From cbmvax!uunet!ctr.columbia.edu!shoulson Tue Jul 30 11:48:38 1991 Return-Path: From: "Mark E. Shoulson" Date: Tue Jul 30 11:48:38 1991 Message-Id: <9107301415.AA16438@relay2.UU.NET> To: lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com Subject: Two queries Status: RO Hey. I have a pair of little questions for you all. One's semantic, and one's stylistic, so I'm giving the grammar a break. Semantic: We all know that {ke'a} in a subordinate clause refers back to the sumti being described/restricted. What if you have nested subordinate clauses and want to use the outer {ke'a} in the inner clause? I mean like: mi catlu le nanmu poi do pu tavla le ninmu poi [ke'a] prami ke'a The first {ke'a} might be ellipsizable, and maybe this isn't the best example, but I think you can see the problem. Just saying that {ke'a} is always the innermost one is not a good answer, I think. Sometimes you want to lower it one further down. I suspect the best answer is simply to use subscripting: {ke'axipa} is innermost or just {ke'a}, the next one out is {ke'axire} and so on. This sound good? Already suggested? Stylistics: I know that stylistics aren't really done for Lojban yet, but I wanted to ask around on this anyway (listen up, O Nick!). We have the SE conversion for selbri. As the book mentions, something like {sevete BRIVLA} is legal, but mega-confusing. Basically, you wouldn't want to use more that one SE at a time. I propose that multiple SE be acceptable (yes, I know it needn't be a proposition), under a particular circumstance: that it be of form {setese}. That is, one conversion, then another, then the first again. This amounts to swapping any two places (not just one with first), and the places are easily identifiable. I think this can make things much easier for word-order, and really isn't too tough to follow. Anyone think this is hideous? ~mark