From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sun May 28 19:25:03 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sun, 28 May 2006 19:25:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FkXR0-00051R-2h for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Sun, 28 May 2006 19:24:46 -0700 Received: from ug-out-1314.google.com ([66.249.92.173]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FkXQv-00051J-Qt for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sun, 28 May 2006 19:24:45 -0700 Received: by ug-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id j40so718462ugd for ; Sun, 28 May 2006 19:24:40 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=mXgELlOz/ZHPATvwdF0tvJws0uUZemVoyjUZJGIYfN87U7Q22RJPzbUUcumhOZwEhwazhE5ShDsosj6MiJqQJ0+1Nf1TccTDIoPA5OyoE4FSJ3GB8HhFCwfcEJbHz68WvTkH4VdR87d7cbnCsCiI88CapFWvbL6OgtOCCGWFALw= Received: by 10.67.101.10 with SMTP id d10mr1458800ugm; Sun, 28 May 2006 19:24:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.66.255.6 with HTTP; Sun, 28 May 2006 19:24:40 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Sun, 28 May 2006 20:24:40 -0600 From: "Maxim Katcharov" To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all} In-Reply-To: <01B7E1F7-994C-4BD0-AF93-BF76C06E4D3C@umich.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Disposition: inline References: <925d17560605160731j379ecfdbo42862a88433e112c@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605270712l6aa155efic0a7482d4ee0ba43@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605271658m1056888dm5385d20dc29df6db@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605271918x535ab3dre73d854264c1549d@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605280905u63d61d78k73da849a8d7856f1@mail.gmail.com> <01B7E1F7-994C-4BD0-AF93-BF76C06E4D3C@umich.edu> X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) X-archive-position: 11687 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: maxim.katcharov@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On 5/28/06, Alex Martini wrote: > [ li'o ] > > > Indeed. It's a suggestion: have a word that facilitates what you'd > > like. {loicu} seems a bit long. Since {lu'o} seems redundant, perhaps > > its meaning could be altered? > > As far as I know, loi and lei are a contraction of lu'olo and lu'olo > respectively. I'm basing this on http://ptolemy.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/ > lojbanbrochure/lessons/less4articles.html which reads > > > lu'o le and lu'o lo are very useful concepts, even without > explicit numbers, and there are shorter ways of saying each > > when no number comes between them: lei and loi respectively. > This wouldn't be my interpretation of loi. I see little use in saying "five groups of these three men..." - it barely makes sense to me. Instead I would prefer: {___ cu bevri lo pa pipno} 1 {pa loi ci nanmu} ...is a shortcut for 2 {lu'o pa lo ci nanmu} ...is a shortcut for 3 {ro lo pa gunma be pa lo ci nanmu} or (1) and (2) may both be shortcuts for (3), instead of (1) being a shortcut for (2). 4 {mu lu'o pa lo ci nanmu} may be the shortcut for 5 {ro lo mu gunma be pa lo ci nanmu} ~ but I see that of such limited use that it should rather just be written as (5). (3) is seems useless. One idea that I've brought up is that {lu'o} might serve well as a transient 'together'ness, where it's applicable for only that sumti place, and then treated as if it never existed. This would allow something like {ro lo muno tadni cu dasni lo mapku .ije lu'o ra sruri lo dinju} "all of the 50 students wore hats, and together they surrounded the building" to be written as {lu'o ro lo muno tadni cu sruri lo dinju gi'e dasni lo mapku} "ttogether, all of the 50 students surrounded the building, and they wore hats" where "ttogether" is a transient together, which makes the "they" refer to {ro lo muno tadni} and not what is implied by {lu'o ro lo muno tadni}. {ro loi muno tadni cu sruri lo dinju gi'e dasni lo mapku} "all of the 50 students together surrounded the building, and they wore hats} Here the 'togetherness' would not be transient (since {loi} is not transient), as "they" would refer to {ro loi muno tadni} and the meaning would be that the actual crowd is wearing a single hat (perhaps some sort of extremely long chinese parade dragon, worn on the heads of all the students). This usage of {lu'o} is just an idea, I have no opinion on if it should be the way it works. > Is this still true? I'm not quite up to speed on the xorlo changes > per the byfy yet. > > [ li'o ] > > > Yes, {loi X} would mean {lo gunma lo X}. It's on the sumti because > > that's where it should be. In English, it's "on the verb" because we > > want to refer to X as a noun phrase, even though it's not the > > 'highest' noun phrase, because this is convenient in so many cases: > > {lo gunma lo X} can't replace {loi X} because the former is two sumti > and the latter is only one. {lo gunma be lo X} would work, but I Yes, shoddy writing (and perhaps comprehension) on my part. > don's see why you would use this method when there is a basic grammar > word that does the same thing. It's similar to saying in English {I > past-tense eat} instead of just {I ate}. Many (most?) grammar words are "shortcuts", and so they have expanded forms. One very clear example of this is {gi'e}. {mi taske gi'e tatpi} "I'm thirsty and tired" is a shortcut for (hopefully I word this properly) {mi taske ije mi tatpi} "I'm thirsty and I'm tired" The expanded form of {loi}, according to LFB, is {lu'o lo}, and so on. When you say "there is a basic grammar word that does the same thing", you're referring to a word that is a shortcut. When I give the expanded form, I'm not advocating that we use it over the shortcut, rather I'm defining what that shortcut stands for. > The only case I would see > this in is if you specifically want to say that it is a group, made > up of members, instead of just members who are abstractly grouped. Abstractly grouped? There's nothing abstract about recognizing a "crowd" or "mob" or "swarm" or "throng" or "horde" of people, and (for example) seeing that the crowd surrounds a building -- if that's what you're getting at. > While the baseline *has* been unfrozen, it would really be helpful > for beginners (myself included) if we didn't take the whole language > apart again and redefine everything. So, it is probably better spent > time to understand exactly how things work now then to speculate on > how they aught to work. The problem is that they don't work now (at the end of my last response, two critical problems with the way that inner {ro} is handled by the current interpretation of Lojban are outlined). Major changes like xorlo not yet being reflected in Lojbanic literature is the greatest concern for one who dislikes having things redefined in the midst of learning about them. The interpretations that I offer are much easier for a beginner to grasp than what is available, since they are a more accurate reflection of what is really going on when we speak (I wouldn't be arguing them if I thought otherwise). 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.