Received: from localhost ([::1]:39768 helo=stodi.digitalkingdom.org) by stodi.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.85) (envelope-from ) id 1aEdJw-0000sE-CH; Thu, 31 Dec 2015 05:31:12 -0800 Received: from earth.ccil.org ([192.190.237.11]:32898) by stodi.digitalkingdom.org with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.85) (envelope-from ) id 1aEdJq-0000rK-Bw for llg-members@lojban.org; Thu, 31 Dec 2015 05:31:10 -0800 Received: from cowan by earth.ccil.org with local (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1aEdJo-0001MR-EM for llg-members@lojban.org; Thu, 31 Dec 2015 08:31:04 -0500 Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2015 08:31:04 -0500 From: John Cowan To: llg-members@lojban.org Message-ID: <20151231133103.GA20974@mercury.ccil.org> References: <563CBDA4.5080308@selpahi.de> <9AC7ACDB-A395-4564-8340-20876DAB07CA@gmail.com> <8417352.OZs0BEeQn5@caracal> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <8417352.OZs0BEeQn5@caracal> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) X-Spam-Score: -1.9 (-) X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_bar: - Subject: [Llg-members] "Modal" X-BeenThere: llg-members@lojban.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Reply-To: llg-members@lojban.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errors-To: llg-members-bounces@lojban.org Pierre Abbat scripsit: > In particular, the term "modal" is used in the CLL to mean a preposition > semantically derived from a brivla (or from "co'e" in the case of "do'e"). In > linguistics, "modal" means words like "ka'e". Modals are at the same time prepositions, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions. They are of course modeled on the very similar particles of English, which serve the same roles, although in English it is lexically specific which ones can handle which roles -- "because" began life as a conjunction only, added the adverbial role, and has added the prepositional role only in very recent years, historically taken by "because of". The 2002 _Cambridge Grammar of the English Language_ boldly uses the term "preposition" for these English particles, as Otto Jespersen did almost a century ago. But that certainly wasn't current usage while I was writing CLL, and is still controversial today. (It wouldn't have occurred to me, frankly, to use "preposition" for something that is sometimes not preposed to anything.) "Modal" was traditional in the Loglan Project, it was short, and I kept it. It's unfortunate that the noun "modal" collides with the adjective "modal" as in "modal logic", though I did include a warning in CLL to that effect. It's more usual to call the related linguistic markers "mood markers" in English-language linguistics anyway, though historically "mood" in this sense (unconnected with its other senses) is a 16C alteration of "mode". In French and German no distinction is made. "Mood" also has a distinct technical meaning in logic, as in the mood (form) of a syllogism. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org We call nothing profound that is not wittily expressed. --Northrop Frye (improved) _______________________________________________ Llg-members mailing list Llg-members@lojban.org http://mail.lojban.org/mailman/listinfo/llg-members