Return-Path: Message-Id: <9204011757.AA20215@relay1.UU.NET> Date: Wed Apr 1 14:33:21 1992 Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list From: And Rosta Subject: Re: A fairy tale To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann In-Reply-To: (Your message of Tue, 24 Mar 92 23:01:54 GMT.) <43283.9203260029@bas-a.bcc.ac.uk> Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Wed Apr 1 14:33:21 1992 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Ivan: > > From: cowan%snark.thyrsus.com%cbmvax@net.UU.uunet (John Cowan) > > Date: Tue, 24 Mar 92 14:39:40 EST > > > > The place structures confirm that "slabu" and "cnino" are the parallel > > ones. A better gloss of "slabu" would be "familiar". Unfortunately, > > Bob has said repeatedly that "ni slabu" is "age" as in "length of life". > > I have complained about this almost as often but to no avail. > He's not entirely wrong about this (although {ni citno} would be more > correct). See below. > > To my way of thinking, the notion that length of life has something to do > > with old-ness is an un-thought-out reflex of the English idiom "He > > is six years old." > Not necessarily. Let's see if you follow me. > A new ruler, {cnino turni}, is one who has become a ruler recently > (that is, one since whose ascension a short time has passed). The > opposite is {to'e cnino turni}, or {slabu turni}. > A young ruler, {citno turni}, is one who has been born recently (that > is, one since whose birth a short time has passed). The opposite is > {to'e citno turni}. > Similarly, a {cnino pendo} is a person of any age who has recently > become a friend, while {citno pendo} is a young person who is a friend > (and may have been one for a long time), and so on. > But with {remna} the two constructions mean the same. {cnino remna} > is someone who has recently become a human being, most likely by being > born as one, and as such is synonymous to {citno remna}. It seems that _cnino_ is rather like a tense operator: it takes as its argument some predication (or 'event' in the broad lojban sense). Are there other gismu like this? Does _cnino blanu_ mean "newly blue" or can it also mean "blue, & newly something"? > > Bob has proposed "river-anus" for what in English is called a river mouth. > > Why not `river penis' or `river vulva'? (The output is liquid.) 'river urethra', rather? --- And