From ptg_thug@yahoo.com Wed Apr 23 06:57:19 2003 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Wed, 23 Apr 2003 08:57:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from web13001.mail.yahoo.com ([216.136.174.11]) by digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.12) id 198KkR-0000rS-00 for lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org; Wed, 23 Apr 2003 06:57:19 -0700 Message-ID: <20030423135718.40722.qmail@web13001.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [138.162.0.44] by web13001.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Wed, 23 Apr 2003 06:57:18 PDT Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 06:57:18 -0700 (PDT) From: Travis Garris Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: A Newbie's First Impressions To: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-archive-position: 237 X-Approved-By: jkominek@miranda.org X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-original-sender: ptg_thug@yahoo.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-list: lojban-beginners From Jon: "Well, nis. is pronounced as neice, there are no silent letters in lojban." I didn't realize this. I was pronouncing "klaudias." as Claudia, not Claudias. I guess "porcys." would sound like you owned more than one to the English-speakers. From Greg: "Try http://www.lojban.com/twiki/pub/Files/SoundFiles for stuff spoken by many different people." Thanks, that will help. "In French, where there is no /E/ at the end of words (or is it no /e/? no matter anyway), we pronounce Porsche as {porc.}" I would normally cry foul since Porsche isn't French, but in America we pronounce the final "s" on Paris. I guess that just shows that Porsches are more important in America than France is. From Jan: "Well, you need all those articles to have an unambiguous grammar. Without the articles you couldn't tell sumti apart from parts of tanru." I'd argue that you can be just as unambiguous in natural languages with less "articles". Though, I would have to admit that the rules of grammar for Lojban are so much simplier than those of natural languages. Ofcourse, as Lojban ages, I suspect that several of these strings of "articles" may find themselves as new words, words that purists may not like. "la klaudias. pu dunda su'o re cukta le la tonis. tamne" Yes, I am aware that this is simplier, but it is more ambigious. I did want to imply that the books were given as a single unit and that only one of Tony's cousins was involved. I know where the "lo" should go, but I couldn't figure out where the "pa" should go. But this, like everyone else's comments, seems to imply that the active voice is preffered. This is true in English literature, but in daily conversation people occassionally use the passive voice. Sometimes the passive is used with good reason. We may say "The light can be seen from here" instead of "One can see the light from here". Having said all that, I'm not advocating all Lojban be in the passive voice. I don't expect to use the passive voice myself in Lojban any more often than I use it in English. You can re-read our emails and see that we have rarely used the passive. "se-te-ve-xe is usually much more useful" I hadn't gotten that far, yet. "Try jbofi'e (lojbanic fish) at http://etud.epita.fr:8000/~poss_r/lojban/jboski.html" Another good link that will help, thanks. "Well, this is a case where the use of fa-fe-fi might be justified. But maybe you should not go by the english (or german, it's the same there) sound of it. I find this shifting around of the sumti more confusing than helpful. That might just be me, though." Well, since this is all living, it does entirely depend on how the culture will understand it. There are perfectly valid sentences in English which can confuse native English speakers (wish I could come up with an example). How would you use "ba'e" in "mi dunda xo ma la klaudias.". Would it come before "xo" and stress "xo ma", or is there something better? Travis Garris Durham, NC, USA __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! News - Today's headlines http://news.yahoo.com