There are 17 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: OT: Place that you'd most like to live & reasons
From: Dana Nutter
1.2. Re: OT: Place that you'd most like to live & reasons
From: Dana Nutter
1.3. Re: OT: Place that you'd most like to live & reasons
From: Lee
1.4. Re: OT: Place that you'd most like to live & reasons
From: Roger Mills
1.5. Re: OT: Place that you'd most like to live & reasons
From: Eugene Oh
2. Na'gifi Fasu'xa Questions
From: Anthony Miles
3a. Re: And/or
From: Carsten Becker
3b. And/or
From: Lars Finsen
3c. Re: And/or
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
3d. Re: And/or
From: Sapthan
3e. Re: And/or
From: David McCann
3f. Re: And/or
From: Jörg Rhiemeier
3g. Re: And/or
From: Richard Littauer
3h. Re: And/or
From: Daniel Nielsen
3i. Re: And/or
From: Lars Finsen
3j. Re: And/or
From: Alex Fink
3k. Re: And/or
From: Tony Harris
Messages
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1.1. Re: OT: Place that you'd most like to live & reasons
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" deinx.nx...@sasxsek.org
Date: Mon Aug 30, 2010 12:50 pm ((PDT))
On Sat, Aug 28, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Roger Mills <romi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- On Fri, 8/27/10, <deinx nxtxr> <deinx.nx...@sasxsek.org> wrote:
>
>> I want a place where it never goes below 60F or above 72F.
>>
> IIRC, Hawaii comes close to those criteria (though the top limit may be 80s
> F).
I've been to Hawaii and yes it tends to get up around 80 every day,
and there are areas in the higher altitudes that can get pretty cold.
----------------------------------------
Dana Nutter
"A wise man believes only in lies, trusts only in the absurd, and
learns to expect the unexpected."
Messages in this topic (31)
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1.2. Re: OT: Place that you'd most like to live & reasons
Posted by: "Dana Nutter" deinx.nx...@sasxsek.org
Date: Mon Aug 30, 2010 12:59 pm ((PDT))
On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 2:56 AM, Daniel Nielsen <niel...@uah.edu> wrote:
> In Santa Maria, Ca., where my father grew up, he said the temperatures were
> so uniformly nice that the ads were, "Never too hot, never too cool, just
> right for a barbeque". Not exactly a great rhyme, really :)
Calfiornia is notorious for the weather but that's an
oversimplification. I grew up in the LA/OC area and it can get very
hot, especially during Summer. It does get cold in the Winter too
though not as cold as many other places, at least not cold enough to
snow unless you are up in the mountains.
--
----------------------------------------
Dana Nutter
"A wise man believes only in lies, trusts only in the absurd, and
learns to expect the unexpected."
Messages in this topic (31)
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1.3. Re: OT: Place that you'd most like to live & reasons
Posted by: "Lee" waywardwre...@yahoo.com
Date: Mon Aug 30, 2010 8:59 pm ((PDT))
Apologies if this was mentioned before, but the thermostat in San Diego,
California is pretty much stuck at about 73F all year round. I've been told it
might rain 3 days out of the year...
Lee
--- On Sat, 8/28/10, Roger Mills <romi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Roger Mills <romi...@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: OT: Place that you'd most like to live & reasons
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Date: Saturday, August 28, 2010, 10:52 AM
--- On Fri, 8/27/10, <deinx nxtxr> <deinx.nx...@sasxsek.org> wrote:
> I want a place where it never goes below 60F or above 72F.
>
IIRC, Hawaii comes close to those criteria (though the top limit may be 80s F).
The highlands of Sulawesi (Ratepao, Tanah Toraja) also, elev. ca. 3000 ft. The
temp. one night in July (winter=dry season) may have been in the 50s, a nice
wool blanket felt good.
Messages in this topic (31)
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1.4. Re: OT: Place that you'd most like to live & reasons
Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com
Date: Tue Aug 31, 2010 8:38 am ((PDT))
--- On Mon, 8/30/10, Dana Nutter <deinx.nx...@sasxsek.org> wrote:
> Roger Mills <romi...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > --- On Fri, 8/27/10, <deinx nxtxr> <deinx.nx...@sasxsek.org>
> wrote:
> >
> >> I want a place where it never goes below 60F or
> above 72F.
