From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon Dec 12 08:15:28 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 12 Dec 2005 08:15:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.54) id 1ElqKl-0003be-Ih for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Mon, 12 Dec 2005 08:15:27 -0800 Received: from h-66-134-26-207.nycmny83.covad.net ([66.134.26.207] helo=pi.meson.org) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.54) id 1ElqKh-0003bP-Uz for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 12 Dec 2005 08:15:27 -0800 Received: (qmail 8352 invoked from network); 12 Dec 2005 16:15:21 -0000 Received: from nagas.meson.org (HELO ?192.168.1.101?) (1000@192.168.1.101) by pi.meson.org with SMTP; 12 Dec 2005 16:15:21 -0000 Message-ID: <439DA219.5060102@kli.org> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 11:15:21 -0500 From: "Mark E. Shoulson" User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (X11/20041206) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Missing BAI conversion Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Score: -2.4 (--) X-archive-position: 10871 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: mark@kli.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list Something that occurred to me at LogFest over the weekend: Robin was recounting his "tale of woe," his problems in getting out to Philadelphia. In Lojban: this was to be a demonstration of the language, after all. At one point he was using a gismu with some SE in front of it, but explained "I don't remember the place-structure of this one; but you know what I mean." Which of course is perfectly reasonable for colloquial speech. We really shouldn't feel we have to remember all the place-structures right when we're talking to people who can work out from context what makes sense. This, therefore, is a very useful lesson to be remembered: use {do'e}. If you don't remember which place of the gismu what you want is, but you know it's there, just flag it with the nonspecific BAI, do'e, since BAIs also indicate places of the predication. And if it's a conversion you need, as in "le SE broda" but you don't know which SE, you use "le jaido'e broda." This is an important trick to know. It occurs to me, though, that there is (at least) one place where you can't really use this to help. Let's say I want to add a BAI phrase, and I know it's *some* place of (say) va'u, but I can't remember which one. That is, I should be saying "SE va'u da..." for some SE. The grammar doesn't allow "*jaido'e va'u da" and likely can't/shouldn't. But it is what, in some sense, we would want. "fi'o jai do'e xamgu da" is legal, but a mouthful. Then again, maybe if you're so messed up, you shouldn't be using the "shorthand" of BAI anyway. I don't think this is important enough even to contemplate trying to "fix," but it is something to think about. And using {do'e} is a trick worth remembering. ~mark To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.