Antonyms (was: TECH.QUERY: zo bancu cu mo zo zmadu leka smuni)

[jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU]

> Date:          Fri, 18 Sep 1992 09:33:37 -0400
> From:  "Mark E. Shoulson" <shoulson@CTR.COLUMBIA.EDU>

> Hrm, actually, that's a stronger argument than I was prepared for:
> why *do* we need both [less-than, more-than]?  But again, that's yet
> another topic.

Whenever a language is highly simplified, as Lojban is, one thinks of
"newspeak" in Orwell's "1984".  double-plus-un-more-than!  JCB could
have used negation or conversion for all antonyms, but I suspect he
rejected this method because of the negative connotations bred by
Orwell.  He says that he provided antonyms where they were high in
frequency on the Eaton list.  These antonyms were then fed through to
the Lojban vocabulary.

		-- jimc