> >>
> > IIRC, Hawaii comes close to those criteria (though the
> top limit may be 80s F).
>
> I've been to Hawaii and yes it tends to get up around 80
> every day,
> and there are areas in the higher altitudes that can get
> pretty cold.
>
There's a rule of thumb about altitude :: temperature, which unfortunately I've
forgotten-- something about X degrees (C) lower on average for every 100 (?) m.
Cf. the English "hill town" refuges in India.
The town in eastern Java where I spent most of my time-- Malang-- had a very
good climate, but I never saw the temp...IIRC its elev. was around 500m or so.
All windows AFAIK just had louvers, no glass. I usually slept under just a
sheet, on really cool (rainy season) nights, maybe a slightly heavier cotton
spread, never a blanket. IIRC I never wore shorts (cultural no-no for one
thing) for work or going out in the eves. Don't recall ever being sweaty or
uncomfortable from heat.
For some reason, the Dutch apparently never caught on to the idea of ceiling
fans. Lack of reliable electricity maybe?
The town had been a favorite refuge for the Dutch during their day, and still
had quite a few old Dutch folks hanging in there. A nearby resort-y area,
Selecta, was even higher up. They could even grow apples at that altitude.
Bali seemed to have a very temperate climate (small island, always a breeze),
even at sea level.
Messages in this topic (31)
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1.5. Re: OT: Place that you'd most like to live & reasons
Posted by: "Eugene Oh" un.do...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Aug 31, 2010 12:56 pm ((PDT))
2010/8/31 Roger Mills <romi...@yahoo.com>
> --
> There's a rule of thumb about altitude :: temperature, which unfortunately
> I've forgotten-- something about X degrees (C) lower on average for every
> 100 (?) m. Cf. the English "hill town" refuges in India.
>
That's called the "environmental lapse rate", and temperatures go down 6.49
degrees Celsius/Kelvin for every kilometre increase in altitude, up to 11
km, whereupon the trend reverses ("inversion layer") and greater exposure to
sunlight means temperatures increase the higher you go. I think between
above 20 km the trend resumes.
But that is a tricky measure because of assumptions regarding wind and
moisture conditions.
Eugene
Messages in this topic (31)
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2. Na'gifi Fasu'xa Questions
Posted by: "Anthony Miles" mamercu...@gmail.com
Date: Mon Aug 30, 2010 4:00 pm ((PDT))
Hi guys!
It's good to be back on the list. My current conlang is Na'gifi Fasu'xa
["naNifi fa"suxa], a V1 languages for neolithic "post-Catastrophe" survivors
(the Catastrophe is _not_ the nuclear holocaust of Earth). I've been
constructing the grammar over at FrathWiki, but there are some details I'd
like to iron out before posting. These are the first two.
1) Conjunctions, esp. Temporal.
NF is rigidly paratactive, but it has a seven-point temporal scale with nine
different temporal adverbs.
i'panxi atakmi' ataksa' Ki'mita. a'fsafa atkami' pu'mafa tiagfi kua'gsi
gaispu' ga'ispu.
die-FSGVB PAST-FSGADV recentwhen-FSG Clementine. "kiss"-MSGVB past-MSGADV
1sgntrl-MSGNOUN sibling-FSGNOUN little-FSGADJ of-FSG 3sg-FSG
"kiss" is being used euphemistically to keep the translation family-friendly.
Clementine died recently (lit. this morning). I "kissed" her small sister.
When/after Clementine died, I "kissed" her younger sister.
If I want to keep the paratactic structure, should I add a temporal adverb
to the second sentence ("Clementine died recently. Now I kissed her younger
sister.")?
2) One of the linguistic universals states that auxiliary verbs in a VSO
language like NF precede the main verb. NF, however, by demiurgic fiat, is a
strict V1 language. My current workaround (inspired in part by the recent
discussion of Path) is this: ideally, to say in NF "The woman is ready to
collect firewood", one says "The woman is ready. She will collect firewood."
