>> in some languages? And is there need to have both the adverb and the
>> number?
> There is indeed a subtle difference. This of course doesn't mean there
> can be no languages in which "zero" and "none" are the same word!
>
>> Naturally, zero is important in the positional notation of
>> numbers,
>> but maybe it only means "nothing in this position" so that
>> it's again equivalent to "no".
> Padraic
>
>> Leonardo
> Padraic
>
Some (mostly historical?) dialects of English use nought (nothing) as
equivalent to zero. The game Americans call tic-tac-toe is noughts and
crosses in Britain.
Oddly, 'ought' which should be the opposite of 'nought', is (or was)
also used for zero. I have never heard it used for any function except
dates: "the year of ought six"
==
Elyse Grasso
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
2h. Re: No = zero ?
Posted by: "Zach Wellstood" [email protected]
Date: Fri May 17, 2013 1:50 pm ((PDT))
For what it's worth, Åaá siri has had this built into it for quite some
time. It was something I knew I wanted to incorporate, but haven't focused
on it as much as I ought to. But anyway...
There are a small group of verbs which I call "static descriptives"
because they deal mostly with being in a state of something ("to be tall,"
"to be fat," "to be numerous," etc.) These select few static descriptives
can be used as prefixes as well as verb roots -- when used as prefixes,
they indicate that the noun is in a state of the prefix.
An example which is unrelated to the zero/no thing is:
-raa'raa, "to be small"
raa'-Åasa-layaa, "a small sun"
With this in mind, Åaá siri operates on base-5, and the first five numerals
operate as [somewhat static-descriptive-like] verbs ("to form a quantity of
x").
The verb root for "zero" is <-tÅaa>.
Since Åaá siri has no explicit negative particles for verbal negation and
the like, this verb root is frequently compounded to mean "no(thing)":
tÅaa-Åasa-Åá, "chicken / small fowl" (no-flight.creature-animate)
tÅaay-aá, "nobody" (no.being-sentient)
To say "there are no cars," there are two conceivable ways.
'arlayaa laayu'aa'tÅaa
animal.for.riding-inanimate proximity-detrans-visual-zero
"I see that the cars are zero." (roughly)
OR
laayu'aa'tÅaa lasi 'arlayaa laa'aa'saá
proximity-detrans-vis-zero COMP animal.for.riding-inanimate
proximity-vis-true
"I see that there are cars that are zero." (roughly again)
I'm not sure if these examples are clear, but I would be happy to clarify.
Zach
http://lhaasiri.tumblr.com
On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 4:26 PM, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> --- On Fri, 5/17/13, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > While developing a new conlang, I
> > came to the question of whether or
> > not the words "no" and "zero" can be the same word (when
> > "zero" is not
> > refering to the number per se) or if there are subtle
> > logical
> > distinctions between these concepts.
> >
> > Do you feel that the sentences in the following pairs have
> > different senses ? :
> >
> > "No car was sold."
> > "Zero car was sol."
> >
> > "Nothing happens." (~ "No thing happens.")
> > "Zero thing happens."
>
> English seems to like plurals here:
>
> "No cars were sold."
> "Zero cars were sold."
>
> "Nothing happened." (Though to keep with the plurals: "No events
> happened.")
> "Zero events happened."
>
> I guess our nominative sifral is identical to the nominative plural: -s.
>
> For me, the distinction isn't one of amount, because the "amount" in
> question for both is "0"; but of our perspective on the situation. Both
> involve the number "0", but "no cars" means I'm looking at the matter in
> general, non-specific terms. Cars is a class, rather than a set of
> individuals; "zero cars" means I'm looking at a specific quantity,
> and the thing quantified happens to be cars. So, unspecified mass v.
> specific quantity.
>
> > "No one knows that day and hour."
> > "Zero one (person) knows that day and hour."
>
> Again, "No people know..." / "Zero people know..."
>
> > If there's absolutely no difference, shouldn't "zero" be called "no"
> > in some languages? And is there need to have both the adverb and the
> > number?
>
> There is indeed a subtle difference. This of course doesn't mean there
> can be no languages in which "zero" and "none" are the same word!
>
> > Naturally, zero is important in the positional notation of
> > numbers,
> > but maybe it only means "nothing in this position" so that
> > it's again equivalent to "no".
>
> Padraic
>
> > Leonardo
>
> Padraic
>
>
--
raa'lalí 'aa! - [sirisaá! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conlang>]
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
2i. Re: No = zero ?
Posted by: "Harald S." [email protected]
Date: Fri May 17, 2013 5:11 pm ((PDT))
Hello everybody! :-)
Delurking after about ten years of only reading the conlang list, I want to
point out the interesting fact that in German (as has already been mentioned in
this thread) "Null" is the word for zero but actually comes from Latin where
"nullus/nulla/nullum" means no one or nothing, respectively. The Catholic
church liked to say about itself: Extra ecclesiam nulla salus - Outside of the
church (there is) no salvation. But, having the german meaning of "zero" in
mind, it could also be interpreted as: Outside of the church there are zero
salvations.
So, I guess, if you search for a natlang precedent of merging "zero" and "no
one/none", you may find it in Latin.
Cheers,
Harald
Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
2j. Re: No = zero ?
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Fri May 17, 2013 6:34 pm ((PDT))
Well, in Kash "not" is _ta_ (tak before a vowel) and "zero" happens to be
derived: _tanda_ < ta+N+ta. This was deliberate on my part :-) "No" (opposite
of "yes") is also related, _tayi_
--- On Fri, 5/17/13, Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
From: Leonardo Castro <[email protected]>
Subject: No = zero ?
To: [email protected]
Date: Friday, May 17, 2013, 4:05 PM
While developing a new conlang, I came to the question of whether or
not the words "no" and "zero" can be the same word (when "zero" is not
refering to the number per se) or if there are subtle logical
distinctions between these concepts.
Do you feel that the sentences in the following pairs have different senses ? :
"No car was sold."
"Zero car was sol."
"Nothing happens." (~ "No thing happens.")
"Zero thing happens."
"No one knows that day and hour."
"Zero one (person) knows that day and hour."
---
If there's absolutely no difference, shouldn't "zero" be called "no"
in some languages? And is there need to have both the adverb and the
number?
Naturally, zero is important in the positional notation of numbers,
but maybe it only means "nothing in this position" so that it's again
equivalent to "no".
Até mais!
Leonardo
Messages in this topic (10)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/
<*> Your email settings:
Digest Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[email protected]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
