From cowan  Sat Mar  6 23:00:41 2010
Subject: Re: Passive Constructions
To: hombre!pyrmania.oz.au!major (Major)
From: cowan
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 90 13:35:52 EDT
In-Reply-To: <9010180450.21644@munnari.oz.au>; from "Major" at Oct 17, 90 1:06 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL2]
Status: RO
X-From-Space-Date: Thu Oct 18 13:35:52 1990
X-From-Space-Address: cowan
Message-ID: <U33gMYIvAuE.A.YfC.Z80kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org>

> 
> In sci.lang you write:
> 
> >The tags fa, fe, fi, fo, fu allow marking the places so
> >that they can be re-ordered without change of structure, like the
> >re-ordering possible in Latin where 'homo canem mordet' can become 'canem
> >homo mordet' as opposed to passivating it.
> 
> Ummm... I don't know latin, what does that do?

Absolutely nothing!  "Homo canem mordet" and "canem homo mordet" mean the
same thing:  "man bites dog".  The case inflections tell the whole tale.
In Lojban, fa...fu can be used to provide sort-of inflections, making us
independent of word order, or we can use the default word order.

> How do you mark a place (other than subject) as empty?
> 
> IE:	.abu canja by <what> dy
> 
> A exchanges object B for some unspecified object with partner D

Good question.  The word "zo'e" fills an empty place, and means
"some unspecified thing".

-- 
cowan@marob.masa.com			(aka ...!hombre!marob!cowan)
			e'osai ko sarji la lojban