I don't have my vocab with me, which is why the NF text is missing. The
grammar for this would break down as:
ready-FSGVB present-FSGADV person-FSGNOUN; collect-FSGVB future-FSGVB
3sg-FSGNOUN wood-MPLNOUN
If, for some reason, you want to combine the two, the auxiliary verb is
promoted to the main verb, and the main verb is demoted to a kind of manner
adverb. The tense of the sentence comes from the former auxiliary verb. So
the grammar would break down this way:
ready-FSGVB collect-FSGADV present-FSGADV person-FSGNOUN wood-MPLNOUN
I think I can justify this because the most important part of the sentence
"The woman is ready to collect firewood" is her readiness at the present
time. But would it be better to stick to the first, paratactic, option?
Messages in this topic (1)
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3a. Re: And/or
Posted by: "Carsten Becker" carb...@googlemail.com
Date: Tue Aug 31, 2010 5:05 am ((PDT))
Am 31.08.2010 13:53 schrieb Lars Finsen:
> For example, last week I had a translation with several sentences of
> the kind "For systems A or B, the following applies", which I
> translated to "For A- og B-systemet gjelder følgende". That is,
> English seems to handle these things individually, while Norwegian
> handles them collectively.
In German I'd write: "Für die Systeme A und B gilt das folgende", so
like in Norwegian.
> But consider "Variations due to changes in factors A, B, and C", which
> I translated to "variasjoner som skyldes endringer i A-, B- eller
> C-faktoren". Here, the English handles the factors as a group, while
> idiomatic Norwegian requires me to handle them independently
> ("faktoren" is singular, but in the definite form).
"Schwankungen aufgrund von Änderungen in den Faktoren A, B und C", like
in English.
Would other German speakers confirm?
As for my conlang, I have never thought about how it might solve this
naturally. Instinctively I'd probably use the same solution as I would
in German, because it's my native language.
Cheers,
Carsten
--
My Conlang: http://benung.nfshost.com
Der Sprachbaukasten: http://sanstitre.nfshost.com/sbk
Blog: http://sanstitre.nfshost.com
Messages in this topic (11)
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3b. And/or
Posted by: "Lars Finsen" lars.fin...@ortygia.no
Date: Tue Aug 31, 2010 5:06 am ((PDT))
Hi,
In my work as a translator I have often noticed that English and
Norwegian handles the and/or concepts differently. English often uses
the "or" word where Norwegian uses the "and" word, or the other way
around.
For example, last week I had a translation with several sentences of
the kind "For systems A or B, the following applies", which I
translated to "For A- og B-systemet gjelder følgende". That is,
English seems to handle these things individually, while Norwegian
handles them collectively.
But consider "Variations due to changes in factors A, B, and C",
which I translated to "variasjoner som skyldes endringer i A-, B-
eller C-faktoren". Here, the English handles the factors as a group,
while idiomatic Norwegian requires me to handle them independently
("faktoren" is singular, but in the definite form).
Is there some theoretical background for this phenomenon in English?
And I'd like to hear from native speakers of other languages how they
would handle these expressions. How would you translate them into
your conlangs?
LEF
Messages in this topic (11)
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3c. Re: And/or
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" tsela...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Aug 31, 2010 5:39 am ((PDT))
On 31 August 2010 13:53, Lars Finsen <lars.fin...@ortygia.no> wrote:
> Hi,
> In my work as a translator I have often noticed that English and Norwegian
> handles the and/or concepts differently. English often uses the "or" word
> where Norwegian uses the "and" word, or the other way around.
>
> For example, last week I had a translation with several sentences of the
> kind "For systems A or B, the following applies", which I translated to "For
> A- og B-systemet gjelder følgende". That is, English seems to handle these
> things individually, while Norwegian handles them collectively.
>
>
French would do it as in Norwegian, as would Dutch AFAIK.
> But consider "Variations due to changes in factors A, B, and C", which I
> translated to "variasjoner som skyldes endringer i A-, B- eller C-faktoren".
> Here, the English handles the factors as a group, while idiomatic Norwegian
> requires me to handle them independently ("faktoren" is singular, but in the
> definite form).
>
I'm not sure about that one. In both French and Dutch I think one would do
it like in English, but I can't say for sure. I'm trying to think of a good
idiomatic translation in those languages, but I can't tell for sure that
using "or" would be out of the question.
>
> Is there some theoretical background for this phenomenon in English?
>
> And I'd like to hear from native speakers of other languages how they would
> handle these expressions. How would you translate them into your conlangs?
