From pille@mac.com Wed Apr 23 04:16:11 2003 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Wed, 23 Apr 2003 04:16:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from a17-250-248-86.apple.com ([17.250.248.86] helo=smtpout.mac.com) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.12) id 198IEV-0007Lq-00 for lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org; Wed, 23 Apr 2003 04:16:11 -0700 Received: from asmtp01.mac.com (asmtp01-qfe3 [10.13.10.65]) by smtpout.mac.com (Xserve/MantshX 2.0) with ESMTP id h3NBGA0x011902 for ; Wed, 23 Apr 2003 04:16:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mac.com ([80.142.189.137]) by asmtp01.mac.com (Netscape Messaging Server 4.15) with ESMTP id HDSNAR00.TYD for ; Wed, 23 Apr 2003 04:16:03 -0700 Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 13:15:46 +0200 Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: A Newbie's First Impressions Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v552) From: Jan Pilgenroeder To: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable In-Reply-To: <20030422183719.62722.qmail@web13008.mail.yahoo.com> Message-Id: X-archive-position: 230 X-Approved-By: pille@mac.com 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: pille@mac.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-list: lojban-beginners coi travis Am Dienstag, 22.04.03 um 20:37 Uhr schrieb Travis Garris: > I've run across Lojban before, and I like the idea > behind it. I've just recently started learning it. I > suspect that there are lots of programmers in the > Lojban community, and that we are probably all drawn > by the same thing. I'm just another programmer. > > First off, I have to say that learning a language in > silence is quite hard. Yes, I don't know anyone who > speaks or cares to speak Lojban. But that aside, I'm > not very good at phonetics (which is weird since my > generation grew up with phonetics in schools, before > the "Hooked on Phonics" craze). I think I am > pronouncing some of these words correctly, but trying > to use Lojban phonetics to spell cities or names... I > think I'll just use "y" everywhere. You will get much less "y" when you come from other languages (like=20 e.g. german). Robin often bitches how he does not like his name being=20 spelled out in lojban. =46rom the english pronounciation it would be=20 something like rabyn. The same name in german pronounciation would be=20 spelled out robin. When you want to preserve the original spelling you=20= can just use la'o [word describing language][original spelling][word=20 describing language]instead of la[lojban spelling]. So you could say "mi nelci la'o dy. porsche dy." (usually gy. is used=20 for english words and similarly dy. for german or fy. for french but=20 you could also say "mi prami la'o sindarin arwen undumiel sindarin" -=20 or was that quenya?) > One of my problems in this area is the following words > used as examples in "Logban for Beginners": nis. and > porc. I would expect "nis." to be pronounced as > "knee". It is supposed to be Nice, France. J'ai > =E9tudi=E9 fran=E7ais for duex ans, and I thought that Nice > was pronounced as "niece". How to represent that in > Logban, I have no idea. Well with Nice the pronounciation depends on wether you ask a northern=20= french or southern french speaker. I found that in southern france=20 people tend to and an "e" or "y" (or something in between) to names. So=20= you might get Nice spelled out as nisys. from a southern french guy. This "add a consonant or drop the last vowel" rule is pretty ambiguous,=20= though. But names from different languages are a problem you often=20 can't solve nice and clean. Just think of the english names for=20 M=FCnchen, K=F6ln or M=F6nchengladbach. So, names get changed when they = are=20 used in a different language... > "porc." is supposed to be the brand of car, Porsche, > which is two syllables. Should it be "porcys." in > Lojban, I have no idea. Yeah, from the correct german pronounciation I would also spell it out=20= la porcys. > > My first impression of Lojban is it is littered with > articles. Perhaps there are more elegant forms of > phrasing sentences, but so far I've learned the > following: Well, you need all those articles to have an unambiguous grammar.=20 Without the articles you couldn't tell sumti apart from parts of tanru. "mi klama le zarci dinju" means "I am going to the=20 trading-type-of-building", which is quite different from "mi klama le=20 zarci le dinju" > fe lei su'o re cukta pu dunda fi le pa tamne pe la > tonis. fa la klaudias. I think fa-fe-fi should only be used rather sparsely. Most of the time=20= they are only used when some of the sumti are omitted. So when you want to say "I will come by car" instead of saying "mi ba=20 klama zo'e zo'e zo'e le karce" you use fo to say "mi ba klama fo le=20 karce" and make things shorter and simpler. But in your sentence you actually used all of the sumti-places but just=20= shifted them around like crazy. You can have this much shorter and easier to understand: la klaudias. pu dunda su'o re cukta le la tonis. tamne The way I said it does not specifically imply that the books where=20 given en masse (Claudia could have given Tony's cousin one book on Xmas=20= and another for her birthday) (and numbers imply a lo article if you=20 omit the article so "re cukta" is the same as "re lo cukta") and I did=20= not specify that it was only one cousin the book was