Return-Path: Received: by marob.masa.com (/\=-/\ Smail3.1.18.1 #18.7) id ; Tue, 19 Dec 89 06:29 EST Received: by hombre.MASA.COM (smail2.5) id AA06244; 19 Dec 89 06:30:39 EST (Tue) Received: from bpa.UUCP by rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.3/3.04) with UUCP id AA18142; Tue, 19 Dec 89 04:50:55 EST Received: by bpa.bell-atl.com (Smail3.1.17.5) id ; Tue, 19 Dec 89 03:17 EST Received: by vu-vlsi.Villanova.EDU (5.51/smail2.5/03-15-88) id AA07608; Tue, 19 Dec 89 02:36:05 EST Received: by snark.uu.net (smail2.3) id AA01231; 19 Dec 89 00:58:52 EST (Tue) Received: from sunset.math.ucla.edu by uunet.uu.net (5.61/1.14) with SMTP id AA07595; Mon, 18 Dec 89 14:49:59 -0500 Received: from julia.math.ucla.edu by sunset.math.ucla.edu (Sendmail 5.59/1.04) id AA04022; Mon, 18 Dec 89 11:49:25 PST Return-Path: Received: from localhost by julia.math.ucla.edu (Sendmail 4.0/1.04) id AA09075; Mon, 18 Dec 89 11:49:18 PST Message-Id: <8912181949.AA09075@julia.math.ucla.edu> To: uunet!snark!lojban-list Subject: Re: grammar In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 15 Dec 89 22:36:52 -0500. <680060.891215.KFL@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> Date: Mon, 18 Dec 89 11:49:16 PST From: math.ucla.edu!jimc Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Tue Dec 19 06:30:30 1989 X-From-Space-Address: hombre!math.ucla.edu!jimc > Date: Fri, 15 Dec 89 22:36:52 EST > To: "est@cs.nyu.edu"@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu > From: "Keith F. Lynch" > Subject: Re: grammar > > The actor of gerna is that which "grammars". lojban takes this to be > > the grammar itself. > Once I understand why that is, I will be well on my way to fully > understanding the language. Currently, it's not clear to me why it > is the grammar which "grammars", rather than a person or a language, > or how to tell just what the X1 place is for all the other gismu. I believe that this is still current Lojban doctrine (and note that when I assert something I don't mean to deny that other points of view are possible; I'm just trying to keep it short.) A word is a symbol for a relation, and the relation consists of a list of sets of thus-related objects. My favorite example in -gua!spi is "eat" as in "the rat eats the cheese". A pair (ordered) containing the example rat and cheese is on the list for "eat", as are many other pairs of (same or other) rats and cheeses, etc. etc. The first, second... slots in these member sets are the cases: X1 for the eater and X2 for the food. > I know I'm not supposed to categorize gismu into nouns, verbs, etc, > but I find that in the ones that seem to be nouns, the X1 place is > always (?) is a . With adjectives, is seems > to hold. And with verbs, does , i.e. is a er. In Old Loglan, JCB realized that the language would be much easier to learn if the cases were consistent and so he tried hard to get the actor in X1 if there was one, etc. Review the verbs of motion; the cases are almost identical (and when creatively viewed, quite a number of quasi- motions can be equally well interpreted as verbs of motion). However, none of Loglan, Lojban or -gua!spi have these case assignments hardwired into the language. Hence you may feel, correctly, that the speaker is an "actor" in the relation of "gerna/grammar", but somebody decided (wisely, I think) that the word was more useful with the relation-system (the grammar itself) in the X1 case, following the pattern of the noun-oids. It's valuable to remember the general rules you note, but also remember that they are only a guide, and exceptions are made freely and without apology. The doctrine of words as symbols for relations is well known to philosophers; perhaps someone could post a good readable reference. -- jimc