QUERY: uzhe + poka = ???

[Alina Israeli]

On Jun 14, 2007, at 5:54 PM, Paul B. Gallagher wrote:

> I've been having a debate with a couple of people over this phrase,  
> and so far everyone I've asked has come up with a different answer:
>
> "Сократить население планеты до миллиарда ненасильственным путем
> ***уже невозможно

is already impossible

> и пока невозможно.***"

for now/for the time being impossible.

If you mean that someone has used the two in the same sentence it  
means that it was possible at one point and may be possible as some  
point later. On the time axis it should look something like this:

................................._____(now) 
___________............................................................. 
........

The dots is where the opportunity was and will be again.

It's not your typical combination by no means.

>
> Can someone explain clearly what it means? I'm having a real hard  
> time figuring out how to combine "уже" and "пока" and get something  
> meaningful. I'm reading "уже" as "already; sooner than  
> expected" (temporal, not contrastive sense) and "пока" as "for now,  
> so far, but that could change."
>

Alina Israeli
LFS, American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington DC. 20016
(202) 885-2387 	
fax (202) 885-1076
aisrael at american.edu




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