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Re: TECH: only, {me} place structure
lojbab writes:
>
> Hmm, we also in English use "just" and "only" synonymously to express the
>xxxx cancel that. I was thinking of a phrase like "only yesterday" or
>"just yesterday" which seems to be close to the above4 definition of "just"
>though maybe others will see a different meaning. It isn;t the main
>meaning of "just" that I was referring to, as embodied in phrases like
>"just now" and "just then".
>
Just to complicate matters, in South African English (aka Sarf Effrican
Inglish) "just now" means within the _next_ 5 minutes (about), whereas in
British English (and I think USAn) it means within the _previous_ 5 minutes.
There are many very slippery concepts associated with all of these words,
mostly associated with (an at least implicit) comparison. I suspect that id
you started a list of the various contexts in which you found one or more of
them, you would have a list of at least several tens by the end of the week,
and I suspect that the semantic space would overlap a fair amount. I am sure
there are differences between "just yesterday", and "only yesterday", but it
would take a better linguist than I to tease them out, even from the text.
when we add timing and intonation, the range of meanings becomes enormous.
I suspect thate you will need a range of words to capture the entire
semantic space covered (fairly loosely) by those three. Good Luck. I will
stick to the easy tasks, such as getting my PhD or determining whether or
not Epiminides was a liar.
======================================================================
Chris Handley chandley@otago.ac.nz
Dept of Computer Science Ph (+64) 3-479-8499
University of Otago Fax (+64) 3-479-8577
Dunedin, NZ
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