given to. But then=20= again: you need to ask yourself if those factoids are really important=20= enough to make a point about them. The person you tell this might=20 already know that Tony got only one cousin or that you are talking=20 about only one of his cousins. And it may not be important at all if=20 you gave the books to the cousin all at once or one at a time (anyway,=20= she got them now). If you want to put emphasize on the "at least two books" you can just=20 ad a "ba'e" (which means emphasize next) before the word you want to=20 emphasize. If you want to just say that Tony's cousin was given at least two books=20= (but don't say or know by whom) you would probably want to use=20 se-te-ve-xe instead of fa-fe-fi and say: le la tonis. tamne cu te dunda su'o re cukta > Ofcourse, this sentence may have some articles in the > wrong order, I'm just learning the language. And yes, > I did put it in the passive voice and attempted to do > the past tense just to add more articles. No, it looked like you got the grammar correct. You just=20 overcomplicated things. > This leads into my next observation: why does a > language that prides itself on being unabmigious have > a Zen-like approach to verb tense. To say "mi klama" > in no way tells you when that happens. I can > understand allowing such cases to exist, but the > beginner's guide paints a picture that this neutral > case is cultrually preffered. So far this baffles me. Well, there's a difference between grammatical ambiguity and semantical=20= ambiguity. The lojban grammar is pretty unambiguous, but you only need=20= to take the semantical unambiguity as far as you want to. If you've=20 been talking about an upcoming trip all along, there is probably no=20 point in using the tense again and again. You can actually start a story with ".i puzuvuku" and thus set a tense=20= (long ago, far away) for the whole story and then forget about the=20 tense altogether unless you have to make a point about some events not=20= fitting the story-line. In english or german you have to drag the=20 tenses along all the way. You can do that in lojban, too. But why would=20= you want to? Also when you say things like "mi cliva" it is usually pretty clear=20 what tense applies. You don't have to add a tense to make sure that=20 everybody understands that you are very soon beginning to leave. So,=20 why bother? > There are a few other things that seem out of place. > I like that each number uses each of the five vowels > in turn, but they use apparently random consonants. > And I find myself pronouncing "xa" and "ze" very > similarly. I'll send a short clip of myself pronouncing xa and ze to your personal=20= email. > While conversational Lojban (atleast elementary) can > be littered with articles, I love the power in fa, fe, > fi, fo, fu. Any sentence can be turned into a > procedure or function call. This is what appeals to > programmers. > > "dunda fa la djan. le cukta la klaudias." Well, I would suggest not to use this unless it makes things simpler. se-te-ve-xe is usually much more useful. You can use those to get a=20 whole bunch of new words out of those 1300 something gismu. You can e.g. say "mi nelci le se dunda" (or build "seldu'a" from the=20 rafsi forms of "se" and "dunda") to express that you like the gift.=20 That's a very powerfull feature of lojban that gives you a whole bunch=20= of words that are hidden in the gismu definitions. That way you get the words for destination (selkla), origin (terkla),=20 route (velkla) and means of travel (xelkla) free with klama. You could also use it do some "passive" sentences. Like: "le cukta cu=20 se dunda" to say "the book is given". > This may not be cultrually sound in Lojban, it is a > grammatical challenge in English. You run the risk of > confusing any parser with the verb conjugation and > prepositions required. When all sentences are put in > this passive, verb-first format, a computer could very > easily parse Lojban text (sorry for not using bridi, > selbri, or other Lojban-specific terms, I'm not > confident yet). You don't have to do this (to your fellow human readers who get=20 confused by sumti being shifted around) to parse lojban. Try jbofi'e=20 (lojbanic fish) at http://etud.epita.fr:8000/~poss_r/lojban/jboski.html jbofi'e is really usefull to check sentences you have built. > I do have a question. I may be getting ahead of > myself, but the lessons so far haven't specifically > spelled this out, so I wasn't sure how it was done. > > "mi dunda fi la klaudias. fe xo ma" > > Can I use "xo" and "ma" together, and does their order > matter ("ma xo")? Yes you can do that (jobfi'e does not complain). And the order does=20 matter. The question-words have to be in the places of the words you=20 are asking for. So the xo has to be in front of the ma, since numbers=20 always go before the things that are counted. > And before anyone yells foul, I > haven't been exposed to any Lojban culture outside of > the beginner's guide, so saying "I gave Claudia how > many what?" works to direct the listener's attention > better than "I gave how many what to Claudia?" Well, this is a case where the use of fa-fe-fi might be justified. But=20= maybe you should not go by the english (or german, it's the same there)=20= sound of it. I find this shifting around of the sumti more confusing=20 than helpful. That might just be me, though. mu'o mi'e ian. -- Jan Pilgenroeder Theaterstr. 59 52062 Aachen