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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 2004-10 > 1097232926


From: Peter Stewart <>
Subject: Re: _Non Sequitur_
Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 10:55:26 GMT
References: <ubo9d.17876$5O5.10329@news-server.bigpond.net.au> <20041008101601.3676.qmail@web41725.mail.yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <20041008101601.3676.qmail@web41725.mail.yahoo.com>


Francisco Antonio Doria wrote:
> I must apologize because I am guilty of having started
> this, hum, rather inadequate thread.
>
> I'm not an expert on languages, old and new. I speak
> and read and write many of them - badly. My parents
> used to talk to each other in French at home; my
> grandmother taught me some Italian and German, and
> I've lived with my family for long stretches in the
> US. Yet my translations stand, when confronted to
> expert translations (I've done several, from all sorts
> of texts). At worst they have, as a friend once told
> me, a rather exotic flavor ;-))
>
> Just pay attention to terms like superficialiter -
> such terms may have a metaphorical meaning, and
> therefore it is risky to base one's argument on it.
>
> As for non sequitur, the sequent discussion was... a
> non sequitur ;-)) Oh, before I conclude: the Latin
> negation is actually a complex word. If I rightly
> recall, non < ne + omnis, which is, etimologically,
> ``not + all.'' My question is, does that meaning still
> sounded in educated Roman ears when they used this
> negation? Like, say, alétheia, truth in Greek,
> actually ``uncovering'' ?

Your memory has let you down again - the older form of "non" was
"noenum", that is "ne oenum" = not one, not any, not AT all - and I'm
afraid your "ne omnis" = not + all has nothing to do with it at all.

And if you would take the trouble to read my posts you would find that
my arguments about "superficialiter" in this context are somewhat more
thorough and apposite than your harping about a metaphorical sense.


> (The indo-european negation system was complicated,
> but follow ups - sequences to this thread - to
> alt.talk.linguistics or whatever ;-)))
>
> fa
>
> Professor of Communications, Emeritus, Federal
> University at Rio de Janeiro
>
> PhD, math phys - but even after publishing nearly a
> hundred papers, book chapters, and being quoted in
> many books and papers, I certainly prefer to see
> myself in the field as a lucky amateur...
>
> (If you are interested, one of my most recent papers
> is due in a book edited by K. V. Velupillai on
> Computational & Constructive Economics, Blackwell,
> Oxford, March 2005.)

With respect, Chico, trotting out irrelevant qualifications and
publications - rather than just admitting that you have gone wrong while
trying to correct someone else when when you didn't know what you were
talking about - is the bad habit of some other SGM participants, but
disappointing from you.

Peter Stewart


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