From archibal@math.mcgill.ca Tue Mar 30 14:12:34 2004 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Tue, 30 Mar 2004 14:12:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from deluge.cc.mcgill.ca ([132.206.27.50]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1B8RTG-0008AX-1A for lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org; Tue, 30 Mar 2004 14:12:34 -0800 Received: from viroid.mcgill.ca (viroid.McGill.CA [132.206.27.56]) by deluge.cc.mcgill.ca (8.12.11/8.12.3) with ESMTP id i2UMCRAA002588 for ; Tue, 30 Mar 2004 17:12:31 -0500 (EST) Received: from kstat01.Math.McGill.CA (kstat01.Math.McGill.CA [132.206.150.168]) by viroid.mcgill.ca (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i2UMC9CQ004494 for ; Tue, 30 Mar 2004 17:12:09 -0500 (EST) Received: from kstat01.Math.McGill.CA (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by kstat01.Math.McGill.CA (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id i2UMC4H8005071 for ; Tue, 30 Mar 2004 17:12:04 -0500 Received: (from archibal@localhost) by kstat01.Math.McGill.CA (8.12.8/8.12.8/Submit) id i2UMBtsZ005069 for lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org; Tue, 30 Mar 2004 17:11:55 -0500 Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 17:11:55 -0500 From: Andrew Archibald To: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: lojban qua lingua franca Message-ID: <20040330221155.GF3964@kstat01.Math.McGill.CA> References: <20040328163355.H31434@fresco.Math.McGill.CA> <20040329184456.53288.qmail@web41905.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040329184456.53288.qmail@web41905.mail.yahoo.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by deluge.cc.mcgill.ca id i2UMCRAA002588 X-archive-position: 630 X-Approved-By: archibal@math.mcgill.ca 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: archibal@math.mcgill.ca Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-list: lojban-beginners On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 10:44:56AM -0800, Jorge Llamb=EF=BF=BDas wrote: > --- Andrew Archibald wrote: > > What I find difficult is grasping the grouping operators. I very > > often find myself wanting simple general-purpose parentheses. For > > example, to produce something like "the yogic flyer" you have to use > > {be}: {le volfli be le makfioga be'o}. At least, I think so; I can't > > find any such usage in the CLL but I can't find any other way to do > > this and people have claimed it's right. =20 >=20 > {le makfioga vofli} would be the most direct translation, assuming > {makfioga} is the right word for what you want. (Is yoga magic?) Well, it seems that yogic flyers fly using the power of yoga; they're not merely vaguely associated with yoga. As for the {makf} rafsi, it covers magic and the supernatural; I'd say that to the extent that yoga allows them to fly, it's supernatural. =20 Fortunately we haven't replaced our air force with them yet (although the Natural Law party did get a few votes...) > (BTW, {volfli} is a lujvo from {vofli fliba}, so almost the > opposite of {vofli}.) er, oops. > Yes, there are about 120 selma'o, way too many. Fortunately a good=20 > number of them are never or hardly ever used, so you don't actually=20 > need to learn them all to have a good command of the language. Really, that's just a terrible arrangement. Grammatical structures that are not only unusual but rare are going to get mangled in no time... Anyway, I think for my own use I should make up a cheat sheet of the grammar that I'd actually want to use; I find the tutorials really awkward to work with, so I've fallen back to the CLL. It doesn't seem that well organized, though, too cumbersome to read as a textbook and not organized enough for a language reference. Of course, it makes sense to make available anything I write, but really, it's writing such a thing rather than reading one that's useful. Andrew