From jordimastrullenque@yahoo.com Fri Oct 22 07:50:07 2004 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Fri, 22 Oct 2004 07:50:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from web51609.mail.yahoo.com ([206.190.38.214]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.34) id 1CL0jp-0002vD-6u for lojban-list@lojban.org; Fri, 22 Oct 2004 07:49:53 -0700 Message-ID: <20041022144854.11780.qmail@web51609.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [212.78.153.47] by web51609.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Fri, 22 Oct 2004 07:48:54 PDT Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 07:48:54 -0700 (PDT) From: jordi mas Subject: [lojban] Re: Help in examples ... To: lojban-list@lojban.org In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-archive-position: 8833 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: jordimastrullenque@yahoo.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list > I've been trying to explain to someone why it is > when discussing > lojban that "standard" linguistic terms such as > "noun", "complex noun > phrase" and "verb", etc., don't suffice. > > I've pointed out that the clarity and unity provided > by a single > concept of "predicate with arguments" makes it > simpler, and that > introducing "noun", "verb", etc. simply makes the > situation more > complex, but it doesn't work with her mindset. > > Please can someone provide me with a few examples > where a sumti > cannot be passed of as "just a complex sort of > noun"? There's no such thing. Such a description is wide and imprecise enough to include all sumti. Anyway, finding such an example wouldn't help at all. You can't win because she's basically right. If we called the sumti "noun phrases", the gismu "simple verbs" and so on, we could speak about lojban grammar in English just fine. That's just considered blasphemous here, by custom, but there's no logical, objetive, rational reason not to do develop a grammatical terminology that doesn't give the creeps to English speakers. Which is probably her point. mu'omi'e jordis. ===== __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Y! Messenger - Communicate in real time. Download now. http://messenger.yahoo.com