From cbmvax!uunet!cuvma.bitnet!LOJBAN Wed May 20 10:56:47 1992 Return-Path: Date: Wed May 20 10:56:47 1992 Message-Id: <9205191407.AA00818@relay1.UU.NET> Reply-To: "Mark E. Shoulson" Sender: Lojban list From: "Mark E. Shoulson" Subject: lo selma'o cu mo To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu In-Reply-To: CJ FINE's message of Tue, 19 May 1992 12:05:57 BST Status: RO X-Status: Actually, I'd given that question a little thought myself. I was a little disappointed with the newer place-structure for {cmavo}, defining some mystical "prototypical word". That makes sense in Lojban, but very little in English. Is "in" the protitypical preposition? Is "and" the prototype conjunction? Can anything be the exemplary word? That gets iffy: I don't want to see "and" described as "a structure word in the class exemplified by 'because'", "because" doesn't strike me as an exemplary conjunction. Either make {cmavo} a uniquely Lojbanic gismu (like {lujvo}), thus striking out the "in language" place, or else stick to the old definition, describing "and" as a structure word in the class "conjunctions" (by whatever selbri you want for "conjunctions") and so forth. Ah, but what of Colin's original question: {zo .e cmavo ma}? Shrug. That's why we have inversions. zo .e cmavo le se cmavo be zo .a Thus using the (almost uniquely lojbanic concept of the) "exemplary word" *by convention* (but not necessity) in the x2 place, using inversion. This gets circular for describing the exemplary word itself, but no more so than ".a is in selma'o A" is in English. Moreover, I can then describe that words share a selma'o without resorting to conjunctions like {jo'u}. To explain the use of the selma'o, one can always use a descriptive clause, like Colin did. ~mark