>
>
Since I discovered that Japanese didn't have a simple translation of "or",
but two different "and" (_to_ and _ya_, basically for complete and
incomplete enumeration -as well as the -te form of verbs for clausal
coordination-), I've often wondered about that. So far, the most I've done
is make up different "and" for different word classes (in Maggel, nouns,
adjectives and verbs all coordinate using different mechanisms -there's
actually no "and" for verbs, and no "or" for adjectives-). But in my langs
that have both "and" and "or", I'm afraid I haven't really considered
exactly how they are used...
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (11)
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3d. Re: And/or
Posted by: "Sapthan" sapt...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Aug 31, 2010 9:30 am ((PDT))
On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 4:53 AM, Lars Finsen <lars.fin...@ortygia.no> wrote:
> Hi,
> In my work as a translator I have often noticed that English and Norwegian
> handles the and/or concepts differently. English often uses the "or" word
> where Norwegian uses the "and" word, or the other way around.
>
> For example, last week I had a translation with several sentences of the
> kind "For systems A or B, the following applies", which I translated to "For
> A- og B-systemet gjelder følgende". That is, English seems to handle these
> things individually, while Norwegian handles them collectively.
>
In Spanish it would be as in Norwegian, using 'y' (A y B).
>
> But consider "Variations due to changes in factors A, B, and C", which I
> translated to "variasjoner som skyldes endringer i A-, B- eller C-faktoren".
> Here, the English handles the factors as a group, while idiomatic Norwegian
> requires me to handle them independently ("faktoren" is singular, but in the
> definite form).
>
In Spanish it would be as in English: A, B, y C
>
> Is there some theoretical background for this phenomenon in English?
>
I haven't the foggiest.
>
> And I'd like to hear from native speakers of other languages how they would
> handle these expressions. How would you translate them into your conlangs?
>
> LEF
>
I have barely started on my conlang, so I don't have words for that yet.
Sapthan.
--
Nac Mac Feegle! Wee Free Men!
Nae King! Nae Quin! Nae Laird! Nae Master!
We Willna Be Fooled Again!
Messages in this topic (11)
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3e. Re: And/or
Posted by: "David McCann" da...@polymathy.plus.com
Date: Tue Aug 31, 2010 10:06 am ((PDT))
On Tue, 2010-08-31 at 13:53 +0200, Lars Finsen wrote:
> "For systems A or B, the following applies"
> "Variations due to changes in factors A, B, and C",
> Is there some theoretical background for this phenomenon in English?
The wider context might be relevant, but
In the first case, either conjunction works for me (though I prefer
"and":
"In Linux and [~ or] OSX, keyboard drivers can be created with a text
editor, but Windows requires special software."
In the second case, I'd use "A, B, and C" if all factors could change
simultaneously, but "A, B, or C" if only one was changing at a time, or
if I didn't know precisely what was changing.
Messages in this topic (11)
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3f. Re: And/or
Posted by: "Jörg Rhiemeier" joerg_rhieme...@web.de
Date: Tue Aug 31, 2010 10:10 am ((PDT))
Hallo!
On Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:02:03 +0200, Carsten Becker wrote:
> Am 31.08.2010 13:53 schrieb Lars Finsen:
> > For example, last week I had a translation with several sentences of
> > the kind "For systems A or B, the following applies", which I
> > translated to "For A- og B-systemet gjelder følgende". That is,
> > English seems to handle these things individually, while Norwegian
> > handles them collectively.
>
> In German I'd write: "Für die Systeme A und B gilt das folgende", so
> like in Norwegian.
Yes.
> > But consider "Variations due to changes in factors A, B, and C", which
> > I translated to "variasjoner som skyldes endringer i A-, B- eller
> > C-faktoren". Here, the English handles the factors as a group, while
> > idiomatic Norwegian requires me to handle them independently
> > ("faktoren" is singular, but in the definite form).
>
> "Schwankungen aufgrund von Änderungen in den Faktoren A, B und C", like
> in English.
>
> Would other German speakers confirm?
Yes. I can only confirm this.
> As for my conlang, I have never thought about how it might solve this
> naturally. Instinctively I'd probably use the same solution as I would
> in German, because it's my native language.
