Re: From here to eternity

----- Original Message -----
From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2008 11:25 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: From here to eternity




> I think it's this way:
> *ayw- meant "time period"
> *ne ... ayw- meant "not in [any] time period", ie. "not ever"
> therefore *ayw- came to mean also "ever".
> Cf. the double meaning of some of the X in the French 'ne...X'
> constructions.

Plus d'éssence "more gas" (ie "a quantity of gasoline") or "No more
gas". The French negation 'ne' lost its meaning as it withered away,
thus the extra meaning here became "none", not "all".

Torsten

============

Actually, real French has disambiguized this situation :
more is always <plus> [plys] with explicit s
no more is <plus> [ply] with no s.

As usual, the graphic system is half a millenium late on the real language,
so I suppose we 'll have to wait until year 2300 to have a "reform".
If French is still spoken at that time.

A.