WikiDiscuss

On 5/17/05, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I will ignore the
> oddity of "erroneous usage" here, since I
> understand the point: "not what the best users
> (you and robin and maybe nick) would use it to
> mean."

Much of my own impromptu usage I consider erroneous
when examined more carefully. We are simply not at the
point were fluent-speaker intuition trumps rational analysis yet.

> I covered that case — in the next
> paragraph, I think. If they don't admit there
> "mistake" and argue they are right (other than
> "that's what the keyword said"(, then you have
> more of a problem.

Well, there are disagreements, of course. But in those
cases the argument is never "that's how it is because
that's how I use it". The arguments are about what is
more useful, more regular, more in accordance with
the baseline, etc. Nobody really appeals to speaker intuition.

> Well, I don't think this is using {nai} to mark a
> dual, it is just using the simplest combination
> of {ri'a} and {nai}to make the most common such
> expression — aided by the fact that the regular
> forms either make no sense ("opposite of cause")
> or are generally useless ("caused by not").

The regular {ri'a nai} = "not caused by".

I think "prevent" is a reasonable opposite of "cause", if
not the only possible one.

mu'o mi'e xorxes