On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 3:00 PM, Ian Joh= nson <blindbravado@gmail.com> wrote:

{mi} is not quite= "I/we", it is "the speaker(s)". Usually there is only = one speaker, in which case it is "I", but in special cases where = there are several speakers, it becomes "we", but only to the incl= usion of the other speakers.

Lojban is first about unambiguous grammar, with that grammar= providing a certain small amount of unambiguous semantics. But the differe= nce between ambiguity and vagueness should be kept in mind when studying it= . There are things that are explicitly unspecified, such as tense in an unm= arked sentence, and there are things that could be interpreted one of sever= al sharply different ways, but where the speaker probably only meant one. &= quot;Time flies like an arrow" is the classic example in English. We t= ry to exclude the latter, not the former. This is part of why there's n= o default tense. Another reason is that fairly often no tense is desired at= all, as you begin to realize with conversational practice.

I agree that the x2 default after the selbri is a bit of a q= uirk. It is, however, somewhat convenient in subordinate clauses, in that i= t lets you drop the x1 when the x1 is supplied from outside the clause. For= example in {mi klama lo zarci noi vecnu lo plise}, the relative clause pro= -sumti {ke'a} is implicitly in the x1 there, since the x2 is filled and= the x1 is not. This is common enough that the quirk is actually pretty use= ful.

Place structure patterns are fairly extensive. They do= n't seem that way when you don't know very many gismu, but they exi= st, and are how you learn words after you know a handful. The most natural = analogy I can think of is to inflected languages: lojban essentially has nu= mbered instead of named cases. Without a SE, the x1 is essentially nominati= ve while the x2 is essentially accusative.

mi'e la latro'a mu'o
<= div class=3D"h5">

On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 1:42 PM, tjerk <tjschrod@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm interested in lojban. I hope to stat= e complicated meanings very clearly using lojban,
and without the need f= or further clarifications as is common in natural languages.

A son of mine has dyslexia, and I read that languages in which each let= ter can only
be pronounced in one way is much easier for dyslectics to r= ead. Sounds very plausible.
Finnish could help then. But lojban also. Fu= rther, language is really his thing. He began
to speak very young and he makes quite complicated grammatical construction= s. And generally
knows the effect on meaning changing places of words ha= ve. lojban could help him to
transfer his ability in spoken language to = written language. And I hope we can have some
fun together learning it.

So far for my motivation. I have some ques= tions and remarks about lojban.

1.
'mi' in lojban means = I and also we. So, here lojban is more ambiguous than english. But
lojban is supposed to be less ambiguous than english. Lojban has another 3 = words for we,
meaning: me and you, you and others, me and others and not you. So 'mi&= #39; could have been
reserved for I without losing expressiveness.
I = suppose this thing of lojban is because lojban leaves number open by defaul= t. 'le karci'
means the car or the cars. Does 'le pa karci' mean the car and only= that, so not the cars?
If so, does 'pa mi' mean I and not we?Why is there no article in lojban that means exactly one of something?
2.
Tense is also open by default in lojban. So 'mi klama le zarc= i' can mean I go to the market,
and it can mean I went to the market= , and it can mean I will go the market. So this is again
more ambiguous = than english. Of course there are words to specify the time, but why is
present tense not the default? Minimizing guessing using context is one of = the main goals of
lojban, not?

3.
In lojban the predicate(selb= ri) can be put everywhere in a sentence, except at the best
place, the b= egin. That is the normal place for a function. And a selbri is a kind of function. 'fa' has to be used to be able to put the selbri at the b= egin: klama fa mi le
zarci. Maybe another cmavo also works.
Where di= d it go wrong? Trying to resemble the SVO structure of english?

4.
The main effect the place structure grammar of lojban seems to have i= s elimination of
prepositions. I have my doubts about this. For example,= compare 'I go to the market' and 'I
talk to you'. Very = different things are happening, but there is also similarity. There is
a destination in both, and that is why to is used in both cases.
In the = place structure grammar of lojban a place has no meaning on its own (althou= gh 1st
place is maybe always the subject). If a predicate has an argumen= t for some sort of
destination you have to look up its place for the predicate, and also remem= ber that place.
Remembering a preposition for notating destination = for each predicate seems simpler.
<= div>

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