I haven't yet thought about how Old Albic handles this. It does,
however, have a distinction between exclusive or (_u_) and inclusive
or (_o_); 'and' is _a_. I think it would use _a_ in both of Lars's
examples.
--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html
Messages in this topic (11)
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3g. Re: And/or
Posted by: "Richard Littauer" richard.litta...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Aug 31, 2010 11:14 am ((PDT))
>
> How would you translate them into your conlangs?
>
In Llárriésh, there's kind of a mixture of the japanese and european
systems. *fï* is used for choices which can occur repeatedly: sometimes they
would do this, or they would do that. *tïr* is used for a choice that is
irrevocable or only occurs once: do this or do this. The brick is yellow, or
it is red. Both of these words tend towards being used for complete lists.
The correct terminology which I ought to use for this is escaping me.
A third word, *hoï * is used for incomplete lists: Either give him the apple
or the orange or something else. It can be used in place of either* tïr *or(
*fï*) *fï*. So, that's pretty similar to japanese 'ya', I think, while the
other two are similar to Japanese 'to'.
I'm not sure how realistic these are, though.
-richard
Messages in this topic (11)
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3h. Re: And/or
Posted by: "Daniel Nielsen" niel...@uah.edu
Date: Tue Aug 31, 2010 11:24 am ((PDT))
Jorg, that really seems the crux of this discussion: the difference between
exclusive (xor) and inclusive (or="and/or") disjunction.
Consider the original example:
"..variations due to changes in factors A, B, and C.."
"..variasjoner som skyldes endringer i A-, B- eller C-faktoren.."
If we mean inclusive "or", then the Norwegian is more correct, otherwise the
English is most correct (but still wrong) in conveying the intended meaning
(as I guess it to be).
It also seems somewhat strange to me that a common English word has not
developed to express the existential ("for at least one value") and
universal ("for all values") quantifiers, as well as the nand and nor
operations, either of which all other binary propositions can be
constructed. (We are used to tolerable ambiguity; even in that last
sentence, singular "word" mismatched with the plural d.obj., but otherwise
"words" might have conveyed multiple words for each object. But then, I'm
singing to the choir. :))
Humans are very good at understanding the gist of things without really
knowing what's always going on under the hood, or at least we tend to think
we are. Maybe there is some built-in feeling to stay away from anything that
is too black-and-white because it buries truth. Of course, we also don't
handle memory of many simple elements as well as a computer, and, if the
understanding is there, perhaps we are already using the best and/or minimal
expressions for the task.
Messages in this topic (11)
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3i. Re: And/or
Posted by: "Lars Finsen" lars.fin...@ortygia.no
Date: Tue Aug 31, 2010 12:05 pm ((PDT))
David McCann wrote:
> quoting me:
>
>> "For systems A or B, the following applies"
>> "Variations due to changes in factors A, B, and C",
>
>> Is there some theoretical background for this phenomenon in English?
>
> The wider context might be relevant, but
>
> In the first case, either conjunction works for me (though I prefer
> "and":
> "In Linux and [~ or] OSX, keyboard drivers can be created with a text
> editor, but Windows requires special software."
>
> In the second case, I'd use "A, B, and C" if all factors could change
> simultaneously, but "A, B, or C" if only one was changing at a
> time, or
> if I didn't know precisely what was changing.
Aha, so it seems in your English you would use them the same way as I
do in Norwegian. There is no indication in the text that those
factors depend on each other, thus I treat them as independent.
Norwegian and English have only rudiments of a collective/individual
or dependent/independent morphology. But other languages, such as the
Celtic ones have them well-developed.
I would like to have such morphology in my languages too, but in
Urianian they apparently tend to use entirely different words for
individual and collective concepts. For example, 'star' is _tire_,
while 'the stars in the sky' is _legun_, respectively a feminine and
masculine regular noun, and 'hair' is _bul_, while 'coat of hair' is
_gaze_ (respectively neuter and feminine).
So I think in Urianian the phrases would be formulated much like we
do, at least in terms of conjuctions:
Systemant A je B sed e zisur
(system-dat.pl A and B true is-3p.sg thing-nom.sg.dem)
Jurbini kuldimin miznent faktoran A, B y C
(variation-nom.sg owe-stat.part.nom change-abl.pl factor-gen.pl A, B
or C)
I considered using singular in the factor word there, like in
Norwegian, but I feel gen.pl works better, despite the use of the y-
conjunction.
