Mesaĝoj: 32
Lingvo: English
UUano (Montri la profilon) 2011-januaro-13 15:14:57
I am currently going through some lessons to get more practice before I jump in and participate more in these fora.
However...I have a question. How do you differentiate between 'ne' and 'mal' when used as prefixes? Why is "invisible" translated as 'ne/vid/ebl/a' rather than 'mal/vid/ebl/a'? Or are both variants allowable? If there is a difference in meaning, what is it?
Thanks for your help!
Adriano
sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2011-januaro-13 15:36:41
But the answer to your question must be that 'Ne' and 'mal' mean different things.
If malvidebla were a good form then we might say 'mi malvidas tion' rather than 'mi ne vidas tion' for 'I don't/can't see it', but we don't.
UUano (Montri la profilon) 2011-januaro-13 15:49:01
sudanglo:In English we do sometimes use the idea of 'not' to mean the opposite. So 'Not bad' or 'Not expensive', can mean in practice 'good' or cheap'.OK. But according to the vortaro, 'ne' means "not", and 'mal' can mean "in-"...what is the difference between "invisible" and "not visible"? Going by your example, "malvidas" would mean "in-see", which in English makes no sense anyway. But the adjectival form seems to be intelligible in both languages.
But the answer to your question must be that 'Ne' and 'mal' mean different things.
If malvidebla were a good form then we might say 'mi malvidas tion' rather than 'mi ne vidas tion' for 'I don't/can't see it', but we don't.
I'm still not clear as to which prefix I should use, especially in forming other words I have not seen/used before based solely on the inherent meaning of Esperanto's building blocks.
sudanglo (Montri la profilon) 2011-januaro-13 16:37:15
Ami=love, malami=hate.
Agreed that 'not visible' doesn't quite equate to 'invisible'. Something can be not visible because of an obstruction in the line of sight, it doesn't mean that the object is invisible to others.
The examples of usage of 'nevidebla' in NPIV suggest that this is the equivalent of 'invisible' in English.
If you wanted to make it clear that you weren't talking about a permanent attribute, you can always say something like 'Mi ne povas vidi ĝin de ĉi tie'.
ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2011-januaro-13 16:42:01
*guy being let down by girl he thought he had a chance with*
"
UUano (Montri la profilon) 2011-januaro-13 16:49:48
Denove, dankon al vi ambaŭ!
tommjames (Montri la profilon) 2011-januaro-13 17:06:57
ceiegered:How's this go...Lose the "Ĝi" and you're ok.
ceigered (Montri la profilon) 2011-januaro-13 17:09:19
tommjames:Redactionifiedceiegered:How's this go...Lose the "Ĝi" and you're ok.
RiotNrrd (Montri la profilon) 2011-januaro-14 02:24:11
That's logic. Human languages (at least, English) tend to be trinary; there are three states instead of two: X, NOT X/Y, and Y, where Y is considered the actual opposite of X, and the intermediate "NOT" state is something else entirely. English doesn't have this distinction built in, so we tend to express the intermediate state using an explanatory phrase (as in the example of the girl who doesn't hate you, but she doesn't love you either).
Zamenhof did build this distinction into Esperanto, however. So, as explained by others, "ne" and "mal" are not the same. "Ne" identifies the intermediate state, and "mal" identifies the opposite state.
Of course, there are situations where there is no intermediate state (being pregnant, for example); you either are or you aren't. In these cases "ne" and "mal" are essentially interchangeable.
Donniedillon (Montri la profilon) 2011-januaro-14 15:57:10
RiotNrrd:In logic, NOT X is the same as the opposite of X. So logically, the opposite of love is "not love".I disagree with this explanation. For example oranges are NOT apples, however oranges are certainly not the OPPOSITE of apples. Neither are pomegranates, tangerines, or broccoli the opposite of apples.
That's logic.
Apply this to Ne- and Mal-. Ne- simply means "not" and Mal- simply means "opposite of". There are certaily many times when these two would be equally appropriate to use, however it is not because they are interchangable or equivalent.
Just my 2 monetoj