However, in Suraetue, the words _sane_ (together) and _wetis_ (alone)
should work fine as prefixes. Thus:
Sanesendewedi A Bmi sujos ainjanjesu fine ju.
(system[coll-work-res]-pl.ben A B-comit true they-do-it-for-them-rel
follow it-does)
Awadewe emawera weisanesendewen A, B, Cmi
(variation[unstillness]-pl change-pl.caus part-system-pl.gen A B C-
comit)
where wei- reflects a regular sound change affecting ts-clusters.
LEF
Messages in this topic (11)
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3j. Re: And/or
Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com
Date: Tue Aug 31, 2010 12:20 pm ((PDT))
On Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:21:14 -0500, Daniel Nielsen <niel...@uah.edu> wrote:
>Jorg, that really seems the crux of this discussion: the difference between
>exclusive (xor) and inclusive (or="and/or") disjunction.
I can't say that I've put my finger on the crux, but that rather seems _not_
to be it, to my eye. In the first case,
> "For systems A or B, the following applies",
surely as typically deployed there exists no system that is both an A and a
B, so the difference between inclusive and exclusive or is irrelevant.
Anyway, there are no uncontroversial examples of natlangs with the ior vs.
xor distinction. Latin _aut_ vs. _vel_ is often cited: _aut_ is supposed to
be exclusive, _vel_ inclusive; but I think better the story that goes _A aut
B_ means "A or B, it matters which", and _A vel B_ means "A or B, it doesn't
matter which", where the "or" in the glosses doesn't care about clusivity.
The boolean xor is actually kinda weird, nu? For instance, it's
non-monotone, and thus it's neither upward nor downwardly entailing, which
to me is an odd thing for a natural-language primitive. And if you take it
to mean "exactly one" when given multiple arguments, you can't express this
in terms of two-argument xor: A xor B xor C (either bracketing) ought to
mean "an odd number of A, B, and C"!
I would instead think that what's going on with respect to "and" and "or" in
the original examples is some kind of difference in scoping or perspective
(?maybe the difference between "it doesn't matter which your system is" and
"each of this list of systems is covered here"). To view it in the logical
mould, which is probably a harmful oversimplification since natlang if-then
is quite a different thing to predicate calculus implication but let's run
with it, it's equivalent to say
IF (your system is A OR your system is B) THEN so-and-so
and
(IF your system is A THEN so-and-so) AND (IF your system is B THEN so-and-so)
-- this is distributivity, and we've called on De Morgan's law. But it
feels natural enough to telescope the first down to "For A or B ..." and the
second to "For A and B ...".
I always liked the main two conjunctions of Mark Rosenfelder's Kebreni for
their take on a problem which seems similar. I quote:
| Kebreni has two ways of saying and, with slightly different meanings:
| _eḣc_, which appears between the conjoined constituents, and _-ai_,
| which attaches to the second constituent, voicing a final consonant
| and replacing the final vowel of a diphthong.
|
| Applied to two (or more) modifiers, _-ai_ forms an intersection,
| _eḣc_ a union, of the meaning of the modifiers. For instance,
| _muk syhai neḣat_ and _muk eḣc syh neḣat_ both mean
| "the young and strong men"; but _muk syhai neḣat_ means the men
| who are both young and strong (the intersection of 'young men'
| and 'strong men'), while _muk eḣc syh neḣat_ means the young men
| and the strong men (the union of 'young men' with 'strong men').
Intersection and union are De Morgan dual operations, eh? What's going on
that we can give English "and" either reading in a case like this?
Anyway, like what some others have said, I'm sure that I might use both "or"
or "and" in English in either of those sentences, depending on some things
which I couldn't give you a full reckoning of yet. And I'm a tad suspicious
of claims to the contrary for other languages in which equivalents of "and"
and "or" exist.
Alex
Messages in this topic (11)
________________________________________________________________________
3k. Re: And/or
Posted by: "Tony Harris" t...@alurhsa.org
Date: Tue Aug 31, 2010 12:28 pm ((PDT))
For what it's worth, Alurhsa has inclusive and exclusive "or".
Examples:
A ó B means A or B or both.
A ó B ó C means A, or B, or C, or A and B, or A and C, or all three.
A áv B means A, or else B, but not both.
A áv B áv C means A, or else B, or else C, but only one of these.
You can get very complex with this (which the Alurhsa people don't often
do unless they're philosophers, mathematicians, or programmers I
suspect), and have things like:
A ó B áv C ó D which would mean A or B or both, OR ELSE C or D or both,
but not A and C or B and D or some other cross-group combination.
Perhaps because of my long career in the IT industry, this makes perfect
sense to me, and in fact feels far more natural than my native English,
and is something I sometimes miss when thinking in English.
As for both/and, that would be either:
ddá A ddá B (and A and B)
or the more colloquial but common:
A vùn B-yá (A together-with B)
On 8/31/2010 3:18 PM, Alex Fink wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:21:14 -0500, Daniel Nielsen<niel...@uah.edu> wrote:
>
>
>> Jorg, that really seems the crux of this discussion: the difference between
>> exclusive (xor) and inclusive (or="and/or") disjunction.
>>
> I can't say that I've put my finger on the crux, but that rather seems _not_
> to be it, to my eye. In the first case,
>
>> "For systems A or B, the following applies",
>>
> surely as typically deployed there exists no system that is both an A and a
> B, so the difference between inclusive and exclusive or is irrelevant.
>
> Anyway, there are no uncontroversial examples of natlangs with the ior vs.
> xor distinction. Latin _aut_ vs. _vel_ is often cited: _aut_ is supposed to
> be exclusive, _vel_ inclusive; but I think better the story that goes _A aut
> B_ means "A or B, it matters which", and _A vel B_ means "A or B, it doesn't
> matter which", where the "or" in the glosses doesn't care about clusivity.
>
> The boolean xor is actually kinda weird, nu? For instance, it's
> non-monotone, and thus it's neither upward nor downwardly entailing, which
> to me is an odd thing for a natural-language primitive. And if you take it
> to mean "exactly one" when given multiple arguments, you can't express this
> in terms of two-argument xor: A xor B xor C (either bracketing) ought to
> mean "an odd number of A, B, and C"!
>
>
> I would instead think that what's going on with respect to "and" and "or" in
> the original examples is some kind of difference in scoping or perspective
> (?maybe the difference between "it doesn't matter which your system is" and
> "each of this list of systems is covered here"). To view it in the logical
> mould, which is probably a harmful oversimplification since natlang if-then
> is quite a different thing to predicate calculus implication but let's run
> with it, it's equivalent to say
> IF (your system is A OR your system is B) THEN so-and-so
> and
> (IF your system is A THEN so-and-so) AND (IF your system is B THEN
> so-and-so)
> -- this is distributivity, and we've called on De Morgan's law. But it
> feels natural enough to telescope the first down to "For A or B ..." and the
> second to "For A and B ...".
>
> I always liked the main two conjunctions of Mark Rosenfelder's Kebreni for
> their take on a problem which seems similar. I quote:
>
> | Kebreni has two ways of saying and, with slightly different meanings:
> | _eḣc_, which appears between the conjoined constituents, and _-ai_,
> | which attaches to the second constituent, voicing a final consonant
> | and replacing the final vowel of a diphthong.
> |
> | Applied to two (or more) modifiers, _-ai_ forms an intersection,
> | _eḣc_ a union, of the meaning of the modifiers. For instance,
> | _muk syhai neḣat_ and _muk eḣc syh neḣat_ both mean
> | "the young and strong men"; but _muk syhai neḣat_ means the men
> | who are both young and strong (the intersection of 'young men'
> | and 'strong men'), while _muk eḣc syh neḣat_ means the young men
> | and the strong men (the union of 'young men' with 'strong men').
>
> Intersection and union are De Morgan dual operations, eh? What's going on
> that we can give English "and" either reading in a case like this?
>
>
> Anyway, like what some others have said, I'm sure that I might use both "or"
> or "and" in English in either of those sentences, depending on some things
> which I couldn't give you a full reckoning of yet. And I'm a tad suspicious
> of claims to the contrary for other languages in which equivalents of "and"
> and "or" exist.
>
> Alex
>
Messages in this topic (11)
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